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*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