Sailing on Scent

 




 Sailing on Scent: Lura Astor

Chemical Alphabet - Smell All About It

Like all good mysteries, it is hidden in plain sight.

It has, if anything, deepened as our knowledge of smell has increased.

Like most enticing enigmas, it is simply stated:



what is this chemical alphabet that our noses read so effortlessly from birth?

 – Luca Turn


illustration: Alphabet Stew Lura Astor

The Galaxy Center Smells of ...

The centre of the galaxy smells of raspberries and tastes of rum.

No, really. It’s to do with all the ethyl formate floating around.


- from the BBC humorous quiz show QI Quite Intelligent

Raspberry Bouquet: Lura Astor

If you want to capture someone’s attention, whisper.

- Coty Perfume

Spirit of Fumes: Lura Astor 

A Kind Offer

Three things in human life are important: 

the first is to be kind; 

the second is to be kind; 

and the third is to be kind. 

- C.S. Lewis 1898-1963









 A Sweet Offer for You: Lura Astor

Scented Winds

Plants that wake when others sleep.

Timid jasmine buds that keep their fragrance to themselves all day,

but when the sunlight dies away let the delicious secret out

to every breeze that roams about.

- Thomas More



Petal Series: Lura Astor

ambrosia

Anoint your nasal brain/nostrils with ambrosia

which will it be

Illustration:  Lura Astor Bottle Series

a good recipe ... includes generosity, sensuality, surprise

"Today, 60 basic ingredients constitute 80 percent of all fragrance formulas.

....Of course, I can create perfumes in the classical manner, or in the baroque, narrative, figurative, abstract, minimalist, and so forth. But above all, I believe that all fragrances should have form, distinction, imagination, generosity, sensuality, and surprise so that perfume is not simply reduced to a product, an object, or a commodity."

-Jean-Claude Ellena

with a lovely fragrance creation history, currently the exclusive in-house perfumer for Hermès, from his book Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent 2011

When I think of the number of words used in daily communication,
the number of ingredients needed to make a fine meal,
it makes sense that it's how we use ingredients
in a fragrance formula
in order to capture perceptions.


assemblage: Put the Fizz In detail Lura Astor

Time in a Bottle

 
If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day
'Til eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you

- Jim Croce
Time in a Bottle


sung to the same song ...
If I could have sex in a bottle

our marketing leads to the same thing of course
promises, promises, promises

Arpege taglines: promise her anything ... but give her Arpege

or

No bottles to break – just hearts!


Illustration: Perfume Bridge Lura Astor

color

The color alone seemed a form of wealth.

The landscape was gentle, and the deep green grass made me feel mellower:

to have seen this was to have discovered a part of this poor country in which people lived in contentment, with space and a mild climate.

- Paul Theroux The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas 1979

photo: Big Sun Lura Astor

poetry sillage

 

don't feel like writing a poem,

instead, I will light the incense-burning vessel

filled with myrrh, jasmine, and frankincense,

and the poem will grow in my heart

like the flowers in my garden.

- student of Hāfez
خواجه شمس‌الدین محمد حافظ شیرازی

15h century AD

Perfumery and Ritual: The Use of Incense, Flowers, Distillates, and Aromatic Objects in Asia. Workshop took place at Universitat Heidelberg click here

incense peppermint click here 

Nathaniel Musselman incense crafter click here

smells so good click here

photos: Fallen Leaves and Trail 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

Cyril Scott's Lotus Land

children's book illustration: lastor

Scented Scrabble

Koku
the radio show
on everything scent, smell, odour, spice, perfume, perfumers, history


by host and perfumer
Vedat Ozan
becoming available online hereand Koku @ Açık Radyo is on Facebook



here, facebook page, including recent Harpers Bazaar spread
here
Listen, also here
Read here

















photos:
Scented Scrabble: by Lura Astor
Perfumer Vedat Ozan: by Serkan Eldeleklioglu

Woo Hooooo

The current Olympics men's downhill is how steep? Its vertical drop is greater than the combined heights of the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, writes Chris Erskine in the Los Angeles Times yesterday. This image alone reminds me of dream time. It's a morph of heights and a wooo hoooo attitude.

Haven't see the Eiffel in person, the Empire when young and we were told, drop a penny off the Empire State Building, and if it hits someone, it'll kill 'em. Funny what we remember.

Wish I'd learn to ski as a kid, when close to gravity. I love watching these athletes combine skill and speed.

Dream Building: Lura Astor

color fun, color blind, color sensitives

Links for your color and colour enjoyment
including some forums

colour lovers

color rotate brings in 3D

web exhibits

play with the color control bar here


and to mix it up,
Oliver Sacks' book
The Island of the Color Blind




Illustration: Ever Evolving Flesh Flower Lura Astor

Don't Judge a Book by ...

Our local, largest independent bookstore in Southern California is Vromans and up in the Northwest, it is Powells. Vroman's is next to the local independent film movie house, the Laemmle with a coffee house and indoor/outdoor seating. It sits on the Rose Parade route that fills the area every New Year's.

Vromans sells a tee-shirt that reads

Don't Judge a Book by its Movie

I like stories in song, book, movie
and perfume in a bottle.
I like stories told, woven, cooked, eaten,
painted and sculpted.
I like choreography and technology
and bleeps of family story expressing genetically.


Illustration: Art From Above Lura Astor

make sniff not war

If a lot of dogs are on the beach, the first thing they do is smell each other's ass.

The information that's gotten somehow makes pacifists out of all of them.

I've thought, 'If only we smelled each other's asses, there wouldn't be any war.'


quote attributed to Dustin Hoffman
imdb internet movie database site
  
Illustration: Animal Lura Astor

that invisible smell

I swear I am going
to play to enjoy
every single sniff
of this crazy whirled

sniff, sniff
sniff, sniff, sniff

and, if I can't find it
I'm going to sniff deeper
nasally tunneling into the air
to find it

that invisible smell

 

Illustration: Spring Juice Lura Astor

heart rhythms

Heart Rhythms Lura Astor