032810

*Lord's-Jester*

I am now officially a Professional Perfumer in the eyes of the Natural Perfumers Guild! In order to pass the test I had to send in at least one perfume in finalized packaging; I sent in seven: Selene, Heracles, Ares, Zephyr, Demeter liquids, and Anthea and Helios solids. I decided not to send Chronos, partly because we're waiting on a female version to cure; not that the other version is bad, just that it struck me as more masculine. I will send in both versions in a few weeks. Additionally, I've decided to branch out as far as different strengths go. Instead of making one or two changes to a given recipe, I will basically start from scratch with the formula. The male and female versions of perfume in the main can smell radically different from each other. Selene is one I want to play around with, as the eau de parfum is extremely feminine. Maybe with some radical reformulation, it will become a scent a man would wear; I'm guessing it would need sandalwood, maybe pine needle, and probably some lavender to accomplish this feat.

Looking toward the future, not only do I have to keep my current line of perfumes in stock, but of course I have to keep experimenting with new notes and combinations. In particular, I look forward to toying around with honeysuckle (a really deep and heady extract), magnolia (delightfully fruity; this could be good for the holy-grail fruity-floral), and araucaria (a rosy-spicy crystallized heart note). I have others new to me, mastic, rooibas, flouve, but I think the above few hold the greatest promise. One of the things I look forward to most is this experimentation; new possibilities for sublime accords abound (though I'm not one to focus on accords). And of course, I don't feel I've learned enough about the materials I currently use. Further experimentation is certainly called for. Still, I feel very good about the perfumes in my line of products, though I admit I need to play around more with the nuances of making large batches.

Now comes a slew of marketing. Thorson and I (actually, it will just be Thorson) plan to hit up boutiques small and large, knowing at least three quarters will have no interest. It's places like Henri Bendel where I think we'll have the most luck, partly because they carry at least one other line of natural perfume already, Mandy Aftel's. Another important route to getting my stuff in front of as wide an audience as possible is the blogosphere; there are several dozen blogs on perfume, some of which have quite a bit of renown, and the key is getting samples to the bloggers in question. In all cases, plenty of samples will be needed, both with boutiques and with bloggers. I will have to make whole batches of perfume _just_ for sending out samples. It's been a long road to get to the top of my game, and now that I'm here, there will be no stopping me. Sky is the only limit I can see.

*Health*

There is no question about the following: for optimal health the majority of what one eats should come from grains. The Land Institute holds that for even meat eaters, 70% or more comes from grains, for what do livestock eat but grains. The Land Institute also holds that, for the sake of the starving around the world we must eat grains directly. When grains are fed to livestock, we're working at about 10% efficiency--that is at least 90% more people could be fed if we all ate grains instead of meat. It's not the _protein_ one misses on a vegan diet; one misses the _calories_, this I know from hard-won experience (15 years as a strict vegan).

One of the issues in my marriage was that Janna refused to believe me about this. She struggled over the time we were married (less than two years). Then she met a nutritionist in Portland and I was vindicated--the nutritionist agreed that the proper diet for Janna was exactly the one I had outlined for her again and again. What we burn for fuel is complex carbohydrates--not protein. If you ate only cabbage you'd get _too much_ protein. From cabbage? Flies in the face of everything we've learned. What you need, and nothing more is enough _calories_ from a well-balanced diet; a well-balaced diet consists mostly of grains, with small amounts of vegetables, fruit, nuts, cultured foods (wine, sourdough bread, yogurt, etc.), and a little fish.

*Quotations*

We will not return to the New Deal or the Great Society, nor will we continue to wallow in the increasingly obsolete Reagan view that we don’t need a strong and competent government. Today’s vote confirms our hope that we can have both strength and competence in Washington. It is an audacious hope, but we have no choice.

--Robert Reich

If this be treason, then make the most of it.

--Patrick Henry

From a dog's point of view, his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog.

--Mabel L Robinson

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

--Flannery O'Connor

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

--Tennessee Williams

Good literature continually read for pleasure must, let us hope, do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.

--Alfred Edward Housman

When I write a poem, I don't know quite what it means. If I think I know what it means, I've got a bad poem. I want a poem to be beyond me. I want it to be something that transfers a feeling I don't quite understand the limits of.

--Louis Simpson

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

--Robert Frost

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

--Lincoln

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

--Camus

*Music*

March Forth 10:

1. Happier, A Fine Frenzy

2. Lucky Clover Coin, Rocky Votolato

3. Lille, Lisa Hannigan

4. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, U2

5. One, Aimee Mann

6. I Want You (Beatles), Jette-Ives

7. Here Comes the Sun (Beatles), Luca Columbo

8. Peace Frog, Doors

9. What I Wouldn't Do, A Fine Frenzy

10. I Think I Love You, The Partridge Family

11. Father and Son (Cat Stevens), Rocky Votolato

12. Elements, A Fine Frenzy

13. Two, Aimee Mann

14. My Will is Good, Port O'Brien

15. Harold T Wilkins or How to Wait for a Very Long Time, Fanfarlo

16. Summer's Almost Gone, Doors

17. Gimme, She Keeps Bees

18. Blow Away, A Fine Frenzy

19. Sun Devil, Rocky Votolato

20. America the Beautiful, Martin Sexton

21. Coda: Light No Lamp When the Sun Comes Down, Joe Henry

Peace love and ATOM jazz

032110

This quotation is very important to me:

"It has been said, "Time heals all wounds." I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."

--Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

*Biosphere*

One can't but conclude we live in an incredibly wasteful and inefficient world. Here are a few signs:

1. Nowhere do you see collectors for methane gas over dung and waste piles. What a no-brainer that is. Massive amounts of methane dissipate into the cosmos every single day. We seem to believe that if third-world people want to stoop to that level (methane collectors are very common in the third world; that's the only way some folks can get electricity), we can only pity them. The truth is we are _all_ duty bound to harness every ounce of energy we can. Methane can be used to generate electricity, for motive power, for use in anular pistons powering solar-concentrator arrays, etc. We wouldn't be totally dependent on foreign oil, we'd cut way down on greenhouse-gas emissions, and the world would be one step closer to efficiency _if we only push for collectors over dung and waste piles_. It's so obvious we must do this now, it's painful to watch the world continue on its wasteful path.

2. Another way we can generate unlimited amounts of electricity is by tying storm-drain systems to micro-hydro generators deep within the earth. Tall buildings could all be energy independent in fact; it's simply a matter of realizing the potential energy available to us with so much water high up in a given building. Either way, _not_ using all electricity available to us is a cataclysmic waste. When they look back on this age, all they'll see is waste. Tall buildings and massive micro-hydro projects _in cities_ must become part of the solution to our growing energy woes.

3. While photovoltaic panels can't be the long-term answer (they're much to inefficient; some say they can never generate more electricity than it took to make them in the first place), so much solar energy hits the earth daily it would be a huge waste _not_ to make use of it. There's no saying they won't invent whole new kinds of solar panels; thermo-photovoltaic panels strike me as a good bet, as they generate electricity two ways: from the sun's rays _and_ from heat striking the panels. To the best of my knowledge, they are no worse than regular PV panels in terms of efficiency. Needless to say, if we choose to ignore the many ways we can improve the efficiency of our lives, future generations will have every right to vilify us.

*Adam's-Index*

Number one thing about the way we live that will appear heinous to future generations: people still use incandescent light bulbs, which burn at least five times less efficiently than Compact Fluorescents. CFL bulbs also last decades; I have CFL bulbs which have been burning in the same sockets for more than eight years.

Number two thing: waste piles with no methane collectors.

Number three: the amount of paper we go through. It's not plastic filling up landfills; plastic, all of it, barely registers a few percent of landfill makeup; paper on the other hand makes up more than 75%. Paper _does not biodegrade_ in a landfill unless the landfill has been specifically retrofit to accommodate such biodegradation.

Number four: the amount of electricity we could have generated without burning a drop of fossil fuel (in the end, fossil fuels have so many other many other better uses and the fact we once _burned them_ will one day be seen as catastrophic).

Number five: the amount we disregarded them at every turn.

Number one Chinese snack: noodles (noodles in China have a much older history than in Italy; I think it was Alexander the Great who brought noodles west).

Number two: deep-fried corn on the cob.

Number three: turnip cakes (a specialty of dim-sim places).

Number four: stewed chicken feet (ditto).

Number five: real seitan as they've made for millennia.

*China*

Here are a few treats for me during my time in the Republic of China:

1. Surprisingly, breakfast is the most common meal to be eaten out in China, eaten almost exclusively by men. I must say, those breakfasts are stupendous, and this propensity is common on both sides of the Straight of Taiwan. One is treated to warm soy milk, warm peanut soup, buns with fried eggs in the middle, etc. Any self-respecting man eats out for breakfast. It's sort of an unwritten rule that men are not around the house in the morning. My take was always that, given a little time, the women turn back into something resembling the woman a given man married.

2. In Taiwan, they think of themselves as kings, having lived through hell and high water to hang onto their lives. Every fancy meal, a diner has in front of him or her: juice, hard liquor, wine, iced coffee, tea, etc., and this is not to mention the unlimited supply of delectable food on offer. They survived famine and worse and they'll be damned if they don't eat well now.

3. People often forget this salient fact: as far as I know there are more vegetarians in China than any other country in the world. Moreover, since they don't have a habit of eating dairy, all those people are vegans. We tend to think veganism is a new-age American phenomenon. They've been perfecting great vegan food in China for 5000 years--and, oh my, have they perfected it. Best vegan food, hands down, is found in China. Doesn't this say a lot about the general health of people on a vegan diet?

4. One of the strangest phenomena in Taiwan is this: because Taiwan is very hot, they like to eat plates of shaved ice, to which red beans and corn syrup have been added.

5. Three items which I found to be delicious in Taiwan were: 1) deep-fried corn on the cob (the outside is a little crunchy and the inside sweet and juicy), 2) one woman I knew at a noodle stand used to make me lamb fried noodles (not on the menu), and 3) fresh snails with basil (for some reason, this dish tended only to be available at road-side carnivals).

*Quotations*

It has been said, "Time heals all wounds." I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

--Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

Time and opportunity are in no man's sleeve.

--German proverb

Time fleeth away without delay.

--Dutch proverb

Time is an inaudible file.

--Italian proverb

Tigers die and leave their skins; people die and leave their names.

--Japanese proverb

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

--Carl Sandburg

He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.

--Johann von Schiller

Now is the only time there is. Make your now wow, your minutes miracles, and your days pay. Your life will have been magnificently lived and invested, and when you die you will have made a difference.

--Mark Victor Hansen

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

--Einstein

True friends leave footprints in your heart.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Peace love and ATOM jazz

031410

*Lord's-Jester*

The folks that run Sniffapalooza, a large international conference on the topic of perfume, have invited me to to present my line of perfumes at their upcoming event. This, obviously, is an enormous break for me; I could well hit it big. It's about three weeks away, here in New York City, and I'm a little nervous. I will have plenty of backup though: someone else (an actress named Meredith) will be doing the actual presentation, I will have another person there just to sell stuff, and I will have at least one bouncer (hi Thorson). It's really just the idea of putting my stuff out there for all to see that stresses me out; I'm very confident of my skill as a perfumer, but really, I'm just beginning. It's only in the past few months that I've started making perfume in bulk, for example.

Still, this is a big break for the art of natural perfume; I will not be the lone natural perfumer, thank goodness, but I plan to make a bit of a splash. We will be situated right in the middle of synthetic perfumers' presentations, and I do hope we make a strong showing. I'll let you know how it goes.

*Thermodynamics*

There are two points from Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's seminal book, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which I feel strongly need constant reiteration: 1) the good and just sort of development involves making our lives _qualitatively_ richer and fuller _without_ increasing the throughput Of matter-energy in the universe, and 2) the only real, substantive profit of any kind we have is the enjoyment of life; everything else turns to dust. Matter and energy are conserved across the universe, so whatever turns to dust is most definitely not part our profit because its value is ZERO. The enjoyment of life--or rather, life experience--is the only thing in our lives which might be said to be immortal. Deathlessness is _the_ qualifier for real profit. We now view increasing GNP/GDP as the only measure of the the health of an economy. Yet such catastrophes as cancer and massive oil spills count as _value added_ to the economy.

We know that's totally backwards, but if you tried to argue this point with an economist, you'd be met with a slew of neo-classical jargon. Neo-classical economists also have a ploy they use to invalidate the views of average people regarding the existence of wilderness: most people place an infinite value on the existence of wilderness, which conclusion is drawn from various types of cost analysis (how much time are you willing to spend getting to a state park? how much are you willing to pay in taxes just to know the park exists? would you pay that tax even if you never go to parks?). For most people, the answers to those questions is a foregone conclusion. The industry-apologist economists then promptly turn around and explain that placing an infinite value on _anything_ is totally irrational, and so, anybody with an infinite-value view is not to be trusted. Talk about disingenuous! In truth, every aspect of the mainstream economist's perspectives are simply _not based on reality_.

The most salient feature is this: to this day in economics textbooks, a circular diagram is shown, circling between consumers, distributors, and producers--nowhere is depicted the overwhelming contributions of _natural capital_ to the system, and nowhere is depicted the natural outputs of the system in the form of waste. One radical economist I know, Herman Daly, a reformed World-Bank economist, believes a correct depiction of our human economy should properly be a _subset_ of the ecological "economy." If we learn nothing else in this dramatic day and age, we should learn that the biosphere has reasons of which we can't possibly be aware. We need to adopt a Precautionary Principle, a principle which holds simply that if we can't yet predict the effects of a given material, or manufacturing process, or GMOs, we should hold off introducing it to the world. What a shift that would be!

*Quotations*

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.

--Heinrich Heine

Becoming a solo singer is like going from an eau de toilette to a perfume. It's much more intense.

--Geri Halliwell

Desperation is the perfume of the young actor.

--Uma Thurman

Happiness is perfume: you can't pour it on somebody else without getting a few drops on yourself.

--James Van Der Zee

Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume.

--Jean de Boufflers

If the Soviet Union can give up the Brezhnev Doctrine for the Sinatra Doctrine, the United States can give up the James Monroe Doctrine for the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine; let's all go to bed wearing the perfume we like best.

--Carlos Fuentes

It's a sad woman who buys her own perfume.

--Lena Jaeger

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?

--Vita Sackville-West

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles.

--Jack Kerouac

The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.

--Kurt Vonnegut

*Music*

I downloaded two records, True Devotion by Rocky Votolato and Bomb in a Birdcage by A Fine Frenzy (Alison Sudol), both there most recent efforts. On the one hand, Mr Votolato seems to have returned to his very emo roots, and on the other Ms Sudol spreads herself thin (not in a bad way) on what is basically her first real record. Dense and evocative music is found here; it will take me some time to fully assess it. Here's a blurb from Votolato's first record, which pretty well sums up his vibe:

"The bones inside your mind were all broken;

the keys that opened any answers were all stolen.

Filling and refilling up the glass with Maker's,

we both agreed, the final moment,

the sweetest remedy to ever be delivered,

heaven or heavenless,

we're all headed for the same sweet darkness."

Sudol's record is delightfully unpredictable, with all manner of tempos, rhythms, and feels. Will definitely take some time to absorb.

Peace love and ATOM jazz

030710

*MS*

For those of you not on Facebook, here is an update on my MS. Things have gotten significantly worse for me in the past year. I figured this would be the case, what with the (stressful) move across the country and the death of my mother:

1. MS is in all cases progressive and degenerative; that I'm worse off than last year is no surprise at all.

2. I can only barely walk a half block. I had a wheelchair in Portland, but it was a tad premature. Now I have to have one. I am trapped in my apartment, isolated, disenfranchised, and a wheelchair will greatly improve the quality of my life (the wheelchair I had broke on the way to New York.).

3. The tremor in my hand is so bad I can't even sign my initials. I have to have two rubber stamps (one for personal, one for corporate), but still I can't even come close to filling out checks or bills alone.

4. My speech is greatly labored, much more than it was a couple of years ago. It usually takes great effort for me to speak at all (a problem because I tend to be rather long winded).

5. My vision is worse. My ophthalmologist took photos of my optic nerves and found that one is significantly smaller than the other. This leads me to fear I'll probably go blind in one or both eyes at some point (doc said the shrinking of my nerves is almost definitely related to the MS).

This list does not cover all my symptoms, not even close. I can't even keep track of it all. This is simply a minor update.

*OPP*

Cecil

(Stephen Dobyns)

How calm is the spring evening, and the water

barely a ripple. My son stands at the edge

tossing in pebbles, then jumping back. He knows

that someplace out there lies Europe, and he points

to an island to ask if it is France. Here

on this beach my neighbor died, a foolish man.

He had fought with his daughter, his only child,

about her boyfriend and came here to cool off

when his heart stopped. Another neighbor found him

and thought him asleep, so relaxed did he seem.

He had helped me with my house, gave me advice

on painting, plastering. For this I thank him.

As I worked, we discussed our plans, how he wished

his daughter to go to the best schools, become

a scientist or engineer. I said how

I meant to settle down and make my life here—

My son asks me about the tide, why the water

doesn't keep coming up the street to wipe out

the house where he lives alone with his mother.

Is he scared, should I console him? Should I say

that if I controlled the tide I would destroy

that house for certain? Our plans came to nothing

and now, a year later, I'm just a visitor

in my son's life. We walk down to the water,

pause, and look out at the world. How big is it?

he asks me. Bigger every day, I answer.

*Quotations*

Jokes concentrate on the most sensitive areas of human concern: sex, death, religion, and the most powerful institutions of society; and poems do the same.

--Howard Nemerov

I have not failed; I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

--Thomas Edison

It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity. It's all tending toward mediocrity in the same way that all atoms are sort of dissipating out toward the expanse of the universe.

--Ira Glass

Absence weakens mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and kindles fires.

--François de la Rochefoucauld

A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.

--Jean de la Bruyere

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

--William Arthur Ward

A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.

--Mary Kay Ash

Everything I've ever done was out of fear of being mediocre.

--Chet Atkins

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent.

--Sophia Loren

I'd rather write one good book than ten mediocre ones.

--Donna Tartt

*Poem*

I Think of Bess

Each time I find myself

completely taken up in

a woman (and it happens

often), when I wake

to see one face in

my mind's eye, when

I stop to discover

I'm overtaken with

a certain kind of

passion I've known

since adolescence,

my dear, long-lost, first

"serious love" Bess

is there in the room

with me. And I trip over

myself wanting the same

things I wanted back then,

to be more like

John Donne, barely

to contain the verve of

Shakespeare within my

puny frame, somehow

to channel Orpheus.

I come back to my senses

and realize I'm much

too old now for any

of that, too set in

my ways, too trampled

by the vagaries of time.

How could a person be

like John Donne when

he no longer believes in

the power of love?

He couldn't.

I can't. But I still

think of Bess.

*Music*

I downloaded Joe Henry's Scar which predates most of what I'd had. I sat down only intending to listen to a track or two; I listened to the entire album two times through. It's _that good_, but more importantly it holds up to repeated listenings. This is an artist with a fully realized conception of his place in the pantheon of great musicians. Every track is sublime in some way, yet these could only be "hits" in some alternate and slightly off-kilter universe. The sound of the _other side_ of the carnival. Every music of every kind seemingly makes its way onto the record, from jazz to electronica to rock n roll; Henry often uses a format that sort of sounds like jazz, but most definitely alt-jazz. Henry doesn't mess around with cheap lyrics, as you might be able to tell from the following:

"Don't tell me to stop,

tell the rain not to drop,

tell the wind not to blow

'cause you said so."

"Looking for all the world like for once

it was you not me that had been struck."

_____

1. Stop, Joe Henry

2. Tangled Up with You, The Mumlers

3. Miles from Nowhere, Cat Stevens

4. Everybody's Cryin' Mercy (Mose Allison), Bonnie Raitt

5. The Underdog, Spoon

6. Struck, Joe Henry

7. Nadine, Fool's Gold

8. Postcard, Jess Klein

9. Secret Heart, Feist

10. On the Road to Find Out, Cat Stevens

11. Rough and Tumble, Joe Henry

12. When My Time Comes, Dawes

13. Armchairs (live off Precipice), Andrew Bird

14. They Done Wrong/We Done Wrong, White Rabbits

15. Rhythm and Soul, Spoon

16. Junebug, Robert Francis

17. Mean Flower, Joe Henry

18. Tea for the Tillerman, Cat Stevens

Peace love and ATOM jazz