122709

I realized something terribly important this week: Since my ex-wife deserted me, I've spent all my time seeking validation from women. In the same way certain feminists insist they need no validation from men, I take this concept and make it my own. My ex never once believed in me; therefore I dissolved. I need no woman for validation; I _know_ I'm an exceptional person, with a good mind and a good heart, and sound aims and plans for my future. I've been waiting for some woman to confirm this for me. I need no confirmation, no validation. In no scenario that I can imagine do I have time for adoration of a woman. Mark my words, I will be a figure of historical import; I need no one else to get there.

*Perfume*

In my opinion, the perfume I made with no top section is a total failure. It has no life. Perfumers add top sections with good reason. Maybe with synthetic perfumes it would work to have no top; with natural perfume, in order to make a perfume something with character, with resounding qualities, one really needs a top. This brew is just dead on the skin. It's not that one smells nothing (as I had, ludicrously, feared); it's more that what one smells is severely lacking an important piece--the top! I've learned from this experiment that a full and complete natural-perfume recipe _must_ include a top section. Otherwise, it's quite as if one isn't working with a full deck; the full impact of a natural perfume definitely comes from carefully planning each part, base as well as heart as well as top.

_____

My feeling is that a lack of olfactory education leaves us unable to speak intelligently about that most important of all realms: what we _smell_. Here's a very brief intro to olfactory terms. (This is reprinted, with permission, from Mandy Aftel's Natural Perfume Workbook Level I.):

Agrestic (relating to the country; rustic)

Amber (reminding one of amber, which is a combination of three notes, sweet, round, balsamic)

Animalistic

Anisic

Apple

Balsamic (reminding one of balsam wood, closely related to amber)

Berry

Caramel

Citrus

Dry

Earthy

Edible

Floral

Fresh

Fruity

Green (reminding one of green things, fresh mowed grass, fresh vegetables, ferns)

Heavy

Herbal

Lemon

Light

Liqueur (sweet, heavy, rich)

Marine (fishy)

Minty

Orange

Rich

Seashore (reminding one of the oceanside)

Sharp

Soft

Spicy

Sweet

Tea

Woody

With each major category above, there are different subsets. For example:

Woody can be floral (rosewood) or sweet (agarwood).

Spicy can be fresh (ginger), dry (black pepper), or sweet (nutmeg).

Floral can be heavy (ylang ylang), soft (orris), sharp (marigold), or green (violet leaf).

Herbal can be sharp (lavender) or anisic (basil).

Fruity can be apple (chamomile) or berry (boronia).

If a person were to say to me, instead of, "Smells like my grandmother," more succinctly, "This is a soft floral, with sweet woody overtones, and a touch of the animalic," they would certainly have a champion in me for life.

*Asia*

I still have the journal I kept while I was in Taiwan. Frankly, it's a little frightening to look at. I'd basically been living out of a backpack for some time; therefore, I guess, it was of paramount importance that I wrote _incredibly small_. Page after page is almost too small to read, and I feel like a sane man looking at the ravings of a lunatic when I see it. But I remember each page I wrote clear as day, remember where I was, what woman I was infatuated with, my life goals. I was still in a youthful phase of thinking that if I captured every last one of my thoughts, I would somehow begin to understand myself better. It's all drivel, just total stream-of-consciousness garbage. But the effort to trap every thought which passed through my mind is one that I remember only too well.

When I was in Nepal, during the final few months, I was walking in the low hills with my Nepali friend Ram. We were in an area seldom frequented by white folks; I liked it that way. One evening we came across a rather large home, totally out of place in this part of Nepal. Turned out the inside was like a big barn; the outside was only for show. We arrived and sat down by the fire (a hole in the mud floor at one side), the customary course of action. After a moment, the resident owner, a widower, came to greet us. He checked that we were okay sleeping on the floor, and that potatoes were okay for dinner. At this height, though we were in the low hills by Nepali standards, we were still over 13,000 feet, and potatoes were just about the only thing which would grow.

After we settled in a bit, our host asked if we'd like some wine. Ram and I looked at each other quickly before saying emphatically, "Yes!" We proceeded to enjoy spirits the likes of which I'd never had before, or since. On hearing our Yes, the host smiled broadly and went back into the kitchen. When he emerged again, he was carrying two large bamboo mugs, each with a bamboo straw in it. He handed them to us and I was confused: inside the mugs were what looked like piles of wet beans. Then our host went to get boiling water, which he poured into our mugs. "When you want more, just ask for more hot water," he said. Turns out the piles of beans in our mugs were actually lumps of fermented rice.

We enjoyed the best rice wine ever--and the fermented rice could be re-steeped over and over. What a show stopper. Re-steepable wine! And the rice didn't seem to lose much of its alcohol content. We had many mugs, and the stuff just wouldn't quit. We needed no dinner--Ram and I both passed out before too long; the altitude and tiring days climbing mountains were to blame. I've often thought that if Americans got hip to this idea, our country would never be the same. Wine that grows from rice and is released with successive additions of boiling water! Who'd be sober? Would we ever recover? I remember that one magical night near the top of the world. I slept more soundly than I had in months.

*Quotations*

It was not until this moment when I separated myself, when I considered myself truly distinct, that my writing acquired a voice.

--Sandra Cisneros

[This was definitely my experience in leaving New York, turning my back on my family and lifelong friends. Suddenly, I discovered my voice.]

One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one's own life.

--Robert Bly

[It is this "concept intensiveness" that has always attracted me too.]

Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.

--David Hume

[I am constantly in flux between them.]

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races: the men who borrow and the men who lend.

--Charles Lamb

[Would that I might always be certain I'm a man who lends.]

There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.

--Thomas Paine

[I greatly prefer the "thought forms" that strike me of a sudden.]

The most accomplished monkey cannot draw a monkey, this only man can do; just as it is also only man who regards his ability to do this as a distinct merit.

--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct.

--Samuel Johnson

God is neither distant nor distinct from you.

--Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.

--Alfred N Whitehead

What an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motions of a person, define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason.

--Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

*Music*

Pop Mix 2010:

1. Revolution (Bob Marley), Charlie Hunter Quartet

2. Rambler, Bill Frisell with Ginger Baker

3. Waltz for Geri, Pat Martino

4. Chorando Baixinho, Paolo Moura and Rafael Rabello

5. What is This Thing Called Love (Cole Porter), Jo Stafford and Her Orchestra

6. Born to be Blue (Tormé/Wells), Helen Merrill

7. Those Clouds are Heavy, You Dig? (Brubeck/Desmond), Kurt Elling

8. My Treasure, Sinne Eeg

9. La Derniére Bergere (Sauvat/Sinevine), James Carter

10. 7th Floor, John Scofield

11. Take Five (Brubeck), Toots Thielemans

12. Suicide is Painless/Song from M*A*S*H (Altman/Mandel), Paul Desmond

13. Holding Back the Years (Hucknall), Erin Bode

14. Love for Sale (Porter), Dianne Reeves

15. Lush Life (Strayhorn), Johnny Hartmann/John Coltrane

16. Moaning, Brenda Boykin

17. Gatekeeper, Feist

Peace love and ATOM jazz

122009

It's long-awaited winter in the city. Heavy snowfall is expected in the next 24 hours. Can't imagine a better way to spend a Sunday, warm and dry and dreaming big.

*Lord's-Jester*

My leather scent, Cuir du Farceur, is better than expected. For the first few moments it smells a little spicy; after a minute or two the leather doppelgänger creeps in, and it's quite elegant. I'm really impressed with myself: I was able to intuit which notes would add to the leather effect with surprising precision. This is a perfume one would wear to meet somebody important; both men and women will enjoy this perfume. The question now is: which strength suits it best? It might be one like Ares (used to be Adam's Amber) which I will offer in several strengths. Anya McCoy explained to me that a perfumer changes the basic recipe according to the strength of a given version; for example, it might be that one gets the sense the eau de cologne version of a perfume could use extra benzoin and lavender, while the eau de parfum version needs less of each. This is another area where I find I have excellent imagination; I can "picture" what needs to change.

I know now that I am nothing like other natural perfumers. For example, when I first started Mandy Aftel's course, and read Essence & Alchemy, when she wrote about smelling a perfume while you're making it, I found it didn't work for me to do so; it took a couple of years for me to figure out that's not the way I work. It does me absolutely no good to smell a perfume in process--all I smell is alcohol. I never really did much examination of individual extracts; others spend years just involved with individual notes. For me, from the beginning, perfumery has been about whole compositions; I have been concerned with making complete perfumes, all in one go. My perspective is that study of an individual extract does me no good at all. A given note will smell totally different in a finished perfume than it does on its own. Same for dilutions; some perfumers swear by diluting all aromatic materials; I _only_ pre-dilute those materials which I can't use straight from the bottle (for example, orris butter, immortelle, and pine needle).

I am not trying to know individual components; I am aiming to understand how individual parts play in a finished perfume. So to "get to know" benzoin alone is a waste of time for me; I'm concerned with how it smells in a finished perfume. I have smells cataloged in my brain; I don't need to be near my perfumer's organ or extracts to compose a new recipe. My imagination for natural perfume is second to none. I compose in complete "thought forms." Sometimes a given recipe fails; more often the finished product needs a little tweaking, more orris, less lavender, less in the top, like that. I make a perfume then wait two weeks to a month (perfumes with more notes need longer to mature than simpler ones); from there I can see what parts are working and what parts are not--by applying perfume to the skin, which is the only way to get a sense of a perfume, after a complete one mixes with skin chemistry. I don't need to have an in depth relationship with, say, labdanum to know whether or not I used too much. It's finished perfumes which concern me.

So how do I know I'm on the right track? Feedback from other natural perfumers. "Normal" people are not so reliable; why? Because olfactory education is non-existent--a serious thorn in my side. Despite the efforts of some modern philosophers, the olfactory sense is the highest of our senses, with more potential for sublime effects than any other. I know from experience that my methods are unique to me, and also that I can make perfumes with far greater longevity than most. Pleased is she who learns of natural perfume; this art, as it was practiced in days long gone, is truly sacred, inspiring us to live grander lives, helping us to sense honor, and grounding us firmly in beauty wrested from the earth. There's a reason rabbis, priests, imams, and shamans were the original perfumers: sex and reproduction once were sacred endeavors. And (natural) perfume has always been about sex appeal. Now, if we only had olfactory language to use to talk about what we smell!

*Film*

I had three experiences (aside from years of still photography) in film and television: 1) took a course during high school (maybe earlier) at Weist-Barron, meant for TV actors, 2) I trained in doing voiceover work, for radio and television, and 3) I went to film school at NYU, The New School, and School of Visual Arts (SVA); I lasted about a year and a half at that.

The only experience I remember from Weist-Barron is this: one day I went in for my class with other young people but the room had changed; I accidentally went to the wrong room, full of adult students. I knew everyone else was older, for the first time, but I thought they were just mixing it up a bit. We went through the whole class, and at the end the teacher asked if I was a new student. I explained that I'd been studying with another teacher--he stopped me in disbelief. "How old are you?" he asked. It came out then that I was supposed to have gone to the _youth_ class. What I remember most is that the adults in the class, thinking I was also an adult, had behaved totally differently from any other group of adults I'd ever seen, ribbing each other, making statements full of sexual innuendo, and generally having fun. I remember thinking, "Cool! I get to have fun when I grow up."

Voiceover work was loads of fun. I remember making some really killer demo tapes. The idea was that over time one developed a reel of their best work to send to interested parties. What I had the most fun doing was taking copy that was drab and boring and turning it into something completely zany. I remember one was a TV shoe commercial. For some reason, what seemed to fit the copy to me was a person speaking maniacally fast; when I played it, the whole room went into hysterics. I think our instructor thought I showed a lot of promise. In the end, though, casting about for callings,I made a conscious decision that voiceover work was not a thing I wanted to be remembered for.

My first experience with film was when a friend from Milton was going to NYU film school. One night we were hanging out, and Joe had rented a 16mm camera from the school for a project. He explained what he wanted to do: to portray an enormous plant-as-person erupting from a small pot in a split second. I thought on possibilities, and finally asserted that I had a solution. The trick was to zoom in tight on the edge of the pot; from there, anything rising from behind the pot would appear to rise _from_ the pot. Worked like a charm and Joe got the highest score in his class. I like to think I've always been quite adept at interpreting the world through a camera lens.

Later I went to film school myself. I started out at NYU, but quickly came to prefer The New School and SVA. I had a favorite teacher at NYU though; he taught film theory and I learned more about film aesthetics from him than anyone else. For example, I learned that the way car scenes are shot is an abomination, one we've learned to compensate for; if a camera switches directions for focusing on two different people on either side of the front seat, the background naturally changes direction too. But when you sit in a car, it's all one direction. A good solution is to build a sidecar for the camera so one can shoot both folks from one direction, close up or far away as necessary. Most directors can't be bothered with such trivialities. Trivialities! I think not.

In the end I found all the teachers at NYU (except for that one) to be far too staid. The teachers at The New School and SVA were much more to my liking, guys still working in the field, loads of hands-on learning, not as much about theories (except for that one) and film criticism, more about actually making movies. I decided finally that the best, and only right, way to go about things was simply to start working on films, starting at the bottom and working one's way up. At the same time, though, I was having tremendous personal revelations, revelations which ultimately led me way from New York, up to Maine to start a homestead, and finally to the west coast. I had to do what I did, to live through what I lived through, in order to come out on the other side and be the person I am today. Besides, I knew the film world was about to change, from actual film to video and digital. What a swift transformation it has been.

*Quotations*

My deepest impulses are optimistic, an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.

--Ellen Willis

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing.

--Benjamin Franklin

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.

--Washington Irving

Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.

--Alex Tan

I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.

--Cat Stevens

Tears are the safety valve of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it.

--Albert Smith

The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.

--John Vance Cheney

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

--Charles Dickens

Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap joy.

--Ralph Ransom

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

--Edgar Allan Poe

Peace love and ATOM jazz

121309

I discovered this week where the name Mark Twain comes from: Samuel Clemens was a riverboat captain for years before he became a writer (and when he did it was almost by accident); "Mark twain!" used to be called out on riverboats to notify the skipper that the boat was in two fathoms (12 feet) of water.

_____

"I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature."

--Edvard Munch

I read this quote and something struck me: this is exactly what it feels like living with MS. I always felt an affinity for his painting The Scream.

*Lord's-Jester*

When I first started in natural perfume, about five years ago, recipes for me were quite strict, i.e. I had to use 60 drops aromatics in 15ml alcohol, had to have a top section, had to follow standard protocols. Now that I make perfume by weight (I still make samples volumetrically), everything has changed. I'm only worried about the total weight of aromatics; from there I can make any concentration, EdP, EdT, EdC, etc. I also am not so worried anymore about proportions of top to middle to base. Now when I draw up a recipe, I'm familiar with the odor intensities of different aromatics; I let that guide me in terms of proportions. I compose each section, look at odor intensities, and determine which part gets how much.

Recently, I was talking to Michelyn about a perfume with no top section, just base and heart. I have long thought of doing this, because often, when it comes to top notes, there's nothing I really want on top; still, I've felt compelled always to create a top chord. However, recently Michelyn tried my immortelle perfume, Chronos, and her reaction was, "It's fantastic, but I can do without the top." Just the base and heart of that perfume are perfect; I added a top section only because I felt compelled to. No more. I've always been inclined toward base and heart anyway, and in truth, every note is in fact complete. Base notes contain base notes within them, as well as heart notes, as well as top notes. (Certain recipes of course do need a top.)

For example, with my osmanthus perfume, Phoebe (the latest version of which I've found to be delightfully powdery), the first thing I smell is osmanthus; I'm sensing the top notes of osmanthus which is, nevertheless, considered a base note. As to other perfumes, recently we remade Heracles, one of my boronia perfumes; it was a failure, too much black-currant bud and not enough boronia (17 notes all together). Another iteration is in order. Still waiting for the remake of Cuir du Farceur to mature. I am very hopeful about that one. On the NP email list this week, somebody asked what to do with failed perfumes. Anya McCoy responded that she does as the big perfume houses have always done: she makes "mille fleur," which means literally "1000 flowers." I've started a batch which I call 10,000 Flowers (in China they say 10,000 when they mean a whole lot; we'd say "a million").

My article for Fragrantica, found at The Original Art of Seduction, was a big success. Anya McCoy, president of the Natural Perfumers Guild, raved about what I had written. Many other perfumers, natural and otherwise, were also impressed. Best of all for me, Mandy Aftel, the premier natural perfumer in the world, whose course I took and passed with flying colors, commented on the article; she too fairly raved, and said she was happy I'd be covering naturals for Fragrantica. The fact that _everyone_ was impressed I think bodes well for a natural-perfume presence in the main. I will see to it that no one forgets the way it used to be: natural perfume was part of the original arts of seduction.

*Facts*

Random factoids about our world:

1. Bee keepers can smell their own hive out of a sea of other hives. There are quite a few collective bee farms these days; many of them allow their bees to forage only on certified organic plants, in order to produce certified-organic bee products (pollen, honey, wax, etc.). And on these collective bee farms, no signs or labels are needed--a bee keeper can smell his hive from a mile away, and can pick it out instantly from 1000 other hives.

2. There is an awful lot of misinformation out there on engineering topics. One thing I want to be clear about: _do_ heat up your car. An auto produces some 70% of its emissions in the minutes after a cold start. This means every time you get in your car, you should heat it up quickly and keep it hot. The reason cold engines are dirty? _Incomplete combustion_. If you drive a car when it's cold, most of the fuel coursing through the engine comes out of the tailpipe _unburned_. The vast majority of automobile greenhouse-gas emissions come from cars working at sub-optimal operating temperatures. Get it hot and keep it hot.

3. Digital TV means all shows and games are online instantly. It's never been easier to keep tabs on your favorite shows and teams.

*Asia*

When I was living in Taiwan (in a small beach town called Hualien, where I lived for a year), my older brother Christopher did three months in Jakarta as a doctor. We agreed to meet in Singapore, then take a boat into the middle of Sumatra, where our great grandfather lived and worked for 40 years. Having lived in Nepal, I was fully prepared for the transition from developed east Asia to 3rd-world south Asia. Singapore itself is most definitely 1st world. We spent a night there and left by boat the next morning. I knew full well what to expect from the boat; my brother was unsuspecting. We arrived and he was stunned: what we faced was a large ferry with an enormous, empty central space for passengers. Folks were expected to camp out on the floor, make fires, make noodles, etc.

We were given food, as my bother had been told we would be; it was typical for south Asia: twice per day we were given plates of white rice with a single, whole dried fish and chili paste. Of course we supplemented this with "super mee;" folks who'd taken the boat before came prepared with ramen noodles to which they added eggs, onions, etc., and which they sold for a whopping couple of pennies. I must admit that another thing I'd learned well in Nepal was how to eat with my hand; my brother, on the other hand, had spent all his time with rich doctors (wealthy by Indonesian standards). I remember the first night on the boat, we were served our rice and dried fish; without utensils my brother was helpless.

Folks around us started complaining about the foreigner next to them who didn't know how to eat (I experienced the same thing my first night in Taiwan: I was unable to use chopsticks to eat my noodle soup, and someone asked the owner of the noodle stand to give me a fork). I had to give Chris a quick lesson on eating with his hand. He was approaching it the way all westerners do at first: he grabbed a handful and attempted to bring it to his mouth; with each handful he dropped food all over himself. The trick, you see, is to hold your face near the plate; you bring your mouth to the food, not the food to your mouth (the same rule applies to using chopsticks) and for a westerner that's quite counterintuitive.

The really shitty thing was that the riverboat captain decided he would earn extra money by allowing extra boats to tie on to the back of ours. This meant that we took twice as long to get where we were going; and to top it off, one of the two engines broke after a day and a half (too much extra weight). It was a fun trip, feeling very much like the trip up river in Apocalypse Now. Once we arrived in the middle of Sumatra, we had a fantastic time. One of my brother's Indonesian doctor friends had a home in Bukitingi; we stayed there, and the house came with a maid, a cook, a groundskeeper, etc. We lived like kings for a few days. We even made it to the village where our great grandfather had lived, and found an elder who remembered him.

After we were done, I took a flight from Sumatra to Singapore, where I stayed for a few days before returning to Taiwan. Singapore, unlike Taiwan and Hong Kong, has a majority of folks who speak English; in places where folks speaking different languages live together, English invariably becomes the common tongue (in Singapore, there are speakers of Malay, Indonesian, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, etc.). So Singapore has a lot of English-language book stores. I had been isolated in Hualien for some nine months, and I had wads of cash from teaching, so I stocked up on every book I could think of that I wanted. At 18, I had never gone to college, so I tried to make up for it by getting myself innumerable nonfiction books, books on Chinese history, ESL, tying knots, doing magic tricks, and anything else I could think of that interested me. I still have one or two of those books.

*Quotations*

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

--Marie Curie

["Ask what makes you come alive and go do it."]

I never quite know when I'm not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, 'Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.' She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, 'Is he sick?' 'No,' my wife says, 'he's writing something.'

--James Thurber

[The line between life and art is one I explicitly ignore.]

In my soul rages a battle, without victor, between faith without proof and reason without charm.

--Sully Prudhomme

[I could never have said it better.]

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

--Emily Dickinson

[Top of the head, to be sure.]

Literature can carry the consciousness of human times and social life better than anything else. Look at the movies of the 1920s, watch the Murrow broadcasts--you can't recognize any of the people. Now, read Fitzgerald--that's it. That is the truth of the times. Somebody has to be committed to the idea of truth.

--Thomas McGuane

[I'll be sitting quietly speaking Truth until the day I die.]

With modernism came this new notion that poetry is something that is not as direct or accessible, and poetry became something that needed to be deciphered, a kind of riddle. And, of course, a lot of people are put off by this. A lot of people read poetry, and they don't understand it and it makes them feel resentful. They also tend to think if they don't understand it that means it's good poetry because you're not supposed to understand poetry. You can have poems that are clear enough, accessible enough, that people can understand. The best of these are not going to be any less original than those poems that are obscure.

--Thomas Lux

[Even today there are many who espouse the obscurity principle. It does no one a spot of good. Clear and accessible is the only way.]

Life is never easy for those who dream.

--Robert James Waller

[The bigger your dreams the tougher your life.]

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.

--JFK

[Adversity breeds strength.]

Kind words are short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

--Mother Teresa

[It is often much easier to be kind than to be otherwise.]

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

--Gandhi

[My greatest days in the last 10 years have been days I made friends with the MS, not enemies, for enemies would entail vilifying myself.]

Peace love and ATOM jazz

120609

As winter comes on, I am only too pleased I won't be alone this season.

*Grammar&Pronunciation*

Please don't use 'me' when you should be using 'I.' There are many places where it has become colloquially acceptable; it's still wrong and you will only sound bright and eloquent for using 'I' correctly. Someone says:

I think _you_ did this.

A typical response might be:

Who, me?

What do you mean to say here? "You think me did this?" ? No, you mean to say, "You think I did this?" So say that. Often, the use of 'me' is simply for expedience, but it's never very hard to utter your sentiment correctly. Examples:

Me too.

No no no! It should be properly,

I do also.

Someone says,

I hate this crap.

Correctly, you should say,

I do as well.

Lastly,

I adore this music.

You might correctly say,

I do too.

or

I agree that this is phenomenal stuff.

or

I beg to differ.

There is always a better way than to use 'me' (except of course when it's called for). It is a direct object, and was only ever meant to be used as an accusative, the object of pronouns, transitive verbs, etc. Please be concise in your language.

*Lord's-Jester*

I have written my first article for Fragrantica, a very large perfume web-site. My significant other, Michelyn Camen, invited me to try being a guest writer, on the topic of natural perfume. The publisher raved about what I wrote so I think there's a good chance I will become a regular writer for them. I'm just a short time away from launching my natural-perfume business, so this couldn't come at a more perfect time. Fragrantica has some 550,000 registered users, and I encourage all my friends to join. If you comment on this, my first article for Fragrantica, you will be entered in a drawing to win a jar of my fabulous solid perfume, Anthea (now in its third or fourth revision).

The remake of Demeter is perfect. I intended to brighten it and that's exactly what I accomplished. Sandalwood in the base, orange flower in the heart, and neroli, templin (distilled from fir cones), juniper, and pink pepper (among 14 notes altogether) combine to make a perfume that retains the earthy, smoky, sexy nature of the original, while resulting in a brew not quite so dark as the original, with some lift. I also made it slightly sweeter with more benzoin. I'm also waiting for three other remakes to cure: Cuir du Farceur (my leather doppelganger), Heracles (my first boronia perfume), and Chronos (based on immortelle, one of my favorite extracts).

For my application for Professional Perfumer (with the Natural Perfumers Guild), I plan to include five perfumes, 3 liquid and two solid: Ares eau de cologne, Demeter (name might change) eau de toilette, Selene eau de parfum, Anthea solid (my ode to jasmine, sultry, erotogenic), and Helios solid (made originally for my father, who wanted a smell like the orange-patchouli candle he came across a while ago, which was not natural; it is extremely difficult to scent candles naturally). I am working now to get ecommerce up and running on the Lord's Jester web site.

Michelyn is a very successful fashion and perfume writer. I am an esteemed natural perfumer who will soon be writing the great American novel, and plays, and will soon be recognized for 20 years of great poetry. If all goes well with Fragrantica, I too may become a force in the fashion world. Something tells Michelyn and I are going to conquer the globe. In the mean time, I will be madly working (it might take years) on a signature fragrance for her. Michelyn and I agree that the best art has always been inspired by love. Perfumers making perfumes for their lovers has a long, long history. Natural perfume has been about enhancing one's allure since the dawn of civilization. Onward and upward!

*Quotations*

When you do this sort of work, you pretend to be the sort of person that you could imagine writing this kind of stuff; then you write what he would write.

--John Crowley

It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone.

--Joseph Conrad

Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.

--Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

There was much in such a society that was primitive and insecure and it certainly could never measure up to the demands of the present epoch. But in such a society are contained the seeds of revolutionary democracy in which none will be held in slave.

--Nelson Mandela

A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch.

--Nietzsche

A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.

--Thomas Mann

Beauty is also submitted to the taste of time, so a beautiful woman from the Belle Epoch is not exactly the perfect beauty of today; beauty is something that changes with time.

--Karl Lagerfeld

In all the areas within which the spiritual life of humanity is at work, the historical epoch wherein fate has placed us is an epoch of stupendous happenings.

--Edmund Husserl

The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.

--Alfred de Vigny

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

--Samuel Butler

*Music*

I downloaded Joe Henry's latest, Blood from Stars. I'm a big Joe-Henry fan; Tiny Voices and Civilians contain sublime, bittersweet, heart-wrenching peri-millennial music. Blood from stars does not disappoint one bit; it's every bit as great as the previous titles. Joe Henry has found his bag. He aims to write raunchy, Tin-pan-Alley type songs, and he most definitely succeeds, big time. This music is like jazz's black-sheep brother, containing classic instrumentation, pianos, horns, violins, and also much more, distorted electric guitars when needed, bits of electronica as called for, whatever it takes to make the tune just right. One can tell Henry intends for every one of these songs to be anthems, to be music that will uplift, with intense lyrics, often dense, often reaching deep, often confessional, and so, unavoidable. The entire album is inevitable in the best of ways, and Henry's stark, evocative, pining voice seems to be the only voice that would suit the material. The music on these three records I've mentioned is far too complex for most people I would say, but if you love it, you really love it. It is not your everyday music and it is not for everyday people. For those who are, like me, "different," always dissenting, always unconvinced, forever disappointed with the commonplace, this music couldn't be more highly recommended.

_____

This is from Kurt Elling's first record. Astonishing; he was a master of vocalese from the beginning. He dropped out of divinity school to sing jazz. One can tell from these lyrics that his mind was still on the divine. Music by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, lyrics by Kurt Elling:

Once upon a time a cloud (a little cloud)

gathered her friends together and began to say, aloud,

"Friends, we can't find God. Isn't it odd?"

And they all agreed it was very odd, indeed,

to blow about the sky like a brainless seed.

"Something's really gone awry when older clouds oversimplify,

when they say that it's just another day.

It's imperative we be somewhat more truly demonstrative

in becoming provocative.

Our parents neglect God, it's true--all their world is askew.

They go about bickering and scheme of possessing things

as though they own us, too, and own all that we do.

Yet they can't understand

just how foolish it is to build a house on sinking sand.

And when we cry

they say, 'Oh my!

You'll grow out of it soon

and start singing a grown-up tune.'"

So the clouds made a vow,

since the grown-ups had lost God, somehow.

They would pick something out that would keep them aware,

that they could take with them anywhere (like a lock of hair, or a pear).

Not an animal, or too big.

So the little ones looked around and up and down and in and out

and came up with a list:

They had a feather, erasers and string,

pen knives, and pencils, and pieces of things

that they found in their pockets to spare

(and which they began to compare).

The shiniest object, when looking them over, the thimble was brightest

and so they decided the thimble was rightest

for taking along and for knowing God was staying long and in their every day.

They knew where to find

their peace of mind

playing a game of tag or 'fame'

they simply had to call out the thimble's name.

Then, one day, the smallest

cloud took a big fall and

dropped the thimble from her hand.

And God turned to sand.

Just then, a wise old woman cloud happened along,

and she asked the little cloud, "What's wrong?"

And the little cloud replied, "God's gone."

But the older cloud knew right away,

so she said to the little one, "Here's your thimble. I found it today."

Peace love and ATOM jazz