Come La Luz

Come la luz
they called it

Eat the light

- Franz Wisner in his book Honeymoon with My Brother (Kurt's the brother) talks about Venezuelan drivers running the red lights.

 


For those who bottle light, paint with light, write the light, I thank you for your communications and inspirations.

Wishing us all another New Year ... there are many, depending on the day.

Photo: Lompoc Luz Lura Astor

Venutian Tides

Venus in the morning sky
as big as a car headlight.

Clouds give meaning to the word scuttling, winds move them at a pace
as fast as clicking crabs at tideline
in mating season, scuttling sideways
amid phosphorescing sands.

Seagulls' sunrise squeal,
last night's basso-vibrato -
frogs appearing after the rains.

You put it in a vial
see, hear, smell what becomes in the sillage of your imagination.

Send some in a bottle to me and yours.

photo: Lavendar Sky Sunrise lastor

Incense Peppermint

Good sense, innocence, cripplin' mankind
Dead kings, many things I can't define
Occasions, persuasions clutter your mind
Incense and peppermints, the color of time

Who cares what games we choose
Little to win, but nothing to lose

Incense and peppermints, meaningless nouns
Turn on, tune in, turn your eyes around
Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah
Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah, yeah, no

To divide this cockeyed world in two
Throw your pride to one side, it's the least you can do
Beatniks and politics, nothing is new
A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view
Who cares what games we choose
Little to win, but nothing to lose

Good sense, innocence, cripplin' mankind
Dead kings, many things I can't define
Occasions, persuasions clutter your mind
Incense and peppermints, the color of time Who cares what games we choose

Little to win, but nothing to lose
Incense and peppermints Incense and peppermints

Sha la la Sha la la Sha la la

- Strawberry Alarm Clock
songwriters: John Carter, Tim Gilbert
photo: lastor

Longest Night

Can you smell
the fiber
of
your soul?




photo: lastor

Scandal in Bon Voyage

Prime Minister Jean-Etienne Beaufort (Gerard Depardieu): Why are you here?

Actress Viviane Denyers (Isabelle Adjani): I refuse to see the police.

Jean-Etienne: I'm not the police chief.

Viviane: No, perhaps you could call him.

Jean-Etienne: Perhaps. I'll think about it. It is Jeanne Lanvin.

Viviane: Pardon, I'm Sorry?

Jean-Etienne: Your perfume. It's Jeanne Lanvin.

Viviane: Yes ... it's ... Scandal.

Jean-Etienne: I'm very fond of it.

Viviane: You could call him now?

Jean-Etienne: Who?

Vivane: The chief of police.

- from Bon Voyage 2003, Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau
A lovely French film, make sure to watch the director's cut.
Perfumer: Andre Fraysse 1933

Be Cool

Steve Tyler of Aerosmith: Tell me something, what was that stuff you put in our clothes?

Edie (Uma Thurman): You mean the lavender water?

Steve: Yeahhhhh. The lavender water. I'll never forget that smell. Joe Perry still talks about that ...

- from the movie Be Cool photo ©2005 MGM/UA Entertainment













- lavender processing in a cooperative; photo: G.Willemse






Molinard double-distilled Lavande edc










Molinard photos: Lura Astor

Camphor

sniff sniff

That's an interesting perfume.

It's Vicks. I have a cold.

Ahh.

- Hot Shots 1991

Clean, Clean, Clean, Clean

Hugh Laurie from A Bit of Fry and Laurie

Ambient Fragrancing

Ambient
fragrancing
has a
long history
... campfire
for one!






Klimtfume: lastor

Froggie Went A Courtin'

These beauties, the African Clawed frog xenopus laevis have donated their eggs to science. University of Tokyo scientists used the eggs to build olfactory sensors.

"The immature eggs were harvested and then injected with DNA from fruit flies, silk moths and diamond back moths, which stimulated the eggs to produce the olfactory sensors of these insects ....the eggs basically acted as a platform for the parts of the insect DNA that have been shown in the past to be responsible for detecting gases, odors, and pheromones."

Articles here and here


Photo: Tim Vickers Xenopus laevis

The Perfume of the Lady in Black

Le Parfum de la Dame en Noir

Written and Directed
by Marcel L'Herbier
1931







2005 film, trailer here


There are many beautiful parfums noir in the world!



and the 1974  Il Profumo della Signora in Nero (not shown here).

Autumn Alchemy

 








Almost tragic isn't it, autumn? But so beautiful

- Chef Giorgio Locatelli


Re-reading this line, I then came across my writings from August 2005 on Alchimie/Rochas, Jacques Cavallier 1998

For those unfamiliar with the bottle by Serge Mansau, it is reminiscent of a magic wand in a magic pumpkin of beautiful autumnal amber-orange.

Alchimie, you bewitcher.

Alchimie, you bringer on of autumnal nostalgia, the time when land hovers, for moments at a time - into a phrase of time, the ear can hear to the horizon.
Watercolor transparencies of rust colored leaves and woods. A walk in the damp barked green forest, dark soiled, dark limbed, the wild colors of Mother Nature's last ditch attempt, before shedding into winter's serenity. The ice crackling quiet. But, first, the party!

The bee buzz around grape must. Dried golden stalks. Browns. I think of Cavallier's palettes of browns within M7, Alchimie. Woods of santal, oudh. (I hold to my 2002 prediction that M7 (Alberto Morillas & Cavallier for YSL) will have a comeback and be an even stronger seller, as it is "found again".)

Just when I fear its fruit note will sour, Alchimie veers.

It's a skin veil that hurts with its mystery. A deep inhale grounds, then on to feel the mystery of sheer watercolor autumnal silk on the skin.

This one haunts. Evokes.

I remember, Cavallier doesn't care for flowers, florals. So, in this one those notes on the palette, the florals, are used for enchantment, the beauty sleeping in the forest. Either sleeping to be eventually awakened, or, sleeping to eventually die, autumn to winter. It is the Life-Death bloom-or-fade transition that disturbs, that Alchimie captures. Fruits & Woods - flowers used as coloring, tints, hues, sheers, wind ...

Definitely a rêve, this dream state perfume. There is a vulnerability with this one, the mature sensitivity before the ice coat is worn.

It's the most beautiful day in the universe, and I am allowed to attend. It is not classic beauty, or textbook, or Hollywood film. There is overcast burning off, Mercury out of retrograde, stationary direct. A veil.

Veil of mist, veil of burn off, veil of heart yearnings, veil of sun's shine, veil of Alchimie, veil of thyme in oil on skin, summer bug repellent, Raid in the memory, citronella, nail polish remover, hair sprays, Hairnet with hair net, spider's web holding a bun.

Because of my own training in autumn nights getting darker and darker, earlier and earlier, sweating in ballet rehearsals with cold chill goosebumps and then ... a pumpkin appears ... in Cinderella during Snoopy's pumpkin patch season, I present:

Sergei Prokofiev: Slow Waltz, from the ballet Cinderella Op. 87
Piano: Vladimir Ovchinnikov
Venue: Piano Festival 2008
(performing 17 October 2010 in Bushy, Hertfordshire, England info here)



Happy Autumn Equinox! 
Illustration: Trees Lura Astor

Smell It! in Amsterdam - 23 September 2010

Smell It! ... exploring olfactory dimensions in contemporary art at the Stedelijk Museum, click here

Presenting recent developments in smell culture with the experience of scent

Artists: Peter de Cupere (lecture), Sue Corke/Hagen Betzwieser (art work), Valentina Hulsman

(olfactory performance).

Jim Drobnick examines the practice of distillation in contemporary olfactory art, connecting the artistic search for new ways of addressing aesthetic and political dimensions of urban experience.

His must read: here

Round Table Discussion: Peter de Cupere, Jim Drobnick, anthropologist Yolanda van Ede, Adam Tasi of SmartNose.

Moderator: Caro Verbeek, olfactory art historian. The 2 lectures will include visuals and smells provided by Aroma Jockey Dr. Perfume and visual artist VJ ED (AromaVisuals).here

In the exhibition Monumentalism: History and National Identity in Contemporary Art, Job Koelewijn presents an olfactory art work.

The Stedelijk Museum has other art works in its collection that use the sensory experience of smell, such as Edward Kienholz's The Beanery 1965.

Painting: Calm: lastor

How Many Roses are Covered with Dew?

How much do I love you?
I'll tell you no lie
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?

How many times a day do I think of you?

... how many roses are covered with dew?

How Deep is the Ocean
-Irving Berlin 1932

photo: Huntington Garden November 2009 lastor

Nosin' Around

A Day Put into A Book

Just because I love it

Yann Tiersen's Le Train

Parfum BIC

In 1988 BIC launched a perfume line. I did not know this, though I was around when the ad campaign Flick Your Bic! launched for their disposable lighters. It was a newly odd and memorable tagline at the time, alongside You Bet Your Bippie.

Their perfume bottles have a flick lid sprayer, like the portable, disposable, lighters. The company's name derived from founder Marcel Bich's name.

Parfum BIC® "the world’s first fine French perfume that combined high quality with affordable pricing and a stylish, portable design."

For women: Jour, Nuit
For men: BIC for Men, BIC Sport

Produced in France, introduced in Europe, North America, and some African and Middle East markets. In 1991, manufacturing and distribution of BIC® perfumes stopped in most markets, continuing in Iran where it is still manufactured and/or distributed.

Information, perfumes, bottles are welcome by this author.

Smell of Fear, Recovery, Ash, Cash, Balance

Pitti Immagine Fragranze No.8,  Florence, Italy, 10-12 September 2010, click here

Chemist, linguist, artist, scent provocateur, Sissel Tolaas of Norway presents FEAR: The FEAR of Smell vs the SMELL of Fear. 

A Saturday afternoon panel on 11 September 2010 addresses this year's Il Profumo del Futuro/The Fragrance of the Future No. 2: Olfactory scenarios for the next 12-24 months, organized by Pitti Immagine & Futuretaste, details here, titled The Smell of Recovery.

Future No. 1 addressed anthropological constants accompanying the historical-social changes in a globalized world influencing perception of odor and taste.  *note below

"Taken together, the opulence of floral scents (that peaks in the tuberose), the freshness of greenery (cut grass, essential oils, pine, rosemary, herbs of Provence), the sensuality of Middle Eastern oudh (leather, perspiration, animality), make us think of a greater propensity for optimism, extroversion and self-satisfaction, of a quest for nature and body sensations that speak to a desire to leave the crisis behind us."

We can shotgun an apple tree and it sprouts more flowers due to the stresses of imminent death. Humans breed like rabbits during war, thus war boom babies, and later big box sales. We can silence the buzz and see the dark with stars and produce lots of babies; referencing the NYC/NE Coast 1965 electrical outtage.

Knowing the pheromonic relays within perspiration, leathers and animalics, it is no wonder that these scents are back, for,

we live in a petrie dish world.

We can bomb or starve the crap out of humans elsewhere, but it still affects others in a completely different region, in our vibrating agar agar.

let's ".... speak to a desire to leave the crisis behind us."

Earth scents are nice.
Also consider which plantations, marketplaces and distribution channels open up, for these predicate which scents go to mass-market, with correct titillation/teatillation of course.

Smell of Recovery ... speaking of recovery cash ...

Spring 2010
Icelandic Sky
16,000 flights in Europe cancelled yesterday due to Icelandic ash.

I heard that in Iceland people looked up in the sky and yelled, We said Cash!

.. after last year's bankruptcy and billions of UK Sterlings deposited in Icelandic banks by UK city authorities, at high interest rates, it was one C short. Where's Vannah White (spinning for letters on Wheel of Fortune) when we need her?
ash
cash
ash
cash 

Summer 2011 Iceland changes its democracy click here

Spring 2009 an ocean away, sulfurous Funky Green Imposter pleases crowds in the Green Aria Scent Opera, Guggenheim Museum, NYC, click here.

 

The Scent of Petrol - Smelling Aliphatic Hydrocarbons

Near the Gulf of Mexico, bumper stickers change from Drill, Baby, Drill to Spill, Baby, Spill.

Conference No. 1 addressed anthropological constants accompanying historical-social changes in a globalized world influencing perception of odor and taste.

*Includes getting used to the taste of plastic packaging in our food, unappealing textures and tastes of irradiated foods, and, genetically engineered food, such as not being able to spit a watermelon seed into desert ground and have it grow.
Seed Savers Exchange here.

... my idea of genetically modified food is more sensual

and as a child it was more along the lines of strawberries the size of oranges, honeydews the size of blueberries or watermelons, honeysuckle nectar to drink by the mouthful, and honey-chocolate kiwi. But then, I'm an artist.

Earthy ... technology balanced with gender-integrated imagination.

The Smell of Balance

and I'm not talking double books

One of India's top actors produced a film that manages to bring humor to the dark subject of 15,000-plus farmers per year, during the last 10 years, commit suicide due to genetically modified patented seeds breaking the bank and the farms.

Click here for the trailer.

For English, click the person on the right, then Trailer, then International Trailer.

Laugh yourself sad with Peepli.

illustrations:
Snakes  lastor
Blue Green Leaf  lastor
Favored Tale  lastor
Volcano tourism is real, as are tornado and ambulance chasers
photo: People Admiring the Volcano Eruption at Fimmvörðuháls, Iceland, 27 March 2010
Henrik Thorburn   Latitude: 63.632875° N Longitude: 19.433594°
photo: Philip Seymour Hoffman as a huffer in the movie Love, Liza
photo: It Takes Balance to Look at the Sky: lastor See how here

If You're in London the Next Weeks

The Perfume Diaries

Multiple events at Harrod's
through 2 October 2010
London


click here and here

Fragrant Life

I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred, I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.


- Ralph Waldo Emerson

1 letter difference
scared
sacred
fear
fare

Photo: Smiling or Winking: lastor

Scent of a Lion

We’re driving deep into the bush one morning when the Jeep shudders, swerves, and we go spinning off to the right.

What happened?

We nearly ran over a lion sleeping in the middle of the road. The lion sits up and stares with an expression that says, You woke me. His head is enormous. His eyes are the color of lemon-lime Gatorade.

The smell of him is a musk so primal that it makes us lightheaded.

- Andre Agassi from his beautiful book OPEN




Lion Photo: Ltshears

4 & 11 September 2010 Online Isolate Workshop

There is a lovely place in California called Carmel.

It is by the Pacific ocean.



Clint Eastwood was its mayor for some years.

Paul Anka has a home there, filled with original Andy Warhol paintings.

Perfume artist Shelley Waddington sculpts in the medium of air, using a palette of scent molecules to bottle the fragrances and history of her native Carmel-By-The-Sea.

Offering an online course this coming week, there may still be room to join...

The $175 (plus postage) includes a kit of natural isolate samples and reference bibliography.

Information here

Natural Isolates is a current trend in natural perfumery.

Waddington's course teaches the basics of what an isolate is, how it is produced, how to incorporate isolates into perfume compositions.

4 & 11 September 2010
2 PM PST
includes Question/Discussion time after each session

Seating is limited
Contact: dariaesque2001@yahoo.com

Shelley Waddington, MA
11 years as a classically trained perfumer
8 years experiences with online seminar training
holds a California Teaching Credential

photo: What Do You Sea? lastor
part of an upcoming installation

Cocktail, Anyone?

Summer's Almost Gone Growing up in New England, nature's four seasons clicked to distinct rhythms. As bees' buzzing died, light and leaves crisped and darkened, smells heightened from lazy towards winter sharpness. BUT summer's not so gone we can't enjoy a tasty Summer Cocktail inspired by garden goodies, in this case gardens in Brooklyn, New York ... Inspiring infused recipes here at Herbal Alchemy and here at indieperfumes. Summer's Almost Gone lyrics by The Doors its softness and refrain haunt as season turns to season ... Summer's almost gone Summer's almost gone Almost gone Yeah, it's almost gone Where will we be When the summer's gone? Morning found us calmly unaware Noon burn gold into our hair At night, we swim the laughin' sea When summer's gone Where will we be Where will we be Where will we be Morning found us calmly unaware Noon burn gold into our hair At night, we swim the laughin' sea When summer's gone Where will we be Summer's almost gone Summer's almost gone We had some good times But they're gone The winter's comin' on Summer's almost gone - The Doors September 2, 1965 demo recording from the World Pacific Jazz Studios Los Angeles. Rick & the Ravens - Jim Morrison - vocals, Ray Manzarek - piano/background vocals, John Densmore - drums, Rick Manzarek -guitar, Jim Manzarek -harmonica, Patricia "Pat" Hansen -bass guitar (née Sullivan; of Patty & the Esquires the band she had with Chuck Hansen whom she later married).  

 photo: Drink Me lastor

You Do Something To Me

 















Do do
that voodoo
that you do so well For you do something to me

-Cole Porter

What is it that smell does to us?

It makes us jump, it makes us happy, it makes us want to smell more, it repulses us, it intrigues, entertains, lingers, disappears, reappears, informs, dresses and undresses. It makes us want to do, to not do ...

Sniff
Sniff
Sniff



Fireworks in a Small Town on the 34.595N Latitude: lastor

smile of roses

The scent of roses
has a smile on its face.

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
German physicist, author 1742-1799

For me, the hardest is the rose to put in a bottle.
I sniff many fantasy roses, but never a real one in the juice. They mostly smell like the rose oil, not as the rose itself.

- Vedat Ozan perfumer





photo: Lura Astor

Peace of Mind

I will wave the magic wand
for a spritz of top-shelf,
lovely, Peace of Mind ... see what happens.

Powerful top notes,
soporific middle notes and
a dry down that lingers and
reminds one of something ... but what?



 




Illustration: Peace of Mind Lura Astor

Smell with the Breath of the Sky

 














I tien tien fung
... a sigh in the sky

from Lyall Watson's work on Winds

In the language of Tewa Indians
a 3-syllable term translated as
art or creativity means
water-wind-breath
A beautiful evocation of
the creative process
about catching the current,
breathing in, breathing out
in-spiration, breathe in spirit,
ex-halation, release it into the world
        
 - Robert Moss
 
from his book 
Dreamgates: An Explorer’s Guide to the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death

Pastel: Wellfleet Bay Deb Dwyer

"You can’t sterilize yourself & think there won’t be consequences.”

 
"Well, clearly,” said (Gianfranco) Soldera (considered the single best producer of Brunello di Montalcino in the world),
“if you don’t have a nose, you can have all the customs in the world and you still won’t know a thing about food.

You need a nose with a memory.

But it’s much harder now than ever to have a nose.

We’re losing our sense of smell.

“Our nose was once the most important way we could survive. Man could smell danger before he could see it. He could tell when food was bad. With his nose, he selected the person with whom he wanted to reproduce. In the 1700s, they used to cover odors, but now we’re eliminating them. Pollution is killing our olfactory sense and then we’re finishing off the job with deodorants, shower gels, perfumed soaps. Your brain can no longer decipher what real smells are, what’s natural. You can’t sterilize yourself and think there won’t be consequences.”

- Sergio Esposito Passion on the Vine

What do you think?

Watercolor: Brushstroke In It  Lura Astor

Roses, Vanilla, Earth

And saw roses that smelt
like the vanilla of the earth.

-Lura Astor



... awoke from this dream bit and put on Caron Rose ...

 


photo: Huntington Garden Rose Lura Astor

Happy Solar Eclipse!

What's a sunny fume?

Cinnamon, honey, clover
singe, flare














Art: The Sun Behind Lura Astor

He has Very Smelly Feet

He had a great memory and never forgot an odor.

- Lyall Watson


on his childhood pet warthog, Hoover
from Warriors, Warthogs, and Wisdom: Growing Up In Africa

Warthogs were called Intibane, the ugly one, "He has very smelly feet.”

photo: Warthog in Senegal   Ji-Elle

written in ink that slowly fades away

Pig society is smell-bound.

Almost everything pigs do
is determined
in some
way
by odor.

Scent-marking and scent-reading help to define these limits and to cement social communication.

In our attempts to make sense of systems that are beyond our sensory grasp, I suspect that we disparage some scent-laying practices by passing them off as “territorial markings.” The fact is that pigs are not really territorial at all but operate movable home ranges, shifting these as they adapt to the seasons. They are generous with their secretions for a different reason, one that has more to do with identity than property. They are protecting themselves, rather than their surroundings, finding security in society instead of territory, laying down olfactory perimeters that are flexible.

.... Every warthog lives in a world filled with messages from every other warthog in the area – so that each one knows exactly where everyone else is, how they are, what they have been eating, and how long ago they passed this way.  

It must be like getting lots of letters every day from all your friends and family, letters filled with news and gossip, but written in ink that slowly fades away.

- Lyall Watson
Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs

 
photos:
Phacochoerus Africanus Hells Gate National Park, Kenya Joachim Huber
Warthog in Ngorongor Nicor
Illustration: Musical Book Lura Astor

The Two Faces of Fragrance

Fragrance has two faces.

It is a liquid with definite physical and chemical properties.

It is also a sensation, experienced either consciously or subconsciously, which affects people in different, hard-to-verbalize ways.

- J. Stephan Jellinek

 






Illustrations: Lura Astor

Smell Transportation

 
Smell represents the fallen angel of the senses,
it nevertheless remains a
potent wizard that transports us across thousands
of miles and all the years we have lived.

- Helen Keller

photo: Solvang Spout Lura Astor

No One Has Ever Smelled ...

Frédéric Malle:

I dream of
new molecules bringing
scents that no one
has ever smelled.






 

Painting: Indigo Lura Astor

28 June 2010 UK Launch = Orange Star

Somebody said to me,
'So, can you talk to me about Orange Star?'

And I said, 'No. You have to work it out for yourself'

- Andy Tauer, creator of Orange Star

Tauer, ".... perhaps, the purest form of a perfume is the numbers in an Excel formula. They are constant and immutable. They resist the wispy subjectivity of different people's skin, of the varying olfactory autobiographies of each and every one of us." 



from Persolaise: Read more here


photo: Orangers d'Andalousie - Granada  Paul Munhoven

The Place of Scent

The Place of Scent

Then I went to where scent discovers all its harmonies.

Here is the dark red perfume of the rose; the drowsy quiet of bean-fields in the dusk; the gentle death of autumn in deep woods; and the clean smell of ploughland after rain.

The friendly wood-smoke of a cooking-fire; the satisfying smell of baking bread; the earth-forgotten green of new-cut grass; the moon-drunk sweetness of night-blooming flowers.

The warmth of clover murmurous with bees; the sleepy peace of avenues of limes; the tuberose’s languorous caress; the chill austerity of alpine flowers.

The yellow warmth of primroses at noon; the scent of water running over stones; the lonely sorrow of the river mist; the smooth white smell of linen, and of snow.

The dusty wisdom of papyrus rolls; and the warm spice of cedarwood and myrrh; the hot impatient smell of spikenard; and tarnished silver’s half-remembered dreams.

The clear sharp energy of lemon rind; the lovers’ ecstasy of orange trees; the melancholy smell of winter nights; and hyacinth’s azure echo of the spring.

The salty challenge of wind-driven spray – that wander-urging message of the sea; the gentle memories of sun-dried flowers the still abandonment of fields at noon.

The moth-winged purple of new gathered grapes; the easy laughter of a jar of beer; the excitement of a gallop-sweated horse; and the proud splendour of the manes of lions.

The acrid keenness of a copper sword; and the brave smell of torches in the wind; the musky pomp of ceremonial robes; and the solemnity of bitumen.

Here can our nostrils so delight our hearts that we forget colour and are blind to sound.

- Joan Grant, from Winged Pharaoh 1937

photo: Los Olivos, California  Lura Astor

Notes, Chords, Accords

… Peace to the heart with touch or word,

Ease to the soul with note and chord …

- Vikram Seth  An Equal Music



Illustration: Beautiful Triangle Lura Astor

Perfume has Chemistry

Tangy Whiffs

 
A tangy whiff of disgruntlement wafted on the fetid air.
I smelled like a rained-upon, nervous sheep.

- Julie Powell, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

photo: Sheep (and lens) in the Rain Kenneth Allen 2006