MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017--part 91)
scent of the day: Terre d’Ensar, by Ensar Oud
Only third wear so grain of salt.
Cousin to Layers of Jade, both centered around a minty—almost dental clove—oud it seems. But here we have the spotlight put on dank patchouli and cypriol to create a fishing worm soil, rich black terre, that has swallowed up a resinous piece of nearly dental agarwood—although the medicinality of the oud here does not go as deep into dental-0clove territoriees like it does in Layers of Jade or Togerwood 91 for that matter (a perfume homage to the very source of that anbesole impression in LaYERS of jade). The soil in Terre d’Ensar is dark (more Black Changho dark, earthy-char, than the smoky-dark of Aroha Kyaku). And yes, it is definitely cypriol bent like 1984. It feels, however, like the moss greenery here in Terre d’Ensar is a shadow of 1984 and Chypre Sultan—rotten and buried, withered and turned to brown.
Just as a fougere is a fanciful recreation of what a fern would smell like, or just like the benzoin-vanilla-labdanum trifecta is a fanciful recreation of what amber sap might smell like, Terre d’Ensar feels like this is a fanciful recreation—a highly aestheticized version—of what dead and buried agarwood smells like—dead and buried under mud. Ensar used the perfect oud, as far as I can tell, to create this impression: Merauke oud, which comes from the swampy lowland and floodplain regions of South Papua. Although it shares the “green” jungly register with Sri Lankan oud, the resemblance stops there: Sri Lankan is brighter, airy-herbal, and citrus-leafy whereas Merauke is dank, earthen, humid, and subterranean. Because Merauke wood is often harvested from partially buried, mud-logged, or marsh-grown trees, its profile becomes darker, deeper, more muddy and more fungal. It can veer medicinal, peaty, and almost cave-like—an oud that smells as if excavated from ancient soil rather than distilled from sunlit wood. That is exactly what we get here. I do not know if Ensar is using buried Merauke. But it would seem that way. I own both ouds derived from from alive and dead Merauke material thanks to the distiller Franklin Elim. Both express petrichor, which is what Terre d’Ensar is designed to be. But whereas the alive material expresses more of a vetiver-grass adjacent petrichor, the dead material—with its tendency toward dark chocolate, roasted coffee, medicinal patchouli—expresses more of a black worm soil (which again is what Terre d’Ensar gives me).
If Kouros is a nightcrawler wearing Antaeus, then Terre d’Ensar is a nightcrawler wearing 1984. Terre d’Ensar, to put it another way, is more like the panned-back consolidation of the earthworm burrow in fantastically rich black soil—soil so rich that its aesthetic power verges on overriding our instinct not to stick clumps in our mouth (such that even those of use who have eat out boots when we have gone hungry would have turned to it before the boots if it was available). Yes, that is now how I will forever see Terre d’Ensar: a nightcrawler burrow that goes several feet deep into the chocolatyest and peatiest black worm-poop soil and whose entrance at the surface is covered with leaf and moss rots and various other decayed things (including mold) that this fragrance gives you in aestheticized form.
Understand that both this fragrance as well as the sort of nutrient-rich soil full of nightcrawlers (and even the nighcrawlers themselves) naturally smell fresh. However nasty the worm might seem to us, it is not hyraceum or civet paste or beaver tail oil or a rubbery pussy lip combo of jasmine and tuberose. This is truly fresh—garden-soil fresh with hints, if you pay close attention, of freshly harvested seaweed or tidepools at low tide mixed in with geosmin-rich earth. Yes, I do get that briny-umami edge here—cool-mineralic moss at the bottom of a waterfall like an Irish Spring commercial, a wet jungly mossy impression that seems to be a common thread through all Indonesian Papuan ouds of which Merauke is just one. Whereas Port Moresby highlights the brisk electric-green clarity of coastal-highland resin, or whereas Wamena oud highlights the cold pine-mineral austerity of mountain-grown resin, or whereas Sentani oud highliughts fresh peppery-herbaceous lift of north-coastal wood, or whereas Asmat oud highlights the smoky-ambered saline density of southern lowland resin, Merauke—once again—highlights the dark-rooty richness of an unexplored forest. And that is what we get here: like overturning a massive mildewed log in a dense dark forest where the soil has not seen the sun in decades and is so filled with proteins from grubs and centipedes and other such like critters that we gets wafts of that umami profile: like mushrooms growing on a soggy cardboard box rich with vanilla lignam aroma (and then almost as if dashed with fast-action yeast to make it fizz—yes there is a fizzy texture to this fragrance).
What adds to the freshness here and what does help give the impression that there was once the synny greenery—the dewy moss—of Chypre Sultan or even Mousse Illuminee is the other oud Ensar uses: Pursat. This Cambodian oud gives a bright herbality sort of like ginseng tea sweetened with honey. I find this herbal-tonic ursat a central component of a Yaaseen attar that shares much of the darkness I get here in Ensar—only there the soil impression has turned into something much mustier and even sour, like a compost bin that has gotten too wet and whose lack of oxygen has caused a predominance of rot. Terre d’Ensar, however dark and peat, is the healthiest soil you can imagine. The iso e super used here really reinforces that freshness. Agent 47 is more Prin soil. Terre d’Ensar is more Geza Schoen soil—indeed, with a Montabacco-style freshness.
I do wish we stayed in this panoptic crosscut of dark soil. But what ends up happening after the first few hours is that wwe zoom in closer and closer to the buried Mereauke log. Yes, the fragrance reduces into an oud aroma with some sulfur dioxide matchtick aromas. Now if my holes—nose holes—were not so blownout by the gangbang of several artisanal houses, this bedrock aroma would have me swooning. But now my spoiled as finds it generic. That is the cost. And it is also why variety is the spice of life. So many people start selling off all their designers and niche once they smell the wonders of artisanal. And then when they curate their collection they are left with one common base pretty much. And that is underselling things because a lot more than the base will be in common. Think about your moves. Keep a variety to keep your appreciation flourishing. I know that after a few months of wearing more regular frags: Habit Rouge to Kouros, Dryad to Beach Hut Man, Golestan to Little Song, Sex and the Sea to Serge Noire, Private Label to Ambra Aurea—yes, I will be floored by this “generic” matchstick base!
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 91)
condoms now the norm even in Tijuana donkey shows
missing her even when she is around
a play where characters discover they are in a play
the unspoken but lived lie of a mantra that money will insulate you
a lot about who a woman is by the underside of her toilet seat
the worth of what you do—your art, your gift—recognized only by ugly women
Broadway may not make one gay, but it sure does usher you out on a red carpet
searching out, with the euphoric optimism of a geek, the mother who put you up for adoption and finding her unmoved: “And so, like, what you want from me? You seen the fuckin price of gas?”
when the miasma of depression dissipates you can finally become sad at things really to be sad about
the weirdo no longer invited us to exasperation and revulsion once we labeled him “special needs”
criticized for an artistic process mechanical and detached, still his work seems distinctly his own
sneaking the flask into every dry venue—libraries, school plays, children’s museums
it is impossible for us to exist estranged completely from that of which we are completely a function—indeed, to say that the divine light reaches even into hell undersells the point since everything expresses the source
pointing out how he has it nowhere near as lousy as you do only makes him feel more pathetic and committed to suicide
see the niceness of difference— the niceness, say, of no hair around which ribbons can be wound
conditioned to see nature as endless enmity, even as cameras cannot help but capture fox cubs at play and seals sunning on a rock
fighting back the urge to shift your body yet again—even when not high on weed
to say that some suffer eternal torture, even for a finite evil, perhaps is to say that God is not ultimately successful
not content with just planting the seed evangelicals gleek salivation like a cobra in wait for the cumshot conversion of the atheist
art erotic enough to draw bipartisan ire
struggling to appear at ease in your solitary night out
is she a mere child to think she can get away with it: sitting among the AA circle with rum-spiked coffee, or is something inside thirsty for her to be called out?
thermostat battles with the spouse
itches coming when it is inappropriate to scratch
sex with the toupee on
looking over to your girlfriend to see if the man grinding on you from behind is worth you remaining in place
drinking your father’s liquor, despite the likelihood of a beating, in order to numb the beatings
is it not more nettling when someone tries to make the least amount of noise, mindfully munching each potato chip in slow motion?
the part of the addict that says to himself, “This time at least don’t get as bad as before”
but at whom is it better to gaze than at a woman too independent to be a mere subject for the gaze?
little children in late-night supermarkets
the loss of the pursuit that once filled your every thought
drawn to polyamory merely to see if you can stand ego devastation
preparing your own paints and working on a typewriter as an homage to the masters
she suffered from excessive religiosity until the cysts in her temporal lobe, which would have made her a mystic or a witch at a different time, were excised
considered grumpy and snobbish merely for insisting that—all other things being equal—the more we want it to be true, the higher the standard for entry
finding a lump, uninsured
inspired by trends without wholly surrendering your style
Coca Cola in the tribal baby bottle
daredevil rescues of worldly goods from the lick of flame
cowardly courage-teachers
at least everyone remembers you when you are a midget
what is the safest way to open up to the risk posed by the alien?
staring in the mirror, staring in the fridge—what will that change?
fixed planets with a permanent day side
the whore was the only one you could be honest with
the addictive high of combat, of getting shot at
peak experiences, where we lose ourselves for concise moments in the zone of doing, perhaps afford us earthly slurps of heaven
circling the mouth of the c-sectioned newborn all up into vulva would be best, but hang-ups have us just dab it with a q-tip of maternal flora
suggesting, as it does, that any emotional attempt to convey the horror would fall short of its aim, the clinical detachment of the depiction evokes it all the more
curators rejecting the artist’s plea to fix his illustrious painting
ridiculing one’s culture simply by depicting it in art, as if it were obvious to one’s culture how ridiculous the culture really is
having resorted now to penciling in time to do nothing
you would think that people so long in solitary would speak, when finally around others again, with cheer rather than with such flattened affect
faced with oblivion (or, more accurately, subblivion), why not jump into love with open arms even after heartbreak?
the joy of seeing a conviction disconfirmed
junk withdrawal in unemployment offices
affluenza
leaving for the sake of returning
we beat ourselves up for failing to engage— if at all—with books, which long held the junk position smartphones do now
seeing that you are not good enough despite hard work—let that open you to bask in the glory of those who are
with so much being potentially contagious, consider working into your life someone disciplined in self-improvement and joy
construing atheists as those who believe in nothing
high-hungry enough to wring the MacGyver out of you
you should be backing off (as you think you are), but by involving her in the nuances of your life you have learned new ways to love her
babbling on the brink of death
jealous of the fetus, whose kicks your therapist allows you to feel, because it swallows her attention
scoffing at the desire to conserve national identity even as you will never marry outside of Islam because its beliefs and practices are “your soul”
wanting the one you love to love you not just for your faith, but still acting as if you are not of that faith even though it would win her
seeing that you are not good enough despite hard work—let not that open you to bask in the stench of mediocrity
the door-opening beauty of being caught in the world wave of broken hearts from which so much art has flowed
those concerned with flourishing should wonder not whether to lie, but when and how much to lie
relieving those regarded as subhuman of their petroleum reservoirs on grounds that they would not know what to do it with anyway
as if viewers would not know what to feel without it, and helping to make that true, symphonic music floods each scene to reinforce emotion already on the screen
arranged marriages extremely successful when divorce is a death sentence
face studded with rusted hooks (the newest one popping through just under her eye), it was hard not to see the fish as a war general, and—medal-drunk creatures as we are, exaggerators and carnival gawkers—it was hard not to place a few more before release
after just the first sip, the teen learns of the possibility to be free from the anxiety thought normal
