fly fire fly

I  remember well
the summer smell of luminescense

the sexy high high note scent

of firefly bellies
in humid nights
you could swim through

Received a gift of x
amount of sprays
of Nombre Noir

the light at the end
of the birth tunnel is a
telegraphing of fireflies
not the train's headlight


Painting: SunGlow (detail) Lura Astor 2002
song: Lura Astor

Olfactory Synasthetes

Do you smell in color?


 Smelling Orange: The Interconnected Realm Of Synesthesia
 


For years I contributed to online
fragrance/olfaction boards
asking if others "Smell in Color".

I've spoken with synasthetes, but I do not see letters/numbers in color. I definitely smell in color. The article's title jumped out at me! Yes! Does anyone else? Where are the other olfactory synasthetes!

In the mid-1980's, I co-choreographed a piece with two others, and the musician chose a color for every note.

The music was intellectual framed mentally; the presentation stark. Today, I would make such a collaborative piece lush and textural. Lycra bodysuits were relatively new, used much in dance, sports and then yoga. Anna White caused a huge hurrah wearing her, now famous, white lycra bodysuit at Wimbledon, 1985.
 
Pastel: Watersparks Lura Astor

weaving of words

crocheting, knitting, weaving
loom, weft, warp

twine, comb, spin

woof, word

are not only textile

not only history

they are original history

Painting: Drop in a Bottle Lura Astor 2002

transporting ourselves from there to here

Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom
1876 Ilya Yefimovich Repin
Sadko, a musician and traveler of Russian mythology..
music transports

scent changes time

time travel with scent
 
neptune, mermaids, merman, transparencies, psychic reception/transmissions, illusion, deception, addiction, confusion, flowing, compassion, trickery, lies, choreography, intuition, dreams, music, fantasy, daydreams, stories, film, art, inspiration, con-artists, the illusive, fluids, water, magicians, magic, lyrics, womb carriage

transporting ourselves from here to there from there to here

Sulfur - last of the series

burning sulfur
to blood-red liquid

visit from the bowels
of the earth
healing to the bowels
the scatological may seem illogical but is evident throughout scent
bottled and human

fertilizers, matches, insecticides, fungicides, black gunpowder, help with connective tissue, arthritis, skin problems, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, a hardening agent for rubber, vulcanization, vulcan: beneficial and hindering fire, brimstones, sulfur soaks more on sulfur




 













Photos by: burning - Johannes Hemmerlein
on volcano - yure13
in baths - yosemite

Chaos Crocheted

Crochet Your Own Model of Chaos

pictured: the Lorenz Manifold crocheted

mathematicians and authors, Hinke Osinga, Ph.D. and Bernd Krauskopf, Ph.D - paper and crochet instructions here.

Textiles, weaving, knitting, crocheting, with the aid of computer graphics and 3-dimensional modeling, help better understand equations which describe
how chaos arises, and is organized, in systems, the nature of chaotic systems, such as the weather.

More background in this article, one of many.


The fragrance Chaos by Donna Karan has its avid followers. Originally out in 1996, it was discontinued, but occasionally available, and reissued in 2008.

If you like Chaos you may like Must de Cartier, not as a replacement, and Diesel Green. Ironically, with a name like Chaos, the DKNY site states that Chaos was created to reconnect with our own natural creativity and balance; blending calm, serene notes with spicy, warm notes.

I know that as an artist, working in any medium, there are moments, or tides, of chaos within the structure of the piece, and I must get out of the way, allowing the other to imbue.

More on chaos "organizing" in the Synchronicity post and TED video here

more on sulfur

continuing from the post on Funky Green Imposter's sulfurous performance in the Green Aria at the Guggenheim  

an article of 3 March 2009 in click  The Sun on Vi-eggra notes findings on the importance of hydrogen sulphide ...


the smell of rotting eggs gives men erections?


And, in the Middle Ages, sulfur was among ingredients thought to protect against the plague. Leaf scents of the sulfur group include mustard, onions, garlic. 

Illustration: DNA Egg Lura Astor

10 June 2009 in Hollywood

The Luminario Ballet (link to clip)


fundraiser at the Avalon

Some Cirque du Soleil stars, film projection; the make up/look reminds me of the Mary Quant/Twiggy era, when modern dance was overlapping into ballet, The Joffrey Ballet's Astarte used current music of the time with new costuming/lighting, becoming a benchmark. Enjoy this contemporary piece!

Wednesday 7-11 PM
Avalon Hollywood
1735 N. Vine Street
Hollywood ~ Los Angeles, CA
Parking on either side of the club in lot

synchronicity - play yours today

Personal space varies within cultures and environments. 

On numerous occasions, I have almost been run over with shopping carts or walked into, though I am visible and spatially aware.

One car's tempo changes the whole drive pattern on a freeway.

Here, a presentation on unplanned synchronicity by mathematician Steven Strogatz on the TED talks series It shows how flocks, including birds, fireflies, humans and fish, synchronize, acting as a unit with no one giving orders.

Strogatz shows this tendency in the realm of objects, " ...spontaneous order and unexpected consequences ..."

I call it the dance of order within chaos.

One designer calls it don't bump into anything, stay away from the predators.
Here, an article Playing the Synchronicity Game by author and workshop leader Robert Moss.

Watercolor: Lura Astor

theatrical 4th wall explorations continue

Some reviews and commentary
on the Green Aria Scent Opera
tickle me ... the description of
people pulling away from the scent microphones
when Funky Green Impostor
makes an appearance, with first whiff.

this memory floated in

Sitting in the back row of an historic
movie theater, 1973
3-D film production of Frankenstein
co-produced by Andy Warhol, Carlo Ponti and others, directed by Paul Morrissey

The first 3-D experience unfolds like this

we're sitting in the back row
a huge flock of bats fly, startlingly fast,
into the camera, continuing into the audience
everyone in the audience turns their head away
we are staring at a huge group of grimacing faces
collectively moving away from the birds
a collective gasp
a collective body giggle
human reflexes
and instinctual protection
in a theatrical frame
the usual audience of individuals, couples,
and small groups
changed into the collective

Fragrance in Internal Uses

The Coca-Cola Museum click here may sound uninteresting, but it is a treat to sample 50-plus varieties of fragrance/flavors, in the delivery system of carbonated beverage, as translated and targeted to cultures and regions around the world.

Coca-Cola with tamarind, cardamon, citrus notes and more

Located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, I see online that it has changed since my 1991 visit.

I don't think there is a lavender cola yet ... Provence, Washington, Oregon, California ... other lavender growing regions?

Recipe for a carbonated lavender and a few links:

 
orange-lavender cappuccino
lavender-lemon soda
lavender honey
lavender lemon curd





Photos: Small Leaf Tamarind/Diploglottis campbellii  Tatiana Gerus
Limes on Granite Counter Janet Hudson

follow up to birth control changing smell perception

This smell abstract follows up my earlier post Nothing in Nature Abstains

Published in 2001, it addresses rhinomanometric and olfactometric outcomes of oral contraception. I believe this affects men and women, as cross research reveals.

Care and concern in developing safe, effective birth "control" is required, for as a culture, we are affecting base responses to socio-sexual cues, recreation, procreation and care of progeny. Perhaps going back to basics is required. Investigative pharmacognosy research into native plant uses, uses by midwives prior to witch accusations, and B.C.E.; and investigation into surviving oral and written information can help adjust current research to homeostatic balance.

In 1996 I edited an obstetrical/gynecological paper for publication in JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, for a doctor concerned with radical increase in bleeding with the variety of hormonal introductions into women's systems. The newest forms of birth control that stop, or radically reduce, external bleeding is the other extreme of the range. A sane balance is needed. Balance between body and health, plant wisdom and technology. I request going back to basics. Clues to start: wild yam, quinine ...

Personally, I frame this within the sense of smell, as this is key way of moving through life, consciously and unconsciously.

Affecting the senses is power. If you believe it is a mild side affect that women dull their sense of smell (see article) hormonally, imagine living with a cold or allergy that takes away all your pleasure of eating any of your favorite dishes. Study anosmia.

tagline from 1960's ad campaign It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

There is always a price.

Another sub-cultural extreme is using abortion as birth control. As a recent guest lecturer at Chapman University, Santa Maria campus, California, I mentioned that abortion affects men as well as women, extrapolating the numerous ways, to rapt attention. This was delivered to a class within the sociology department, on cultural movements of the 1960's and their relevance today.

Smell is intelligence.

Green Aria - the reviews are in

Green Aria Scent Opera played to full houses at New York City's Guggenheim Museum this past weekend, 31 May 2009 and 1 June 2009.

Here is what the New York Times had to say, and it made me wistfully laughing to imagine hearing the voice from backstage telling the audience of who was replacing whom during the evening's performance.

In case you worried we were growing too staid in our fragrant likes, the evening's loudest ovation went to Funky Green Imposter, from all accounts exuding a faintly sulfurous odor. Is there anything faint about sulfur?

And, James Kohl would remind us that natural redheads drive people crazy in lust due to their exuding more sulfur. You can read his work in The Scent of Eros: Mysteries of Odor in Human Sexuality. Jim presented some of his work in the 1980's at seminars I put together in Las Vegas, Nevada; originally meeting him while a guest at a Mensa Toastmasters.

 I toss a fragrant bouquet to all involved in the innovative click Green Aria and hope you make it to Los Angeles, California, USA.

Here are Green Aria reviews from the
Wall Street Journal
Science & the City
New York Magazine
Time Out New York

Illustration: Green Bulb Lura Astor