Does anyone else spend a ridiculous amount of time rearranging their coffee table so that they’ve got a revolving selection of the most splendidly tempting titles and wonderfully intriguing cover art in front of them at any given moment? Or …is it just me?
I always used to think that it was important to have an interesting array of things on one’s coffee table to keep your guests occupied –and if I am being honest, to give your guests the impression that you are A Very Interesting Person. Why was this important to me? I don’t know, but I’ve always found the idea of someone visiting my home and coming away with the impression that I was dull and boring to be an outrageously disagreeable prospect which always left me aggrieved and indignant. This was mostly an imaginary scenario anyway, as we didn’t have many guests in the best of times, and now, during the era of pandemics and quarantines, the thought of people visiting your home, well–no thanks to that. So I guess at this point, the only person I need to impress is me!
It is just about mid-September–which I know for most of you is the beginning of autumn, but for your friends in Florida it’s just another variation of summer. I keep waiting for those tricksy autumn feels to creep over me, but…they’re missing in action this year. Typically there are not much in the way of seasonal shifts here, but I start feeling a powerful nostalgia for a place and time in my life where for a time, autumn did make a glorious appearance.
I have written on these feelings before, but ultimately, they are a trap. The past is another country and for the most part, that locale was not the same as the memories you now conjure of your time there. You must be careful not to get snared in those recollections and reminiscences; they are a tangle of rose-tinted half-truths and perfect fictions, and I always have to remind myself that hidden in the shadows of those early autumn sunsets were monstrous things that crunched those lovely fallen leaves under their beastly feet as they stalked and terrorized me.
I suppose it could be due to the state of the world which is quite literally burning to the ground around us in some places right now, or perhaps because I have been back in Florida for nearly a decade now and the reflections of my time spent in autumn country have begun to flicker and fade, but I’m not falling for nostalgia’s traps and tricks this year. Perhaps I have become immune to them, or I’ve got other things on my mind, or maybe those feelings don’t exist anymore, but whatever the reason, it’s now just late summer in the southeast, and there are no more ghosts of autumns past to haunt and confuse me. An endless droning cicada song that enters even my dreams and the near-constant threat of massive hurricanes every weekend– well, at least they haven’t gone anywhere! I guess some things never change.
But you know me. All of this was of course a lead-up to show you my new sweater.
I know it’s going to be several months before we experience anything near “sweater weather”, that one marvelous 59° day in January or February, but I fell in love with this voluminous, cocoonimous thing when I saw pre-orders opening up for it over at We Crowing Hens, and had to snag one for myself anyway. It’s possible they are already sold out at this point, but I will tell you that I like my midnight-crone-cottage-core cardigans really roomy, and so I purchased an XL…and I think I could have gone down a size. Maybe two! So this is a little swimmy on me, but I think its oversized aspect maybe adds maximum coziness, so in the end, though it wouldn’t work for this video, it is pretty perfect for me.
Pictured with my new house slippers, which I have recently learned that I cannot live without. My partner is tearing up all of the carpeting in the house and my feet don’t care very much for sensation of walking on bare concrete. I had a previous pair, but they wore out and aren’t available anymore. The old ones were much more adorable, but these are kinda cute too, albeit in a granny-with-curlers-in-her-hair kinda way.
In terms of another kind of nostalgia, when I think of summertime afternoons, I often hearken back to when I was a child in elementary school, ten or eleven years old. I would spend every day from about 11:00am until dinnertime, stretched out on the sticky vinyl cushions of a rotted old chaise lounge on our screened porch, reading every lurid paperback that I could get my hands on. This memory is a bit rose-tinted as well (Florida mid-afternoons in late July are brutal when it comes to heat and humidity!) but I’m still convinced that summer doesn’t get any better than sweaty thighs embossed with the imprint of cheap porch furniture, endless pitchers of Crystal Light Lemonade and grotty, used bookstore copies of paperbacks from hell.
Lately, though, the thought of sitting still has got me awfully antsy. I’m reading (or attempting to read) a wonderfully perfect short story collection, Ghost Summer by Tananarive Due, and it is SO GOOD. It ticks every box for what I want in a summer read. A vast spectrum of supernatural business, characters that I care about, writing that is emotive and nuanced but not super dense or difficult. It’s got everything! But I can’t sit with it for very long. I want to be doing things. I want to be planting, growing, harvesting, chopping, mixing, baking! My partner says there’s a word in Icelandic for this, it’s a mood having to do with movement. He says I’ve got the “stuð” –which I believe is pronounced like “stoothe”–and though if you look it up, it apparently translates to “shock,” I like its colloquial connotations.
Anyway! I’ve got the stuð and I want to do the things! One of these things began when I got it in my head back at the beginning of the summer that I was going to learn how to make sourdough. It took a few months of trial and error, but I finally got a beautifully robust starter up and running, and a few weekends ago I baked two beautiful loaves. They were not perfect (they could have used more salt and the crust didn’t stay crisp and crackly for very long) but after 20+ years of bread failures, I finally made a loaf that is neither a brick nor a doorstop. These sourdough blobules were major kitchenwitchery breakthroughs for me!
I think everyone who attempts sourdough finally has some sort of eureka! moment, or that one recipe that finally steered them in the right direction. For me it was the Pro Home Cooks guy. If you’ve been on a similar journey, I’d love to hear how you finally arrived at something decent!
One thing I didn’t love about the whole process though, is that as part of feeding your starter, it required you to discard a portion of that. I didn’t like how wasteful that felt. Naturally it turns out that people have felt similarly for a very long time and the internet is full of recipes and suggestions of things to do with your leftover discard. Above I have included photos of the few ideas that I have been playing around with, and if I am being perfectly honest, I think I like making these type things more than the actual sourdough bread, itself!
Not pictured, but which I made a million times at this point, is basically a fry bread type thing. Heat some butter or oil in a heated pan, gloop your starter into the sizzling fat and swirl it around, sort of like you might do with a pancake. Top with a handful of chopped scallions or chives and a sprinkle of salt. Flip it over after a minute or so and brown the other side. Serve with your lunch/dinner soup or salad. It’s super tasty and a quick way to use your discard if you’re feeding the greedy starter every day.
Other things I have made recently:
Chili oil. We’ve been eating a lot of frozen dumplings and dim sum lately and it occurred to me that some chili oil would be a perfect accompaniment! I used Joshua Weissman’s recipe, but I’m fairly certain you couldn’t go wrong with anyone’s recipe for a from-scratch version of this stuff. I have also used this guy’s recipe for chicken tikka masala and it’s freaking fantastic. The only time I have ever made this dish and it’s even tasted slightly like it’s supposed to. I know Weissman is a little bit obnoxious, but this recipe is worth sitting through his particular brand of goofiness for.
Dill Pickle Pasta Salad from the Southern Vegan cookbook. This recipe is ingenious. I mean basically it’s just a regular pasta salad recipe, but it’s 90% dill pickle, and therein lies the brilliance. Pickles are always the best part of every recipe that they’re in! But I am a hard-core pickle lover, so your mileage may vary. This is the same person who runs the Rabbit & Wolves blog, and pretty much everything they ever post about sounds delicious.
Bath salts. I don’t have a recipe for this, but I ran out of the jar of fancy CBD salts from Lord Jones, and lordy, I was not about to pay $50 to replace them, no way no how! I don’t think CBD does anything for me, anyway. I don’t take proper bath-baths, because I hate getting wet, but I love all of the trappings and rituals of the bathing experience…so …what’s a water-averse weirdo to do? As it happens, I don’t mind dipping my toes in, so I just give myself super-extra-fancy foot baths! Yes, all of the bath bombs and bubbles and soaks and salts that I buy are for my feet. This is a mixture of epsom salts, pink Himalayan salt crystals, powdered coconut milk, some dried lavender leaves and buds that I grew myself (before my plant died, RIP lavender) and a bit of lavender essential oil. I added both the leaves and the flowers because I think they smell very different–they petals have that distinctive sharp, astringent scent, but the leaves are sweeter, almost a powdery vanilla-hay.
All the plants! All the clippings and cuttings and new plant bbs! So far the mortality rate seems pretty low, so if I am becoming a crazy plant lady, well…at least I am not a murderous one! I actually bought some clippings off of Etsy (what a time to be alive, right?) and I had pretty good luck with them, believe it or not.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Ok, wow. So, I actually loved this. My partner cringed all the way through it, experiencing uncomfortable levels of fremdschämen. But I adored this silly story and all of the costumes and characters and music, and I could watch it again tonight. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack nonstop and I and can’t get through Husavik – My Home Town without uncontrollable hiccupping sobs.
And The Flight of Dragons, which is something I never saw as a kid, but it was really pretty and a fun watch. Also: we are watching Lovecraft Country, which is nuts and I am really enjoying (but whyyy is Marilyn Manson in the soundtrack) and I have started just What We Do In The Shadows season 2. I am already having horny dreams about Guillermo.
I will end this missive by mentioning a handful of weird obsessions I am currently indulging in. While it is not strange to see me fixating on fragrance, it is a bit odd for me to decide on a holy grail-type scent, one that I will elevate above all others and say “that’s it! this is The One! FOREVER!” But Bergamot, Orange Blosson, and Vetiver from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is that scent. I am not quite ready to talk about it yet, all I can say with certainty is that it smells like painful revelations and forking life paths, and the bittersweet but beautiful clarity that comes with all of that.
No. 2 is that I am a bit preoccupied with nude lipsticks at the moment, which is strange because I thought I liked outlandish lip colors, greens and blues, etc., and well, also…I don’t actually wear that much makeup. But again, I think I have found my holy grail and I am a bit embarrassed to share that it’s a Kylie Jenner lippie called Commando. Ugh! But it’s perfect! You can’t see it very well, but I’m wearing it in the perfume video I recently uploaded to my YouTube channel.
Lastly, and bringing it full circle, I suppose, is that while I am not feeling nostalgic for autumns in New Jersey, I am yearning for autumn aesthetics in general. Which is what led to me placing an order for Bath and Body Works candles. What! I know! I’ve got stupid-expensive tastes when it comes to certain things, I can’t even remember when I last had a B&BW or White Barn candle in my home. But you best believe I’ve got some PSL and Perfect Autumn candles in my cart right now.
Make fun if you like! I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I’m also laughing at myself a bit right now. But you know what? Either way, we’re having a laugh, and considering how I’m usually feeling at this time of year? I call it a win.
Thank goodness for books and stories. It’s nice to entangle yourself in imaginary dramas while trying not to freak out too much about your own human problems. I’ll not say that I was totally unaware of the passage of time while I waited an eternity for these results, but resourceful Blossom Culp scaring bullies from Old Man Leverette’s outhouse really helped to distract me.
“Probably” benign, huh. I guess that’s maybe “reassuring”?
Natalie Westling in ‘Mourning Glory’ by Inez & Vinoodh for W Magazine, September 2015
I mean…the title says it all, doesn’t it? I’ve never been comfortable calling myself “goth,” and I think this mostly has to do with the fact that I didn’t listen to The Cure in high school (it was Iron Maiden and King Diamond for me) I’m lukewarm about Nick Cave (but I guess I am coming around to him) and I have never once made myself up to look like Siouxsie Sioux.
I’ve written about this before and it’s no big deal, but I just don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression, like I’m some sort of dyed-in-the-wool, old-school Goth Kid. I like cats and darkness. That’s about it. Oh yeah. And black clothes!
So I guess the title of this post should have been How To Wear Black Clothes In The Summertime When You’re A Goth Fraud And Summer Is Almost Over But Summer Is Never Really Over In Florida And Oh Yeah I Guess I Like Nick Cave Now.
With the exception of the first one (which I just created two minutes ago, as an update to this post–and I will probably do the same next year!) Many of these are older ensembles I created, but honestly, looking at them all, I feel like I could have put these together yesterday. They all feel pretty timeless to me! No details are included for these particular ones because as they are from a few years ago, the information is no longer available. Otherwise, I have linked to more details! As always, if there’s anything you want to know more about, drop me a line or leave a comment, and I will try to recall it for you!
A gathering of death-related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From heart-rending to gut-splitting (sometimes you gotta laugh, you know?) from informative to insightful to sometimes just downright weird and creepy, here’s a snippet of recent items that have been reported on or journaled about with regard to death, dying, and matters of mortality.
After yesterday’s complaint lamenting my disappointment with regard to inappropriate cardigans and their accompanying pop singer’s fall music, a few individuals asked if I might post a playlist featuring some favorite seasonal music as the summer wanes and we enter the dark and dying time of the year. So I thought it might be time for a new mixtape!
While these are not all-time favorites, they are some things that I’ve been enjoying recently, and no doubt sometime over the next month or so, I’ll compile a bit of a remix of a decades+ worth of fall favorites. Until then…
A presage of echoes, an autumnal presque vu: The Unforgetfulness of the Hollow Heart
I really want to hear what all the rest of you are hearing. I’ve never been a huge Taylor Swift fan, but it’s not like I …don’t…not…like her? But what totally fucked everything up for me and closed my mind to the wonders of Folklore that you’re all singing the praises of, was just…well, she’s singing about this old cardigan, right? I’m sure that conjures all kinds of old-cardigan imagery for all kinds of people and I am not saying that there is ONE OLD CARDIGAN TO RULE THEM ALL, but come on. Your video stylist really did you dirty, Taylor Swift. Because this is NOT the old grandpa-handknit-cabled-pilling- mothball smelling-cottagecore old cardigan that we deserve.
This is like…80’s movie Chad’s varsity tennis cardigan, bleached as white as his stupid expensive bleached asshole, probably. Are varsity and tennis two words that even go together? This is how far removed I am from that world, I guess?
SO when Chad Mc80sMovie Bleached-Asshole Esquire III’s freshly laundered Ralph Lauren tennis sweater apparated onto that piano bench …basically…this is when I stopped listening.
What I find even more offensive is that you can actually purchase this very same cardigan. NO! This is not the cardigan you are looking for, Taylor Swift! You want some version of this one, except you don’t want to have paid full price for it, or bought it new, or even have bought it at all. You want to have inherited it from your sleepy Pop-Pop on your mother’s side. You want to have scrounged it out of someone’s weekend yard sale, you want to have stolen it from your ex. This cardigan should have memories and dreams and the past woven into it along with dog hair and whiskers and toast crumbs.
If you’re gonna wrap yourself in something warm and cozy after a hazy trip to the watery interior of Pianolandia, there are way better vessels to cocoon yourself in. It doesn’t have to be my suggestion, but for god’s sake, don’t let it be the one featured in this video.
The series of action figures from Galoob was set in a world “before history on earth when myth and magic still existed.” Golden Girl and her Guardians, named after precious stones, protected the powerful vaguely-named Gemstone from the evil clutches of the pink-haired-and-amazingly-rad Dragon Queen from Storm Isle, who would ostensibly get up to no good with it and use it to take over Argonia.
I was just reading on a forum that She-ra was introduced to the world in October 1984, and Golden Girl showed up that very next month, so I’m guessing it was some sort of knock-off cashing in on She-ra popularity (maybe?) But man. Look at this lot. There’s a campy gravitas and a ferocity here that She-ra was lacking and I think this could have been a very different thing altogether. I mean–those villains! (THOSE FASHIONS!)
Funny story. My family moved to FL from Ohio in 1985, I would have been about 9 years old. I actually had a few of these Golden Girl dolls. It was a Friday or Saturday night, not long after we had moved into our new house and my sisters and I were super excited to see that Golden Girl was listed in the TV Guide (remember that thing?) As you can imagine, that show was…not what we thought it was going to be. But in the end, we adored Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia anyway!
I don’t think Golden Girl ever did get a television show–I’m not even sure if there was one in the works–but in lieu of celluloid Galoob fantasy barbarians, have a peek at this old commercial instead. Thirty-plus years later I can STILL hear that jingle in my head! Be sure to watch this link, as it also includes a European version, which is moodier and sassier and even better.
I took a bit of a summer break from the YouTubes, but this week I am back with a new video and some peeks into my somewhat sizable perfume collection. I also share a handful of favorites!
I hope you’ll stop by, give it a watch, and maybe leave a comment, because I sure do like chatting about stinks. Tell me your favorite notes, wax poetic about a beloved fragrance, heck, even share a scent you hate–I’m here for all of it.
I’m still relatively new to filming and editing and uploading videos, so please feel free to share your feedback and suggestions, as well. I know I have got a lot to learn, and I am grateful for your thoughts. And if you have anything you’d like to see in a future video–perfume related or not–please let me know!
For those of you who may not be aware, I thought now might be a good time to mention that my book, The Art of the Occult, will be conjured into this realm in just two months, on October 13! Which is unfortunately not a Friday, but what can you do?
The Mother of the World, Nicholas Roerich
A visual feast of eclectic artwork informed and inspired by spiritual beliefs, magical techniques, mythology, and otherworldly experiences, it is my hope the mesmerizing, transformative works–both iconic and obscure– and their fascinating creators explored within The Art of the Occult will provide a wealth of inspiration to incite your curiosity, excite your senses, and perhaps inform your own practice – whether you incorporate them into your personal search for the truth, make them part of your magical philosophies, or experiment with them as part of your artistic techniques and processes.
The Zodiac, Ernest Proctor
The Art of the Occult is available for pre-order now but in the interim, here is a small gallery of some of my favorites, mystical imagery influenced by occult practices, esoteric beliefs, and magical realms.
L’Amour des âmes, Jean DelvilleThe Divine Breath, Olga Fröbe-KapteynLa Sorcière, Lucien Lévy-DhurmerThe Household Gods, John William WaterhouseIllustration from Songs of the Witch Woman, Marjorie CameronThe Primal Wing, Agnes Pelton
