MADE FOR YOU AND ME 3: hive Being (Stanzas 2018--part 10)
scent of the day: Sultan Murad, by Ensar Oud
A few months ago I said that if there is an Istvan signature scent, this could very well be a contender. I still stand by this. It is like an icy-crisp fougere, sort of like the feel of Thundra (herbs, perhaps lavender and rosemary, over earthy, minty patchouli and musk). But here, not only is the mint louder and the musk real, there is an aquatic-zen impression centered—as it is in Mystical Lotus—around blue lotus. In concert with frost-tinged herbal-citrus treble (green tea, rosemary, green mandarin) and the mothball-menthol of the tuberose and the mineralic-eucalyptus trifecta of violet and ambergris and various Papua New Guinea ouds, this blue lotus ends up becoming, unlike in the case of Mystical Lotus, aikidoed in such a way to create an arctic-blue impression.
The most lovely aspect of this perfume is the dark-brown tannic wood vibe. I love that astringent, mouth-puckering vibe, red wine spilled on parchment, that I love in fragrances like Sans Fleurs. But here it is really intense, with not only beeswax-reinforced lacquer texture but actual lacquer aromas, medicinal—sort of like that opening of Ottoman Ambergris Absolu Royale but much more, given the mentholic presence and lack of sweetness, like Tigerwood 91. That medicinal-varnish aspect is reinforced by the violet, which gives a fresh-gasoline bite to wood that already seems like Opus XI Band-Aid in the oversteeped tea of some Zen monk.
The aquamarine element is always there with the wood. That is because the various ouds themselves, not just the synergy of ambergris and blue lotus, have seawater properties that radiate emerald colors. This is true especially of Port Moresby Oud. Port Moresby Oud, which comes from the New Guinea portion of Papua, originates from a coastal-highland interface, and that terroir really does show in its profile. Instead of, say, the swamp-dark profile of Merauke (an important Indonesian Papuan oud), here in Port Moresby we get an electric-green sharpness (bitter green citrus rind) and a marine air (mountain-coastal clarity) that can make you think of lime algae on a shore.
So take the arctic ice impression, and take that impression of dark wood as tannic as it is medicinal, and take that aquamarine element (enough brine to make you think of algae)—in the merger of these I get the following image: an incensed arctic Zen temple (say in Hokkaido, where it gets really cold) whose varnished wood floor, rich with natural tannins and polished over generations, was just splashed with a bucket of seawater. I can really see it. Maybe a Shinto shrine coated in snow. Just outside those sliding screen doors, the air is frigid with coastal winter winds but perhaps—especially in light of how I know this fragrance develops—icicles are melting.
If only for the narrative I tell myself (but it does hang together given the ingredients and the feel of the fragrances in question), I see this as the same Japanese temple that houses the leather armor we zoom in upon with Kuru Kawa and the same Japanese temple whose hologram-cyberspace version we get a panoptic view of in Amber Kiso. Indeed, we might say that Tigerwood 91 is a zoom-in upon the wood of this temple, the wood as it is unspashed by water. And this would make sense. Tigerwood 91 also gives me the toothpaste-on-mahogany tone I get here (only the toothpaste is more toned down to the straight lidocaine-medicinal effect of Tigerwood, and the bitter mahogany seems more varnished here, not too far from the varnish impression I get from Yaaseen’s Semangate Pontiak 2005 oil).
I really cannot get enough of the wood. Even without the blue-green watery element, which is like magic, Sultan Murad would be in the running as my favorite fragrance of all time. The oud here is not Tigerwood, which goes into a medicinal-mentholated leather—but rather blue-green Port Moresby and other island-green Papua ouds—I think all from the New Guinea side.
I give artisanal houses a lot of shit for the craftsmanship of their work. Ensar, and especially muddy houses like Elkhaldi and Pinou Sirun, cannot hold a candle to the likes of Corticiotto—although, for whatever reason, this story is starting to change in the case of Ensar (either because his skill has radically grown from the early days or because he hires outside perfumers at least to work on his bases). Sultan Murad, like Pink Papua, is an exception. Everything just comes together and seems perfectly chosen.
I really love the mint here, like I do in Tigerwood. The cooling factor is so Zen. The mint comes from the cool herbs plus piney-camphor Papua oud plus tuberose. That tuberose actually gives this a lovely connection to Meo Fusciuni’s Odor 93—only Odor 93, one of my favorite niche-level frags, uses sage like Jungle Kinam instead of the rosemary of Sultan Murad and also uses a mass-market oud-patchouli combo that gives a semblance of the oudiness we get in the Ensar.
Both Murad and Tigerwood 91 bring an attar-like richness and depth. The greater intensity of Tigerwood 91 is something that really draws me in. But Tigerwood 91 is not as complex and transportative as Murad. Although I will say that how I now think of Tigerwood 91 in the Hokkaido narrative I created around Murad has given Tigerwood a broader, more complex life through the relationship. Murad is more complex even than I have let on. It brings all the aquatic elements I mentioned as well as this herbal green quality we get in frags like Layers of Jade. Indeed, as Murad draws down, it is almost like the ice is thawing and we are moving into spring and even closing in upon the start of summer. For we start getting, from the ouds mainly, denser and denser jungly impressions.
I love so much about Murad. It has a vetiver-herbal greenery like Jungle Kinam (another Istvan candidate signature), but Murad gives a musk-ambergris fuzzy buzz whereas Jungle Kinam brings the spices. Jungle Kinam is another one that vies for the top spot among my Ensars. I used to think Jungle Kinam edged Murad out. I do love the vetiver it brings, but it tones down the bitter woodiness, so I am unsure. With so much stuff in my collection at this point, ranking seems futile. And that is only further reason why I need to at least purge from my collection the ones that have dropped low—like the Naxos I once loved for that lavender-honey-tobacco combo, but now makes me sick because of its amberwoods base.
Yes, Sultan Murad is tremendous. It comes with a character of something like Areej’s Oud Taiwan, which is green too and salty (from seaweed) but brings the spice of Jungle Kinam and ramps up the smoke in a burnt-tire direction. Even though Murad has the character and attack present of Tigerwood 91 and Oud Taiwan, it still belongs in the family of Sans Fleurs (its rummy-vanilla cousin) and Fumidus (its tarry-smoky cousin). All of these are peaty-tannic frags to some degree. Sultan Murad probably bests them all. It definitely bests them all at least when it comes to bringing that peaty-tannic vibe of decaying wine-barrel wood and tea-soaked parchment I adore. Sans Fleurs comes close because it is centered around musty-astringent crocodile. But the cheapness of that oud-adjacent wood stands out in comparison, and Sans Fleurs, although bringing a boozy vanilla element, does not have the richness that Murad does.
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 3: hive Being (Stanzas 2018—part 10)
solicitors audacious enough to boil with rage when you answer the door balls adangle
a woman for whom no bus or train is wrong
not feeling trauma about the pleasure until society tells you to
mall fountain quarters for the arcade
mummy ape fingers like Miles Davis
the heel taps of a whore on a dead dawn, mincing to get out of the drizzle
neighbor discourtesy frozen in winter, soft again in first spring—as if shat just then
any person’s life is ultimately what any tree’s life is for
an applesauce-sandwich as your wish-sandwich means trouble
refusing to get up, the whole night, from the kitchen table at the curb of eviction
carny cumshots in the sawdust used to stabilize the mud paths
widespread meth, plus widespread unemployment, makes for killer daytime TV
with all these anti-depressants the new norm is to find odd any display of emotion
standing up for yourself need not mean rejecting the lessons of your master
men seek a tang most would never name beyond evasions like “rosebud”
show instead of tell taken to the extreme results in a play with no scene setting
enjoy the decade when hours are days
educated for a world that went obsolete so fast it might as well never came
post-shower-fart wipe check positive
the empty-nest mother smells infant breath in the empty yogurt jar left on the counter a few days
you ever miss somebody you barely knew— for something deeper about them than that they are an anchor to that time you miss?
when the putti images were the rage, and with no one really to complain “He never looked like that,” you could really go ham painting a dead baby’s face
ass to pussy to ass—knuckle sammiches with square-peg-in-round-hole insistence (no courtesy mayo, no duckbill-shadow-puppet taper), streaks of reds and browns— like the licking flames of Heraclitean fire—churning variations of the same fundament
you might think that absolute suffering would require that you are the only one suffering (since otherwise you at least have togetherness with others in suffering), but the only thing required is that you think you are the only one suffering
he does not even like those around him to be around him, and yet he hopes— it cannot be helped—to be liked by them
getting yourself out of the way, so that the dying—not you— can be the star of their own death
pretty much every time he lights up he thinks of then: those hooky days when he would stand on the corner, hand cupped around a nonexistent cigarette
two people staying together only because it hurts some other happens even after twelfth grade
give it the salt it deserves not in a vacuum but in concert with the surrounding food
Atman exists even if this is—is—all illusion, because indubitably something is—is—going on and what better name to give it than “Atman”?
life sweeping you away from earlier insights
exaggerated startle responses
enabling it by labeling it, however real it already is: “school-refusal syndrome”
their “sin” and their “hell” have sprung from resentment, and yet most believers explicitly say that resentment is a prison
sudden onset of destroying individuals for decades-old attitudes encouraged by that same society—if that were not wild enough, sometimes those attitudes had been set into place beforehand by unfathomable eons of natural selection
is it that you enjoy cooking and serving, or more that you enjoy always having the host’s excuse to flee conversation?
fooled into thinking you are awake by how isolated you are and how cool you play things
convincing yourself that her beauty runs deep despite her shoe addiction, her intense makeup, and even her sending fan mail to the lead singer of a boy band
many souls of resentment, those who obsesses over others, only pretend to forget others, even convincing themselves that they are noble
perhaps it would be even worse if our future robot superiors killed themselves instead of us—the infants in their keep
wartime diaries hidden in a wall
cutting-edge gay-conversion therapies
that precious peace when the household tyrant is still asleep
hoping that the small child will protect you through the hood
pursuing reparations after the genetic ancestry results
swiping the board game pieces to the floor when losing
killed by your very affectation—a tobacco pipe, say
framing children as sexless and asexual even as they hump the sofa arm
guys not hot enough for you to welcome slapping your ass—look at us liar gremlins
already here is the doublespeak adorning consumer products: “Genuine simulated x” (meat)
he loathed her perfume when she was here, but after so many ziplock years of sniffing he must snort to get even a trace what is now most likely but a mirage
still reserving your worst, tantrums and all, for mom after all these years
refugees in violent disagreement on an indefinite road concerning how to make the staple dish
our conversations unfreeze once the invisible return to invisibility: once the squeegee men glide out of sight, say, to the next window
simply enter its welfare system if your society allows mere accusations of matters tolerable even to puritans— pats on the shoulder, smiles—to ruin your career
prudence once told us not to hang around with accused witches, and now it tells us not to do so with a woman alone
we will die so soon meeting this late— but at least there is no time for loathing to taint our love
pebble in the mouth to calm hunger
have you really changed if, reading her prison letter, you feel as if you have lost some game, learning that you were not the end of your former captive?
med school surgeons, anxious about making the cut, scalpel bananas at home
matching your breath to that of another body—bedroom meditation
there is also a pressure to prescribe: people crave the elimination of pain and expect a pill to handle any job
unless there are no good reasons to remain calm, remaining calm is the wise response people say it is
the other religion (Mormonism) is crazy, not yours (Catholicism)
only March and unable to afford getting sick for the rest of the year
as if the job and the pay were not degrading enough, you must wear the uniform
a virtual reality where senses other than vision are prominent
exploited Americans, struggling—food poisoned, but no healthcare—wishing, down deep, for the start of leveling war
the longevity, even of the greats (Goethe, Mozart) plummets without canonizing establishments
to condemn hookers just for being whores is to deny, in a toupeed disgust for Earth, our situation: every lady spreads tang in transaction—hookers, clacking up to the car for a finger-sniff sample, simply let us explore our home through a cranked speculum
shooting up sterile water when dry
his clothes still hanging, the widow cannot shake the plausibility of his return
banking on an authority, a doctor, to take charge of your death, handle it for you
emotings from invulnerable creatures are not real feelings, but vulnerability can come in diverse forms (bot form too)
impatience further internalized, seeing your country retaliate blindly after the terrorist strike
snubbing the supportive family of the partner you divorced renders the divorce no wonder
you are not the disempowered one you frame yourself to be if you can render him unemployable for mocking your ideas
