hortus conclusus

Looking at these images of people from many different historical periods interacting with scent makes me think about the ways in which thinking about people of the past smelling things makes their lives seem somehow more real, but at the same time, it makes them seem more exotic.    For example if we were to smell the contents of that Egyptian pot, I’m sure we would feel at home, comforted by the recognizable smells of frankincense, lotus, or rose.  But also, the figures’ attitudes, their ritualistic poses, their very alien appearance, makes the content of that pot seem somehow untouchable, distant. A few Centuries Later…. we can imagine how that swag of citrus and laurel behind this religious tableau smells. We can even imagine the sweet musty smell of Mary Magdalene’s perfumed hair interacting with Jesus’ dirty, sweaty feet.  but we are also distanced by the exotic foreignness of the characters’ gestures, by the knowledge of this as a foundational myth, a...

I have been thinking about the fact that for most people, drying hair and clothing is one of the most intimate fragrance experiences they have in any given week. Looking at this painting by John Sloan, I can almost imagine all the different smells—the soapy clean musk of the laundry, the animalic smell of human hair, the perfume from the shampoo, the smell of sweat, the hot asphalt, the myriad city smells of exhaust, heat, sewer, food, etc. The act of drying one’s hair is such a special, human thing, such an affirmation of femininity… Consider the beautiful image of women throwing their hair up to dry it in Robert Frost’s “Birches”: When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many...

  Happy Sunday all, and happy riddle day! Here, just flown in, an enigmatic flacon of perfume awaits your sharp brains and swift typing fingers…Who will be the first to guess which bottle wraps her real name in a veil of mystery? I’m on a fairy tale kick right now, so bear with me! A merry young maid lived in a dark wood, (with a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no…) She lived with dwarves; she made them food. (with a higglety-piggelty pomme-kin) She was so fair and bright and good, (With a ….etc.) she never suffered a petulant mood. (with a higglety-pigglety etc….) Only one weakness had she; ‘twas that she loved to eat sweet fruit low in fat. A pear and a cherry, an apricot too; blackcurrants, redcurrants, blueberries blue. These she loved even more than her life, and these were her downfall--caused the strife that rent their little woodland home, for when this maid was all alone-- the dwarves in the mines--  an old woman...

I’m trying something a little different for the Scents of the Mediterranean Blogfest—in honor of Ines, who, I know, loves fiction, I have written a little story about the perfume trade in the Mediterranean in the 13 th century… Let me know what you think. Thanks to Ines of “All I am-a Redhead” and Elena of “Perfume Shrine” for organizing this fun party! The sun—God’s candle, some call it—shines on a busy scene in the 13 th century northern Mediterranean port city. Ships pull close to shore, and a multiethnic population of sailors, merchants, and dogsbodies energetically heave large chests out of the wooden ships’ great bellies. You can almost imagine the laden ships breathing a sigh of relief as their month-long indigestion is suddenly, finally cured. “Finally, that sharp point in my belly on the left side has eased off” your imaginary sentient ship declares to the larger more gruff neighbor to the west in the bay. You laugh indulgently at your private flight of fancy, a moment o...

well, here we are again—the night of the full moon, the night of my discontent. As usual, I am up at an ungodly hour, musing about this and that, to the great detriment of my students tomorrow morning, who will have to deal with a zombie TA… Ah well, I guess this kind of sleeplessness reminds me I am human, and a little bit nuts. Speaking of madness, I have found one of the best depictions of lunacy—and here, it is as literal as possible—on my new favorite show, “The Mighty Boosh” which is positively surreal, and beyond hilarious. IN each episode, the moon emerges in the sky, only to ramble meanderingly through a series of bizarre non-sequiturs—well, you have to see it to know what I mean, so luckily someone has posted a “Best of the Moon” montage on youtube. There is a long tradition of depicting the man in the moon as a madman , and Noel Fielding’s (my GOD right now, but more on t hat below) latest interpretation is but the latest of these. Perhaps you may remember the clas...

As I’ve been hanging out on the blogosphere, commenting on posts and suchlike, I have been harvesting the more interesting captchas—you know, those things that interrupt you when you’re posting a comment to ‘make sure you are a human being.’ I love the way so many of them seem like they could really be words, could actually mean something. SO today, for your pleasure and amusement, I have put some captchas into sentences, some of which I find rather evocative, if I do say so myself. There’s no narrative here; each sentence should be taken on its own, although it would be interesting to try to write a story in captcha someday. Enjoy: When the Whebe had been fully Ingolpen …..the Wheedl increased grossly in Wigth . She was Foning him with her Nodlex . Every hardworking housekeeper deserves an Enseter to soment the Wynkoop . Cring the Polosmith crafted a Shlozorp with the Croofnh of his Moldha . Hunting Niati and Conih was the great hero Barinson’s favorite Iggesig ...

Welcome to the second installment of my new feature here on Hortus Conclusus , in which a perfume bottle sings a little riddle, and it’s up to you, dear readers, to guess which bottle of perfume is riddling. Which of you will be the first to guess this one, I wonder? This poem is an emulation of Dr. Seuss’s genius rhyme about the Flooboober Babboober bubs in On Beyond Zebra , one of the first poems I memorized as a child: If sometimes you don’t feel like channeling mother, put me on, for I smell like blubbery rubber. I’m no good to eat and I’m kind of a Goth, (If one says that with color that repels the moth) Although I am housed with luxury baubles, I’d prefer an alley where the streetwalker wobbles. I’m green and I’m amber as well as a powder, but my signature note sings considerably louder. If you know who I am, then tell me my name though my brothers and sisters sound somewhat the same, I am quite unique; unlike them, I’m no hack. My name, my dear frien...

IN my other non-perfumista life, I am writing a dissertation on the medieval English outlaw   tradition, so this hilarious post over at “Geoffrey Chaucer hath a Blog” really tickled my funnybone this morning. Check it out, if only to marvel that this blogger writes everything in Middle English! I think it is especially fun to think about Robin Hood in the summer months, when the leaves are green and the birds are singing, and it’s possible to imagine a happy life among the greenwood trees, living off the land and an occasional deer. Question: is there a fragrance that captures the summer scent of a ferny deciduous forest? My go-to Robin Hood perfume (yes, I have one, why are you looking at me so funny?) is Wild Hunt , but that isn’t really high summer. Suggestions, anyone?   Images by Wyeth and Pyle, courtesy of the Robin Hood Project

Asteres me'n a?mfi ka'lan sela'nnan a?^ips a?pykru'ptoisi fa'ennon ei?^dos, o?'ppota plh'ðoisa ma'lista la'mphs a?rguria ga^n. The gleaming stars all about the shining moon Hide their bright faces, when full-orbed and splendid In the sky she floats, flooding the shadowed earth with clear silver light. (Sappho, quoted by Eustathius of Thessalonica in the twelfth century.) Tonight, I, the moon, and Bois des Isles sit silently together, looking out over an illuminated landscape.  Perfect contentm ent and absolute restlessness vie with one another within my mortal frame. Just another sleepless night on the full moon. My husband took a bunch of really cool photos of the full moon from my dissertation advisor’s country home in Danby, New York. As I sit alone, awake, tonight, I think it is quite a nice series. But then, I’m partial. Sleep well, all.     Don’t let the bedbugs bite….. Credits: text from http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sa...

Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. SO says the freed Ariel, and so do I wish I could do. Alas, I am but a human and must content myself with sucking nectar from a different kind of vessel. And I found some interesting new nectar in an unexpected place this morning. A few weeks ago, Jessica said: “Ever since I started reading your blog I have been searching for scents that I like and find wearable (which, admittedly, are rather few). One of my absolute favorite smells and flavors is citrus (particularly orange blossom, can you recommend a good--and perhaps more widely available--soliflore? Serge Lutens is kind of inaccessible from my current location). I have always loved the marriage of citrus and "darker" elements wh...

I love seasonal changes! In fact, I love them so much that I even teach a class about them at my university, called (admittedly a bit awkwardly) “A Midsummer Night’s Weirdness.” This class chronicles in particular the liminal moments of the seasonal year as celebrated in traditional societies, for long before Shakespeare wrote his play, strange things have been happening on the longest day of summer and the longest day of winter in Medieval European literature. Portals to other realms open up, lovers fall in and out of love, strange fairy women appear to choose a mate or a victim, and magic boats materialize at the shore, waiting to take an adventurous hero away on a voyage he’ll never forget—and from which he may never return. My class examines some of the texts which describe the otherworldly effects of these weirdest of nights, including Celtic, French, and Spanish romance, including works by Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, British ballads, ...

. Krh'ssai nu' pot? w?^d? e?mmele'ws po'dessin w?rxeu^nt? a?pa'lois a?mf? epo'enta Bw^mon po'as te'pen a?'nðos ma'lakon ma'teisai. Thus sometimes, the Cretan women, tender footed, dance in measure round the fair altar , crushing the fine bloom of the grass. Grassy scents for your consideration: Balmain Vent Vert Tommy Hilfiger T Girl CB I hate perfumes To See a Flower Nasomatto Hindu Grass Tauer Vetiver Dance Demeter Firefly Weil Bambou and antilope Gap Grass (I haven’t tried this) Annick Goutal Petite Cherie And a grass scent that ‘de-stresses’ here Marc Jacobs Grass Other ideas? CREDITS: Claude Lorraine painting and 3 dancing nymphs relief from Wikimedia Commons, Sappho poem and translation at Sacredtexts.com

First, a reminder to enter for a chance to win my Tauer perfume giveaway here as you dear readers may know, I am an old fan of the great English domestic novel , but I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon; as I grow older, I begin identifying less with the sweet young 15 year old heroines, and more with their mothers and aunts with all their peccadilloes of character and odd obsessions. Do they ever grow tired of watching, aiding, and abetting the young females as they perform their elaborate mating dances, flirting and giggling till the wee hours of the morning at country dances while they, the older women, gossip and play cards? Do they ever tire of living vicariously through them, when their blood is pulsing just as quickly—or even more so--through their own veins? Do they  ever wish their stolid, unimaginative, dependable husbands would shape up and be more attentive? As they sit in their boudoir among their pots of cream and scent, do they fantasize about a new romanc...

First, a reminder to enter for a chance to win my Tauer perfume giveaway here You know I love Persia. Here in the classic erotic handbook The Perfumed Garden , find a fragrant cure for impotence. I imagine drinking such perfume might make anyone feel in the mood, provided he doesn’t get a bellyache… “Undoing of Aiguillettes (Impotence for a Time ) Know, O Vizir (God be good to you!), that impotence arises from three causes: Firstly, from the tying of aiguillettes. Secondly, from a feeble and relaxed constitution. And thirdly, from too premature ejaculation. To cure the tying of aiguillettes you must take galanga, cinnamon from Mecca, cloves, Indian cachou, nutmeg, Indian cubebs, sparrowwort, cinnamon, Persian pepper, Indian thistle, cardamoms, pyrether, laurel seed, and gilly flowers. All these ingredients must be pounded together carefully, and one drinks of it as much as one can, morning and night, in broth, particularly in pigeon broth; fowl broth may, ...

The time has come to declare the winner of the book and fragrance giveaway! I wrote down all your names, cut them into strips, put them in a bowl, went over and bothered my husband, who was busy composing, and a good sport, but obviously slightly irritated at being bothered, had him blindfolded and made him draw out one strip… SO…. The winner is:    Congratulations Gypsy! Email me your address, and I’ll send out the goods posthaste!