All smells fall into a few basic categories, almost like primary colors: minty (peppermint), floral (roses), ethereal (pears), musky (musk), resinous (camphor), foul (rotten eggs), and acrid (vinegar). This is why perfume manufacturers have had such success in concocting floral bouquets or just the right threshold of muskiness or fruitiness. Natural substances are no longer required; perfumes can be made on the molecular level in laboratories. One of the first perfumes based on a completely synthetic smell (an aldehyde) was Chanel No. 5, which was created in 1922 and has remained a classic of sensual femininity. It has led to classic comments, too. When Marilyn Monroe was asked by a reporter what she wore to bed, she answered coyly, “Chanel No. 5.” Its top note — the one you smell first — is the aldehyde, then your nose detects the middle note of jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, orris, and ylang-ylang, and finally the base note, which carries the perfume and makes it linger: vetiver, sandalwood, cedar, vanilla, amber, civet, and musk. Base notes are almost always of animal origin, ancient emissaries of smell that transport us across woodlands and savannas.
Sniff @ The WayPost
It's time again for me to unveil my nostrils and sniff and be sniffed by willing human mammals of NE Portland. Beginning tonight, I will be inviting strangers to join me in an olfactory exchange at The Waypost. This will happen every other Saturday from 5 to 7 pm for a few months.
More on this ongoing project HERE.
Thirty Eight - Thousand
I'm 38 years old today. The 3 and the 8 stack up together and make 11 times 2 makes 22 time 2 makes 44 times two makes 88. 38. Does 38 feel like 23 Does 38 feel like 90? This is how 38 looks right now. A little bendy in the upper vertebrates. A little crinklier in the eyes and forehead. A wisp or two grayer. A smidgen wobblier in the ass. These are all mirror objects. Blood and bone and water, skin sag. What is the spirit of 38? I can sit still for longer periods of time. I can watch myself from a distance and not become ruffled in that watching. Falling doesn't feel as hard. I can hear yes and no and maybe. I can speak when the pause whispers go. Also, in 38, in my fourth year of mothering, I have graduated into a less guilty place, my mother guilt is on its way to being eradicated. It's taken some thought. The outside pressure to be only mother isn't sticking to my skin the way it did a year ago, when I turned 37. I am. She is. We are. We come in 3's. Today she will see me as mother creature, but she will see me as Felicity. She will see herself as Beckett. She will fly and I will let her. I will fly and she will let me. She will see me standing alone, making, or not. She will see me sitting with myself, not feeling like I should be there, breasts out, ready for suckling. We will come together. We are together and separate. My breasts have become my own again. This is the love that I know. This is the love that I want. This is the love that I feel, entirely.
