MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017--part 96)
scent of the day: Fiore D’Ambre, by Profumum Roma
Fiore D’Ambre—a spiced-floral amber with not only top-tier naturals containing none of the autotune boosters of the growing monocrop of Taylor Swift perfumery seemingly hellbent on smoothening out the crevices of our brain (ambrocenide, amber Xtreme, norlimbinol, and so on), but also with a vintage feel that scratches my musty-antique itch quite nicely (and with a lovely feminine Oud-Sinharaja vibrancy instead of the usual drab brown that I actually prefer)—
opens with bitter citruses (bergamot and perhaps also orange, even grapefruit) and opium poppy (an accord presumably made from carnation, cinnamon, clove, nutty opoponax, benzoin, lemon-eucalyptus cardamom, soapy-dusty sandalwood, and also—because of the snapper-pleat impression I cannot shake, downy fuzzed yet spit upon by adult halitosis—likely a hormonal-tween jasmine sprinkled, yes, with a gray pepper that brings out the pissiness just as a little salt brings out a watermelon’s sweetness),
this narcotic pizzazz anchored deep in earthy chocolate (patchouli) and smothered in what seems a lemon-zested vanilla custard (perhaps due to a magnolia both Oud-Monarch-like in its tropical-banana-taffy creaminess and Inverno Russo-like in its clovey-waxy-musky rosiness) that has been salted with a few teaspoons of ocean brine (ambergris) and drizzled with dental-mint honey we might imagine made from opium poppies (a fantasy honey since poppy flowers do not produce nectar)
the overall result being a sweet-spicy amber fragrance that, with its aromatic torsion of sweet and sour and its textural torsion of Avon-powder aldehydes and tree saps, is hard not to see as a more balsamic and more Oud Sinharaja-bent sister of Habit Rouge, especially given their shared spicy florals (jasmine and carnation mixed with clove and cinnamon) and warm resins (benzoin, opoponax) and cozy woods (sandalwood, cedar);
the overall result being, in other words, a druggie-oriental fragrance that, leaning heavily into romanticized opium fantasy surrounding opium established by YSL Opium in 1977 (the sweet resins and the exotic ash, the numbing fieryness and the hazy stupor), interprets the classic amber structure through a lens even more fun than it is unique, as can better be seen when contrasted with Ambra Aurea and Ambre Russe (two major ambergris-tinged ambers in my collection):
(1) Ambra Aurea, which is largely a bruléed Ambre Sultan minus the spice rack and with a good dollop of ambergris to make for a cognac-smoky oceanic amber of monolithic naturalism, offers the densest and most unfiltered primal charred amber (bittersweet molasses, chocolately and with a caramelized edge), a composition much more gloopy and smoky than its more dusty and sweet Fiore d’Ambre (a fragrance that, getting comparatively less attention at the time of my purchase, I nearly overlooked, which lucily I did not since I think I actually like it better than its more bass-thruming monolithic brother);
(2) Ambre Russe, bringing a festive feel of airy circulation to a similar charred-amber-plus-ambergris profile, swaps out the dense and melancholy cognac with vaporous tea and vodka-champagne effervescence (the amber here less like molasses than like burnt brown sugar on a cut of birch-tar leather), a composition much more boozy and herbal than its more animalic and floral sister Fiore d’Ambre;
(3) Fiore d’Ambre, the most vintage feeling and feminine of the three (a velvet-gloved hand dusted with opium pollen, like a niche take on a Wasif Reza fragrance) and bringing in a posh citrus powder to brighten the overcast skies of the other two ambers (or more like gives a brighter back glow to those skies since the ambergris in all of these gives an ocean salt feel that makes me think of gray skies), takes the resin heart of Ambre Aurea (nearly molasses here on an analytical nosedive, even though holistically it seems more like light brown sugar with melted Amber Kiso butter) and uses grandma-makeup florals plus citrus-honey and medicinal-camphor clove to animate and aerate the composition in a direction of European refinement but without neglecting the mustiness trapped under the gown (this mustiness being the key factor in its artisnal flair and in my love for it).
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 96)
pool baptism electrocutions
pillow talk of saying that your pillow talk is not really pillow talk
running away from what we keep waiting for, as if we loved the waiting more
mowing their lawn all summer as restitution for flashing their daughter
do not forget the cum dribble down the front of the toilet bowl too
doctors asking the family if they would accept the cessation of CPR
police asking the man, who called them, what he did to piss his wife off
enough mushrooms to commune with what you feel is the buzzing life force of a tree, but what is in truth just the drone of high-voltage power lines above that tree
policers of machinated races adamant that her passing for x disrespects real x people
deliverymen taking that shame walk through the house party, teens plastered and geared up to taunt
finalities—from crystalline verses to reductive theories—feed those frightened (by finality)
the day might come when, if pulled over drunk, the woman driver can get off simply by saying that her passenger—a man—gave her the drinks
are the clothes that take you over changing you or, rather, allowing some inner you to come out?
seasoned enough no longer to panic about getting too attached, you panic about her getting too attached now
trigger-hand trepidant during his maiden purse stickup, he rapes to save face
famous people disguised for a chance to observe people again
striving to get married before forty lest everyone know that you are gay
happy memories of togetherness tainted after the relationship has failed
pity all these suckers who trust their stunted imagination, yes—but also all their ghosts reduced to tipping brooms over, scurrying like squirrels in incest attics; all their aliens reduced to trampling corn as lamely as night hoaxers, fisting the occult’s wettest groupies
insisting that he can never become a woman because he has not lived as a woman indicates, inadvertently, the way for becoming a woman
miming on a pier
the smartest brain ever crushed with a rock
beware especially of xenophobia that masquerades as diversity, equity, inclusion
realizing your love for someone whom you did not know you loved is often code for what can be a boon: lowered expectations
insisting that she can never become black because she has not lived as a black indicates, inadvertently, the way for becoming black
home can be as thrilling as travel abroad with the right perspective, but just imagine one who travels abroad with that perspective
everything about a system (some religion, say) can be completely rational even if carved out from the irrational (virgin conception, say)
obsessives derailed by displacements of familiar objects
the park dog chases a ball tossed from the festivities and into your loneliness
anxious to prove that they are much better than their ancestors, the new whites—in their efforts to undo the crippling effects of the old whites—solidify the narrative that blacks are inferior
hookers aware in their bones of which passers to ignore
how come astrology does not refer to celestial objects discovered after Ptolemy?
transwomen scrutinized to see if they have the right features: bone structure, voice, facial hair
being utterly terrified of God, a feature presented as a proud happy-highlight by so many women on dating sites
antidepressants because you are a closet gay, help at least in that they decimate your sex drive
behind a book on the subway, in wait for the brown skin girl to shift some— any—section of her fine self
thinking that suffering from one thing will—and should—spare you from suffering from something else
merely by cataloguing without criticism various pseudoscientific gropes for easy magic (in what amounted to a menagerie of unhinged credulity), believers found her nasty— neutral observation having forced them to confront the skepticism in their own heart
marinated as long as they were in the Judeo-Christian morality (where being a victim grants the superiority of innocence), can you blame blacks—in a nation made wealthy on their backs—for overplaying the victim card (even if it means remaining victims)?
