doomsday_disco

Black Currant and Black Violet.

…The second time is set

Whose crumbs the crows inspect

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the

Farmer’s corn

Men eat of it and die

– Emily Dickinson

 

An ironic caw: dry hay absolute, syrupy candied fig, a lash of scathing pink pepper, and the dark gleam of bittersweet blackcurrant.

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?

 

Thirteen notes of empowerment and good fortune soaked in bittersweet chocolate: red ginger, cardamom, star anise, cloves, coriander, fennel, black pepper, pink pepper, red chili, sweet aged patchouli, mallow root, ti leaf, and molasses.

Once the guardian of the garden of Hesperides, the Dragon constellation Draco coils around the sky’s north pole. Never sleeping and never setting below the Northern Horizon, Draco and its Draconis stars within are now the celestial guardian, forever watching over us all.

 

A protective blend of Dragon’s Blood, Clove, and Amber.

I received a lovely iris card from @Greenwoodtree. I just put it in my cubicle. Once the fifth card arrives, I'll take a picture of all of the cards to share.

 

I am so, so sorry for your loss, @Greenwoodtree. And I am sorry you had to deal with a terrible vet on top of it all. Sending lots of love your way.  

Delightfully moisturizing and fragranced to charm, not overpower. Treat your skin to a touch of luxury with this sumptuous, softening blend.  

 

Bulgarian rose absolute, rose otto, sandalwood, 3-year aged patchouli, orris absolute, rosemary, and rose hips. Soft and seductive, like a lover's kiss.

 

Ingredients: Water, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Stearic Acid, Emulsifying Wax, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Optiphen Plus, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume blends. 

Delightfully moisturizing and fragranced to charm, not overpower. Treat your skin to a touch of luxury with this sumptuous, softening blend.  

 

Glittering ambrette seed, crystalline sparkles of lemon and orange blossom, blood orange and orange peel, bay leaf, sweet myrrh, and caraway.

 

Ingredients: Water, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Stearic Acid, Emulsifying Wax, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Optiphen Plus, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume blends. 

I received three cards over the weekend: a frog card made by @Lucchesa, a spring flowers postcard from @theseagrows, and a cactus postcard from @Thuy! I'm going to hang them up in my cubicle and will post a picture here of all of the cards once they've all arrived.  

The Garden is not Paradise; it is a threshold. A whisper coiling through Eden's dusk: a sinuous sliver of green apple, pomegranate wine, and ripe black fig entwined with nig-blooming vines and enveloped in myrrh, fossilized amber resin, and smoky oud.

A violent rupture of blood-soaked golden petals threaded with saffron and clove smoke and splashed with blackcurrant and poppy absolute.

I'm a little late (I had trouble finding the Century Guild postcards I wanted to use!), but they're going out today!

 

@Greenwoodtree I am sending a big hug your way and hope that things start looking up for you soon!  

“The full-length velvet glove hides the fist.” A wallop of our brick accord sheathed in gentle sandalwood, warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh.

Thank you, may I have another? A rich, earthy brick accord encased in supple, spit-polished leather and flagged with a well-worn black cotton bandana. 

A glass raised to the celebratory spirit of Pride, in defiance of everything conspiring to our collective downfall. *clink* The convivial scent of a Tequila Sunrise (tequila, crème de cassis, lime juice, and sparkling soda water) splashed in the brick-lined gutter. 

Never forget that our classic Snake Oil perfume blend — usually so soft and versatile — is prepared to strike with deadly force. This brickified variation is deeper, earthier, and hissing with rage: vintage patchouli and aged vanilla absolute conspiring with vegetal musks and dark spices to defy the “Three-Article Rule”, tip over a paddy wagon, and make out in the streets. 

The essence of grit and obstinance distilled into 5ml of pure oil: crumbly kiln-fired clay and a hint of sand.

It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,

 

That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.

 

And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.

 

Like the ocean is your god-self;

 

It remains for ever undefiled.

 

And like the ether it lifts but the winged.

 

Even like the sun is your god-self;

 

It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent. But your god-self dwells not alone in your being.

 

Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,

 

But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.

 

And of the man in you would I now speak.

 

For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.

 

 

Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.

 

But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,

 

So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

 

And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

 

Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.

 

 

You are the way and the wayfarers.

 

And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.

 

Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

 

And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:

 

The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,

 

And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.

 

The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,

 

And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.

 

Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,

 

And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.

 

You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;

 

For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.

 

And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.

 

 

 

If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,

 

Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.

 

And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.

 

And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;

 

And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.

 

And you judges who would be just,

 

What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?

 

What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?

 

And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,

 

Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?

 

 

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

 

Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?

 

Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.

 

Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves. And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?

 

Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self, And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

 

Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves: Oman frankincense, Peru balsam, cardamom, and smoked amber.

 

The sales from February, March, and May’s scents from the Prophet series (On Giving, On Eating & Drinking, On Work, On Joy & Sorrow, On Buying and Selling, and On Crime and Punishment) benefit the ACLU because we are in desperate need of civil rights protections right now. The Take Action area of their website presents handy opportunities for speaking out against current and ongoing injustices, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.

To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.

 

It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.

 

Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

 

When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices,—

 

Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value. And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.

 

To such men you should say,

 

“Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;

 

For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.”

 

And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players,—buy of their gifts also.

 

For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.

 

And before you leave the market place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.

 

For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.

The master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied: black fig, pomegranate, golden apple, dates, apricots, and frankincense smoke.

 

The sales from February, March, and May’s scents from the Prophet series (On Giving, On Eating & Drinking, On Work, On Joy & Sorrow, On Buying and Selling, and On Crime and Punishment) benefit the ACLU because we are in desperate need of civil rights protections right now. The Take Action area of their website presents handy opportunities for speaking out against current and ongoing injustices, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.

As many of you know, we recently moved the whole BPAL Carny Show to Philadelphia. It was a huge change for all of us in myriad ways, not the least of which was the adjustment of moving from a lifetime in a Mediterranean / semi-arid zone to a humid subtropical pocket of the mid-Atlantic. What is “weather”? What is “rain”? What is this white stuff falling on my head every winter? Wait, I have to salt the Earth? What does that mean? Like I said, it was a huge change for us Angelinos.

 

Even though Pennsylvania is green and gorgeous, lawns aren’t the most ecologically-friendly option for your yard so when we moved here, we began the process of replacing our lawn with clover and wildflowers. Semi-meadowing, if you will. Last year, our neighborhood opp took issue with our garden design choices and reported our place to the city for being overgrown and neglected.

 

This scent is for everyone that’s had to deal with That Guy in your neighborhood: a sinuous stream of Snake Oil slithering through meadow flowers and clover.

Peonies and poppies are two of my favorite May flowers, and all the more so now that we’ve moved to Philadelphia, where you see them in countless gardens. Continuing with the theme of serpents making their way through urban landscapes, I’ve created something for myself that I want to share – a Snake Oil-infused bouquet of poppies, peonies, melancholy heartsease, and the last bruised winter hellebores dusted with sandalwood and bound with a vanilla-white silk ribbon.

A glimmer of hope: white musk glittering with meyer lemon, mimosa, freesia, cashmere wood, and iris petals.

 

 

Wilhelm Kotarbinski
 

Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt! Molten steel, grease, balsam, oiled leather, gunpowder, and blood.

 

 

Fritz Gareis

Regal grace and bittersweet beauty, this is a scent woven from wildflowers and court secrets. A verdant morning, sun-drenched and dew-laden, amber-glowing petals hide the tender unrest of violets and myrrh. The perfume of hidden sorrows, the ache of longing, and the weight of duty: white pear, hawthorn, damask rose, ambergris accord, golden amber, white leather, bruised violets, soft myrrh, spring wildflowers, and crushed green grass.

 

 

John Collier
 

This isn’t an asparagus-scented perfume, though it occurs to me that I should make one someday. I found out recently that May is National Asparagus Month, so here you go. This scent is vaguely inspired by asparagus, but mostly inspired by the flicker of surprise that I felt when I found out there was a month dedicated to asparagus.

 

A pointy green vegetal scent, sparkling with lime-squeezed bemusement.

 

 

Adriaen Coorte
 

Each statue comes with one 5ml bottle of Spectral Hands perfume oil. The Spectral Hands oil is only available as part of this set. 

 

Cold as bone beneath silk, they reach from beyond the veil — curious, covetous, clutching. The scent of forgotten names at forgotten funerals: lace cuffs yellowed with time, tarnished silver, violet ash, and charred myrrh.