doomsday_disco
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Everything posted by doomsday_disco
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Shattered amber tears, smoked saffron, burnt sugar, myrrh, brown leather, peru balsam, vetiver, and ash. Joseph Mallord William Turner
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Honey, Raspberry Jam, and Buttercream.
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Who wants to go Dutch with us on a warm slice of buttered pumpkin bread covered in chocolate candy sprinkles?
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In the shadows of a neon hive-city, insectoid forms glide between thick curtains of bright green vines and crackling circuit boards. Blooming under sheets of acid rain and electric moons, this scent opens with the dark crackle of leather: slick, sunless, and alive with static. A surge of petrichor follows, like rainfall striking alien soil, soaking into a garden grown from strange seeds and synthetic spores. Peculiar blooms unfurl, humming with iridescent electricity. Moss clings to chrome roots, cybernetic orchids burst from humid soil.
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Winding through the Tree of Knowledge, the serpent offers transformative awareness, wisdom, and the awakened potential that elevates the soul or brings its downfall. Far be it from me to pass up an opportunity to revisit my beloved Snake Oil (especially with a Biblical twist) so I’ve crafted a Serpent in the Garden take on the original formula, suffused with fig, pomegranate, apple, green sandalwood, olibanum, blackcurrant, and iridescent serpent scale accord.
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This month, I experimented with a new sub-concept for 13: Friday the 13th in a forgotten library, with 13 notes that evoke the search for lost stories and the desperate drive to preserve knowledge before it fades into oblivion. Cacao threaded through yellowed paper, cracked leather bindings, spilled ink, black tea, tobacco leaf, cedar shelves, black mahogany, violin bow resin, clove bud, incense smoke, coffee bean, papyrus, and myrrh. 13 is significant, whether you consider it lucky, unlucky or just plain odd. Many believe it to be unfortunate… … because there were 13 present at the Last Supper. … Loki crashed a party of 12 at Valhalla, which ended in Baldur’s death. … Oinomaos killed 13 of Hippodamia’s suitors before Pelops finally, in his own shady way, defeated the jealous king. … In ancient Rome, Hecate’s witches gathered in groups of 12, the Goddess herself being the 13th in the coven. Concern over the number thirteen echoes back beyond the Christian era. Line 13 was omitted form the Code of Hammurabi. The shivers over Friday the 13th also have some interesting origins: … Christ was allegedly crucified on Friday the 13th. … On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrests of Jaques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and sixty of his senior knights. … In British custom, hangings were held on Fridays, and there were 13 steps on the gallows leading to the noose. To combat the superstition, Robert Ingersoll and the Thirteen Club held thirteen-men dinners during the 19th Century. Successful? Hardly. The number still invokes trepidation to this day. A recent whimsical little serial killer study showed that the following murderers all have names that total thirteen letters: Theodore Bundy Jeffrey Dahmer Albert De Salvo John Wayne Gacy And, with a little stretch of the imagination, you can also fit ”˜Jack the Ripper’ and ”˜Charles Manson’ into that equation. More current-era paranoia: modern schoolchildren stop their memorization of the multiplication tables at 12. There were 13 Plutonium slugs in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Apollo 13 wasn’t exactly the most successful space mission. All of these are things that modern triskaidekaphobes point to when justifying their fears. For some, 13 is an extremely fortuitous and auspicious number… … In Jewish tradition, God has 13 Attributes of Mercy. Also, there were 13 tribes of Israel, 13 principles of Jewish faith, and 13 is considered the age of maturity. … The ancient Egyptians believed that there were 12 stages of spiritual achievement in this lifetime, and a 13th beyond death. … The word for thirteen, in Chinese, sounds much like the word which means “must be alive”. Thirteen, whether you love it or loathe it, is a pretty cool number all around. … In some theories of relativity, there are 13 dimensions. … It is a prime number, lucky number, star number, Wilson Prime, and Fibonacci number. … There are 13 Archimedean solids. AND… … There were 13 original colonies when the United States were founded. Says a lot about the US, doesn’t it? _ _ _ Since 2026 contains a whopping THREE Friday-the-13ths (Fridays-the-13th?) we’ve decided to call in some misfortune-warding reinforcements. Each version of this year’s 13 perfume oil will be accompanied by its own bonus luck charm: a free 1/32oz imp of an original perfume oil inspired by lucky finds from our seasonal crossroads wanderings. Those who collect all three will end up with a veritable bracelet’s worth of lucky charms to treasure and wear as needed! March’s charm: FORSAKEN ELEPHANT PUPPET (review thread located here).
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In the First Book of Samuel it is written: “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul,” (1 Samuel 18:1) and in that binding the axis of a kingdom trembles. Robe, armor, sword, and girdle are given freely, a voluntary unmaking of inheritance in favor of devotion. This is love as sacred oath, not fever but fidelity, a bond forged in the shadow of Saul’s rising wrath and the uncertainty of exile. When David laments, “thy love to me was wonderful beyond the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26) grief becomes testimony and loyalty becomes scripture. Jonathan’s renunciation is ego relinquished so that another may ascend, sulfur tempered by mercy, ambition dissolved into covenantal gold. Here the Lovers stand not in garden innocence but beneath the weight of throne and spear, choosing allegiance over advantage, devotion over dynasty. Love does not seize power but surrenders it, and in that surrender is transfigured into something that outlives both battle and crown. Shepherd’s wool and wild honey, cedarwood and olive leaf, sun-warmed leather, plumes of frankincense rising from a quiet altar, and a thread of red pomegranate seed crushed between steady hands.
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Courtly love that becomes cosmology, a spiritual ascent, a ladder to heaven. In The Divine Comedy, Beatrice is not simply muse or lover, but a guide. She is radiant Sophia, living wisdom, the luminous intelligence that draws the soul upward through ever-widening spheres of divine light. Beatrice’s eyes are mirrors that reflect the radiance of Heaven itself, “with eyes of light more bright than any star.” Her gaze does not return to the pilgrim but lifts him upward, directing his sight beyond her to the splendor of the Eternal. “Then to the eyes of beauty my eyes turned,” Dante says, and the beauty he sees there is “far more beautiful than the vast universe beneath his feet.” The beloved is not held but beheld, and in that gaze the soul is altered. Though she is one of the Lovers, she also rises above them, not to inflame desire but to purify it. Through her presence, longing is refined from appetite into ascent. The earthly self, heavy with burdens, is gradually transmuted. L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle. In these Lovers exists adoration that moves the sun and stars. Longing clarifies, burns, and rises, and the anima lifts the earthly self toward its red perfection, where desire is no longer hunger but illumination. Love that is hope, love that is divine, love that reflects the radiance of the highest heavens. White rose and scarlet iris, beeswax smoke and frankincense tears, vellum and sacred myrrh, and a thread of red saffron steeped in luminous amber.
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In the song attributed to Homer, their devotion turns the tide of war. Patroclus is the hidden heart of the warrior, the tender pulse beneath iron and oath. When he falls, the world blackens, grief becomes wildfire, and pride is burned away in the furnace of loss and sorrow. This is love as ordeal and the beloved as mirror of the soul. Nigredo in the shadow of the pyre, calcination in the roar of battle. From mourning rises terrible clarity, bright and merciless as a drawn blade. Love does not soften fate; it forges it. Bronze-bright armor warmed by the sun, salt-wind off the Aegean, crushed amarantos beneath restless feet, and the metallic sting of blood on sand.
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In the book of Book of Genesis, the first pair stand in untested unity, formed of earth and breath, innocence and possibility. “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18), and from that declaration arises polarity as gift rather than fracture, difference as the condition of communion. Bone of bone and flesh of flesh, they are not rivals but reflections, two aspects of one living mystery: the soul and the spirit of humankind. Yet the drama of the Lovers is not stasis but choice. When the fruit is taken and shared, consciousness deepens and the seamlessness of Eden gives way to the currents of history. “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken” (Genesis 3:23). Through Eve’s invitation and Adam’s consent, spirit and soul descend into the rivers of Time, entering the full measure of embodied existence with its labor and ecstasy, its birth pangs and graves. Mortality becomes their teacher, and the dust from which Adam was shaped becomes the destiny to which he must return, “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19). Esoterically, she may be seen as the animating impulse, the quickening spirit that urges experience, while he embodies the ensouled humanity that must walk the path she opens. Their so-called fall is also initiation, the necessary passage from unconscious unity into lived duality, where joy and sorrow are known rather than merely imagined. The Lovers here are not simply the bliss of Eden but the courage to enter time together, to face consequence side by side, and to seek, through exile and return, the restoration of a higher garden not of innocence but of awakened wholeness. In the first dawn of consciousness, before history clothed itself in shame, stand Adam and Eve as archetypes of a polarity not yet divided against itself. She is the descending brilliance, arching her consciousness towards the world itself, the soul drawn upward toward gnosis. He turns toward her, embodied will answering its own reflection. Above them burns the stark, pure radiance of unity and within them sleeps the yet-unforged Stone. The serpent coils at the axis of the Tree. It is the mercurial spirit, subtle and ascending, the luminous volatility of both knowledge and growth that refuses stasis. Through its whisper the fruit becomes the tincture that awakens innocence into awareness. Sulfur awakens in desire, Mercury stirs in receptivity, salt forms in the tears of exile. The expulsion is the separation required for conjunction, solve preceding coagula. What was unconsciously whole must become consciously divided so it may one day reunite in wisdom. In these Lovers, unity dissolves into duality, and in that darkening begins the opus. This is not the loss of Eden; it is the ignition of the Great Work. Skin musk, fig sap, pomegranate, apple skin, and the smoke and warmth of humankind’s newly-kindled fire.
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Blushing ruby chocolate swirling with vanilla, spices, and the dark, silky sweetness of Snake Oil.
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Vanillekipferl plunked in a pile of pine needles.
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Rain-soaked leaves, lightning-struck wood, gleaming black myrrh, smoked cedar, hinoki, and black tea. Yosa Buson
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“O father, see yonder! see yonder!” he says; “My boy, upon what doest thou fearfully gaze?” — “O, ’tis the Erl-King with his crown and his shroud.” “No, my son, it is but a dark wreath of the cloud.” A dread shape forms in the mist: chilled white musk, rain-soaked earth, and a gleam of blackened steel.
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A tribute to Epidendrum nutans, the nocturnal seductress of the forest canopy. Sweet, indolic jasmine curls around a breath of citrus and moonlit air, a perfume that blooms when the world sleeps.
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An aromatic crusty loaf covered in pre-bake slashes to create a floral pattern on top, flecked with flax, sesame, pumpkin seeds.
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A Lupercalia Box of Chocolates scent that was supposed to go live this year but we were short on components. A chocolate truffle filled with wild plum, amaretto, burgundy wine, and black currant.
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Each purchase of Gloomily, Gloomily comes with a 1/32 oz imp of the Donkey’s Tail. The Donkey’s Tail is not available for sale on its own, and make sure you keep it safe as you never know where it might end up. “That Accounts for a Good Deal,” said Eeyore gloomily. “It Explains Everything. No Wonder.” Doubles as a bell-pull: a beribboned strip of French lavender, bourbon vanilla, silver thistle, grey musk, pink silk, and well-loved grey cotton.
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“Good morning, Eeyore,” said Pooh. “Good morning, Pooh Bear,” said Eeyore gloomily. “If it is a good morning,” he said. “Which I doubt,” said he. “Why, what’s the matter?” “Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.” “Can’t all what?” said Pooh, rubbing his nose. “Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush.” “Oh!” said Pooh. He thought for a long time, and then asked, “What mulberry bush is that?” “Bon-hommy,” went on Eeyore gloomily. “French word meaning bonhommy,” he explained. “I’m not complaining, but There It Is.” Every solid friend group has at least one goth kid representing. Soft grey musk, pink thistle, lavender ash, tea leaves, pale iris, grey lilac, and rain-soaked moss. Each purchase of Gloomily, Gloomily comes with a 1/32 oz imp of The Donkey’s Tail. The Donkey’s Tail is not available for sale on its own, and make sure you keep it safe as you never know where it might end up.
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Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn’t. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh. When I first heard his name, I said, just as you are going to say, “But I thought he was a boy?” “So did I,” said Christopher Robin. “Then you can’t call him Winnie?” “I don’t.” “But you said——” “He’s Winnie-ther-Pooh. Don’t you know what ‘ther’ means?” “Ah, yes, now I do,” I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it is all the explanation you are going to get. Honey-slathered buttered toast, glittering amber beams of sunlight, warm milk, cotton stuffing, and cuddly roasted vanilla.
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Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between his paws and began to think. First of all he said to himself: “That buzzing-noise means something. You don’t get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee.” Then he thought another long time, and said: “And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.” And then he got up, and said: “And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it.” So he began to climb the tree. He climbed and he climbed and he climbed, and as he climbed he sang a little song to himself. It went like this: Isn’t it funny How a bear likes honey? Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! I wonder why he does? Then he climbed a little further … and a little further … and then just a little further. By that time he had thought of another song. It’s a very funny thought that, if Bears were Bees, They’d build their nests at the bottom of trees. And that being so (if the Bees were Bears), We shouldn’t have to climb up all these stairs. He was getting rather tired by this time, so that is why he sang a Complaining Song. He was nearly there now, and if he just stood on that branch … Crack! “Oh, help!” said Pooh, as he dropped ten feet on the branch below him. The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. A golden gourmand for a philosopher. Wild clover honey buzzing with mead fizz, a gust of woodsmoke, and a dusting of ambered pollen.
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On Monday, when the sun is hot I wonder to myself a lot: “Now is it true, or is it not, “That what is which and which is what?” On Tuesday, when it hails and snows, The feeling on me grows and grows That hardly anybody knows If those are these or these are those. On Wednesday, when the sky is blue, And I have nothing else to do, I sometimes wonder if it’s true That who is what and what is who. On Thursday, when it starts to freeze And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees, How very readily one sees That these are whose—but whose are these? On Friday—— Hot, sunny cardamom amber and milky musk, honeyed rice and snowy slush.
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Well, he was humming this hum to himself, and walking along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being somebody else, when suddenly he came to a sandy bank, and in the bank was a large hole. “Aha!” said Pooh. (Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.) “If I know anything about anything, that hole means Rabbit,” he said, “and Rabbit means Company,” he said, “and Company means Food and Listening-to-Me-Humming and such like. Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.” So he bent down, put his head into the hole, and called out: “Is anybody at home?” There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the hole, and then silence. “What I said was, ‘Is anybody at home?'” called out Pooh very loudly. “No!” said a voice; and then added, “You needn’t shout so loud. I heard you quite well the first time.” “Bother!” said Pooh. “Isn’t there anybody here at all?” “Nobody.” Winnie-the-Pooh took his head out of the hole, and thought for a little, and he thought to himself, “There must be somebody there, because somebody must have said ‘Nobody.'” So he put his head back in the hole, and said: “Hallo, Rabbit, isn’t that you?” “No,” said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this time. “But isn’t that Rabbit’s voice?” “I don’t think so,” said Rabbit. “It isn’t meant to be.” “Oh!” said Pooh. He took his head out of the hole, and had another think, and then he put it back, and said: “Well, could you very kindly tell me where Rabbit is?” “He has gone to see his friend Pooh Bear, who is a great friend of his.” “But this is Me!” said Bear, very much surprised. “What sort of Me?” “Pooh Bear.” “Are you sure?” said Rabbit, still more surprised. “Quite, quite sure,” said Pooh. “Oh, well, then, come in.” So Pooh pushed and pushed and pushed his way through the hole, and at last he got in. “You were quite right,” said Rabbit, looking at him all over. “It is you. Glad to see you.” “Who did you think it was?” “Well, I wasn’t sure. You know how it is in the Forest. One can’t have anybody coming into one’s house. One has to be careful. What about a mouthful of something?” Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o’clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, “Honey or condensed milk with your bread?” he was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “But don’t bother about the bread, please.” And for a long time after that he said nothing … until at last, humming to himself in a rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and said that he must be going on. “Must you?” said Rabbit politely. “Well,” said Pooh, “I could stay a little longer if it—if you——” and he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder. “As a matter of fact,” said Rabbit, “I was going out myself directly.” “Oh, well, then, I’ll be going on. Good-bye.” “Well, good-bye, if you’re sure you won’t have any more.” “Is there any more?” asked Pooh quickly. Rabbit took the covers off the dishes, and said, “No, there wasn’t.” “I thought not,” said Pooh, nodding to himself. “Well, good-bye. I must be going on.” The Hundred Acre Wood’s resident Virgo (affectionate). The scent of neat rows and polite refusals: toasted oats and clover honey, crushed lemon verbena, wild carrot leaf, and white tea poured with exacting care. A dab of condensed milk on a clean spoon, a faint rustle of vetiver, and a courteous cough to suggest that your visit has gone on quite long enough.
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The Dregs of a Bottle of Vanilla Extract (Discovered in the Mud)
doomsday_disco posted a topic in The Edward Gorey House
Alas, poor Marsh! Dribbles of masticated vanilla pods soaked in ethanol and caked with mud. -
Raspberry punch with elderberry liqueur, lemon juice, a splash of gin, and a smattering of Victoria sponge crumbs.