MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017--part 79)
scent of the day: Dryad, by Papillon
Dryad (2017, Liz Moores)—a green-leather chypre that, sodden as it is with both the rooty dampness of fungal decomposition and the vegetative verdancy of a young stem twisted to its limit but refusing to snap, seems less a composition than a resurrection, Robert Piguet clawing back (Thriller-style) through the oily leather of its coffin and through the soil and perhaps even through the tarmac of an overgrown parking lot into a scrub of bracken and brambles and blooms salted by sea air—
evokes a variety of pastoral scenarios (pulling garden weeds with vegetable-tanned cowhide gloves, a goat circular chewing a ball of green—womb-warm, not spa-fresh—in the background; clouds irradiated gray with impending rain, everything overgrown but nothing grotesque; foraging in an Irish-folklore forest where the moss-gripped trees hunch under a spectral fog of chilled humidity, phosphorescent lichens crawling up their trunks; digging through loamy soil—the kind of soil you would choose to lie down in—for fishing worms, the air of the mist-cloaked forest thick with musk after a long night of countless rapes and murders too hidden to detect but too close to asphalt to believe),
and why it evokes such scenarios—why, in particular, these scenarios tend to center around coastal forestry rummaged by ruminants, perhaps even a pollen-dusted Julia butterfly (the lone member of the butterfly genus Dryas) mistakable in its flutter for a thorn-crowned nymph (a dryad) whispering among the dew-slicked weeds and wildflowers of Mal-Aimé (foxglove, thistle, nettle, fleabane)—is perhaps clear when we consider the contribution of each element:
(1) galbanum, dominant from the first inhale, unleashes green-bell-pepper verdancy sharpened, especially with the help of the citrus elements (bitter-bright bergamot, sour-metal citron, tart-green bigarade orange), into a metallic bitterness that suggests the chill of morning dew on tall grass and imparts a retro feel to the composition (especially when coupled with the next note);
(2) oakmoss, nearly as dense and leathery (only more inky and not as soapy) as the Irish-Spring moss of Mousse Illuminee, lends an earthy gravitas of fungal bark, its aroma of lichen rot deepened by various other decompositional elements (vegetal-compost vetiver, matted-fur costus root, fermented-urine civet, carbolic-perineum castoreum) and given a camphoric glow especially by the woody-medicinal lavender and the peppery-sharp geranium;
(3) costus root, here more reminiscent of the sebaceous gland excretions of wooly animals rather than human scalp, the biggest contributor to the goat effect, lends an unwashed-fleece sensation that nudges the scent into livestock territory, although here the cud-ball greenery—even with the inclusion of vanilla-cream benzoin, milky-skin apricot, waxy-indolic orange blossom, powdered-paunch orris, and banana-custard ylang-ylang in addition to the civet and castoreum—outshines the underlying lipid-rich lanolin enough that (unlike with one of my other costus stars, Goat by Wolf Brothers) the grasses and shrubs and berry briars upon which the ruminants graze remain more the focus than the ruminants themselves (although this becomes less true with time as the oily musk of green leather builds);
(4) waxen green florals (mainly tobacco-honey narcissus, but also the more spectral florals like geranium) add to the spring sensation of new beginnings, the skunky-pollen jonquil (a type of narcissus) bringing—especially with the help of the tobacco elements (dried-grass deer tongue herb, smoked-leather tobacco absolute)—a feel of animal-warmed hay;
(5) fruity elements (the various sparkling-clean citruses plus the kitten-ear apricot and the berry-bush Turkish rose) impart, especially with the help of the radiant civet, a subdued glow, enough to brighten the overcast sky but not enough (unlike in the case of Tuscany Per Uomo) to override the dark-leathery aura and reveal a totally unfiltered sun;
(6) herbal elements (rustic-herbaceous thyme, savory-green tarragon, hay-urine clary sage, stemmy-camphoraceous lavender) reinforce the scissored-stem greenery of the galbanum while adding a shadowy medicinal fog, although their potency—even when coupled with the pine tar and other resinoids meant to evoke the Bay of Biscay pine forests of France’s Landes region—not enough to bring us to one of Prin Lomros’s woodland witch apothecaries where mysterious green tinctures steep in wooden bowls);
(7) comforting resins (mainly benzoin, but likely also cinnamon-tar styrax, smoky-sweet labdanum, crème-brûlée peru balsam) thicken the glowing oakmoss as well as add enough cozy warmth to make the goat’s presence seem nearby;
(8) rooty vetiver, more vegetal and decayed than bright and grassy (although both sides seem present), boosts the smoky-fungal-leather feel that could makes this composition too unclean in its cleanness for some (filth much closer to Beatrix Potter than to Marquis de Sade in the liminal space between manicured lawns and absolute wilderness) and serves as one of many dark elements steering the composition in a brooding direction, far enough away from the airy verdancy of chypres like Cristalle or Givenchy III (which comparatively feel more springtime-in-the-sun rather than mossy-forest-in-the-mist) that I can almost get hints of fireplace ember and even the peat of Fumidus—
the overall effect being a costus-galbanum chypre that, blending the best of Jinx’s Rayong Fleur with the best of Parfume d’Empire’s Mal Aime, brings you right back to Guerlain heyday (even though novices will surely smell, and they would not be wrong too, toilet-bowl water blued by bleach-free hippie-approved toilet tablets).
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 79)
none of us has to go far back before getting to an Ethiopian
all this power-of-positive-thinking woo had him guilty about his cancer diagnosis
psychedelics foreground what is normally background
the self-interested grace of forgiving your child’s vulva-chomping killer
wagon furrows still petrified in mud
AI sex slaves
countries importing garbage for fuel
the beloved’s hand, slipping in your coat pocket as you walk against the chill
prison gambling for ramen noodles
graduating school, unable to afford your own services
watching the boy tattle on his classmate, a tomboy of greater maturity, the teacher cannot help but think of Adam and Eve
why does there have to be a master calling up the thoughts that come from the you-know-not-where?
those at the tube in dilapidated homes hundreds of miles from any major city distraught about foreign terrorism
to what degree must the rest of us participate in your self-image?
he really did search her out to see if he had hacked her up—the dream that vivid
hair so white, so absent of light-absorbing pigment, that it looks glacier blue
conversation has stiffened into safe monologues that leave little new behind— crossing, if lucky, cold like train tracks—no jazz braids, no crosswind synergies, bringing to light knowledge you would have never thought you had stashed
not the differences between things, seeing the differences—that requires invention
raised in religious shame of the body, orgasms reach guilt-free profundity—become spiritual even—when hellbent on cervix-bruise depth
why does God care about what uniform you wear?
brains not wired to grasp deep time
a need to crush any appearance of lightness in a woman’s step
recreational risk
if a guy’s liking only guys is from birth, then we should be justified to say that a guy’s liking only black women is too
because your coach is from Tennessee too—that is why God makes your team win
the gynecologist unthinkingly smelling his gloved fingers—CCTV’s false positive
the bigot card to shut down a conversation
extraterrestrials with grand enough technology to visit planetary systems across the galaxies were responsible for giving Earthlings such crappy 1950s fiber optics?
too green to grasp that an undercurrent affair, a romance in mere daydream and flirt form, can be not only safer but more interesting
thinking the world will end on your loser Facebook watch, as if you really are the axis of this bitch—worse, as if you do not grasp how statistically obscene it is even for your doltish doppleganger in any generation to be proven right!
treating those who fail to have dreams as failures
finding a nickel of rock as a kid, running into an itching crackhead right after— hooked on quick money from then on
the old boyfriend to whom you run back after each new breakup
dimples deep in candlelight
wishing you could feel for him the same love he has for you
oh Jupiter—the turbulence of what for us is a languid cloud
what is bluer than desiring what would be unreceptive even were it not wrong to fill?
fleeting faces of feeble disapproval as your dying mother feeds your child milk chocolates before dinner
dishes and clothes continue to pile up since she left
rediscovering music through sharing it
sex hangups behind the abolition of the best medicine: mixed-aged classrooms
self-assurance chronically steered him from the big questions
always checking the weather where she lives as well
different therapy for rape victims of different cultures
lawyers make such a difference in our lives, but most cannot afford them
back home the culture (language, values, beliefs) moved on, but it remained desperately fixed among the emigrants and their descendants
seeing so many raid the store of electronics has you enter the broken window as well— against how you would normally behave
reclined on the pullout sofa, in wait for her to sneak down once her parents are asleep
