I love perfume. I love talking about perfume. I love how it’s simultaneously the most invisible and most evocative art form we have – how a single molecule can transport you through time, space, and memory. The fragrance community has given me some of my most treasured conversations about art, emotion, and the weird, beautiful space where they intersect. But like any passionate community, it’s got its share of nonsense.
Let’s start with the one I find most aggravating…
tap tap tap Here’s another pristine manicure hovering over another luxury bottle, another perfectly filtered face telling us something is “literally fire.” These aren’t fragrance reviews – they’re beauty influencer content that happens to use perfume bottles as props. The fragrance itself is barely a supporting character in its own review.
In each of these videos, the person reviewing the perfume looks like a social media beauty influencer, and I know that you know exactly what I mean. Not just “pretty,” but beautiful in that instantly recognizable, algorithmic way – the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic, the glazed donut skin, the lip combos, the siren eyes, the perfectly sculpted ‘that girl’ routine. These people and their unattainable levels of curated beauty have somehow become the faces of fragrance discourse, and I find that absolutely insufferable.
Why? Because perfume is supposed to be the great equalizer, the one form of beauty that has absolutely nothing to do with appearance. Fragrance is where those of us with crooked smiles and frizzy hair and uneven eyeliner get to be goddamn ethereal. When I smell beautiful, I don’t care about my sun spots or broken capillaries or the way everything jiggles when I move.
A perfect scent lets you slip through the world in a veil of impeccable elegance or a melancholy cloud of romantic longing. It moves you to beauty in places that powder and glosses can never hope to reach. While influencers are tapping their manicured nails on bottles and getting millions of views for calling everything “iconic” or “no thoughts just vibes,” some of us are achieving a beauty far beyond what you can capture in a well-lit studio with all the filters in the world.
The comments section erupts: “omg queen your reviews are so detailed and helpful! 😍” Meanwhile, people who actually describe the development of the fragrance, its artistic merit, its place in perfume history, or god forbid, its actual smell, get “too wordy, just tell me if it’s good.” The rise of micro-content has somehow convinced people that complex olfactory experiences can be reduced to three-second clips and vague superlatives. I get it – long-form content takes more time and effort to consume. But perfume isn’t a TikTok transition trend. Some things deserve more than a bottle tap and a catchphrase – especially something that makes you feel beautiful in ways that have nothing to do with how you look.
And of course, it’s not enough to make perfume just about looks – we’ve also got people turning it into a competitive sport.
“But what’s the sillage like? How’s the projection? Is it BEAST MODE?” My brother in Christ, not everything needs to announce your presence from three zip codes away. The obsession with performance metrics has created this bizarre arms race of nuclear-strength fragrances that sacrifice all artistry for pure brute force.
The whole “beast mode” culture has led to these bombastic, synthetic power-fragrances that smell like they were designed by people who think typing in all caps makes their argument stronger. Judging a perfume solely by its longevity is like judging a meal by how long it takes to eat, or a movie by its runtime. Those gorgeous citrus top notes? They’re fleeting by nature. That’s literally physics.
Sometimes beauty is ephemeral. Sometimes reapplication is part of the experience. Sometimes screaming doesn’t make you a better singer. And sometimes your nose has just gone temporarily blind to your fragrance because you’ve been marinating in it all day (Google “olfactory fatigue” before you leave that one-star review).
Speaking of missing the point entirely…
“Which fragrance gets the most compliments?” This is not a dating strategy. The constant pursuit of compliment-getting fragrances has turned parts of the community into a weird sort of olfactory pickup artist scene.
And while we’re here – it’s 2024, and you’re still asking me if a scent leans more feminine or masculine? Gendering scent molecules is like gendering clouds or colors or the concept of Thursday. Is your bergamot licensed to practice law? Does your vetiver have student loan debt? When was the last time your oakmoss filed its tax return? Do these sound like silly questions to ask? They are equally as silly as fretting about your perfume’s gender identity. Just be a human, wearing a note you love because you love it.
And while we’re on the subject of arbitrary rules we’ve made up…
“What’s your signature scent?” My what? “Nobody needs more than 10 bottles!” Says who? The weird moralization of both collection sizes and scent monogamy in the fragrance community is exhausting.
Some days I want to smell like a marble bust vined with ivy, others like I just rolled in a constellation of stars. Sometimes I want to be a cozy sweater, and sometimes I want to be an entire gothic cathedral. Why limit yourself to one song when you could have a whole playlist?
And let’s talk about the designer fragrance snobbery. Not everyone needs to be wearing small-batch artisanal perfumes that cost half a month’s rent. That “basic” designer scent you’re sneering at? It probably brings its wearer joy, and isn’t that the whole point?
And once you’ve finished judging how many bottles someone owns, you can start judging how much they paid for them…
“$300 for scented water? What a rip-off!” Ah yes, because art should be cheap. Those years of training, rare materials, creative development, and artistic vision? Should probably cost the same as a bottle of designer body spray, right?
The dupe-hunting mentality is particularly exhausting. “Does anyone know a dupe for BR540 that costs $30 and performs better?” No. No, I don’t. If there was a $30 perfume that smelled exactly like a $300 perfume AND performed better, why would anyone buy the expensive one?
And don’t get me started on “clean” perfume marketing – it’s greenwashing with a side of classism, wrapped in a recycled bow. Not everything natural is good (poison ivy, anyone?), and not everything synthetic is bad. This marketing approach doesn’t just mislead – it creates artificial moral hierarchies around something as personal as scent preferences.
After all this talk about what perfume shouldn’t be – too expensive, too synthetic, too gendered, too whatever – let me tell you what it is: it’s poetry for the nose
Yes, I know my reviews are flowery. Yes, I describe perfumes in terms of memories, emotions, and elaborate scenarios. No, I will not simply list notes like I’m reading the back of a box. If you want a clinical breakdown of molecules, go read the IFRA documentation.
When I say a fragrance smells like “the last warm day of autumn, when the golden light hits fallen leaves and you’re sipping a hot chai and nibbling an apple cider donut when you get the call that your dad died,” I’m conveying an experience, not just a list of notes. Scent is intimately tied to memory and emotion – describing it purely in technical terms misses the entire point.
And finally, because I desperately need to say this…
Here’s the thing about perfume recommendations: unless you’re asking me how to smell like Brigitte Lahaie in Jean Rollin’s Fascination, or the trippy pastel poster art of Belladonna of Sadness, or lying on your bedroom floor in 1994 feeling weird and hazy and scared of the future while listening to Mazzy Star, or Scully slapping on the latex in that one funny episode of the X-Files, or that dream you had after finishing Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X trilogy – I probably shouldn’t be your guide.
“Looking for something unique but crowd-pleasing, sexy but office-appropriate, under $50 but niche quality, smells like summer nights but works year-round…” Does this exist? Possibly. I got bored and fell asleep before you finished your request, though. Without a genuine connection to your desired vibe, anything I suggest would just be me half-heartedly people-pleasing. My recommendations would be exercises in mediocrity, expensive arrows shot in the dark.
Just last night, someone messaged me asking how to smell like Gerard Way at a 2002 New Jersey basement show. No shade to the asker – that’s actually a fantastic request! The specificity is chef’s kiss. But I had to admit I literally didn’t know who Gerard Way was until that very moment. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay. We had a fun chat about it anyway, made a new connection, and they’ll hopefully find someone who can actually nail that early-aughts emo basement vibe for them.
The fragrance community (and everybody, really) seems oddly hesitant to say, “I don’t know,” or “That’s not my area.” But it’s actually freeing – better an honest “not my wheelhouse” than pretending expertise you don’t have. Perfume is deeply personal, and unless you’re tapping into something that genuinely excites me, something specific and evocative and meaningful (to me), I’m not the right person to guide your scent journey.
Every community has its eye-rolling moments and misplaced priorities, and perfume people are no exception. They obsess over synthetic metrics instead of genuine experiences, make up arbitrary rules that serve no one, and sometimes get so caught up in chasing trends and validation that they completely miss the point of what makes this art form special. But there’s something beautiful about watching someone describe a scent that moved them to tears, or sharing a sample that changes how they see the world, or finally finding that perfect bottle after a hundred near-misses. Even when they’re driving me crazy… they’re still speaking my language.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
My two favorite comfort spots as a child: tucked in a corner with a book, or in the kitchen at my grandmother’s knee. Both places taught me to love the slow unfolding of stories – whether they came from mixing bowls or printed pages. Maybe that’s why I find myself lingering over scenes of characters eating. A flaky crust or the smell of burnt sugar can transport you more surely than any map. What characters eat, how they eat it, who they share it with – these details tell us everything about their world.
As I grew older, I realized something curious: while other readers might have dog-eared the romantic scenes in novels, I was the one impatiently flipping past them to get back to the detailed descriptions of gathering herbs or preparing meals. Even in the notoriously salacious Clan of the Cave Bear, I cared more about Ayla’s medicinal plants than her spicy cave encounters. Maybe because food scenes revealed something more intimate – not just how characters fed their bodies, but how they nourished their souls and connections to others. Plus, I was a constantly hungry child. My mother had me counting calories from age five. I ate vicariously through these characters, savoring every detailed description of their meals, while secretly stuffing saltines and oyster crackers into my pockets – not always from hunger, but often from spite, claiming these small crunchy acts of rebellion. Even now, I can’t read without something to crunch between pages.
The Boxcar Children showed me first what food could mean beyond hunger. Four siblings with nothing but each other, turning an abandoned train car into home. I envied their freedom to eat what they found, when they found it. Every small victory mattered: a cup cut from a tin can, milk kept cool in a stream, wild blueberries gathered in a fresh bucket. Each meal became an act of love and defiance – we can make this work, we can stay together, we can turn nothing into something.
In Little House on the Prairie, each meal was a triumph I could taste in secret: stewed jackrabbit with white-flour dumplings and gravy, steaming cornbread flavored with bacon fat, and molasses to pour over top. No one counted Laura’s calories. Karana in Island of the Blue Dolphins followed the same patient rhythm of survival: abalone pried from rocks, fish caught in tidal pools, roots dug from the earth with improvised tools. These girls ate to live, and lived fully.
In The Secret Garden, I found a different kind of mirror. While Mary transforms from sallow to vibrant, I was being taught to wish for the opposite. My mother’s voice suggested that thin and pale was preferable to rosy-cheeked and sturdy. Still, I devoured the descriptions: warm milk, homemade cottage bread slathered with raspberry jam, buttered crumpets, currant buns. As the garden comes alive, so do the children who tend it, nourished by Susan Sowerby’s hearty oatcakes and fresh milk brought for picnics among the roses. They eat without anyone watching, measuring, counting.
Harriet’s tomato sammy
On dark and stormy nights in A Wrinkle in Time, the Murray kitchen glows with love and warm milk for cocoa. Charles Wallace, wise beyond his five years, makes liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwiches while his sister Meg gets her one precious tomato with her mother’s blessing. Here was another kind of hunger being fed – not just for midnight snacks, but for unconditional love served up with hot chocolate and understanding. A mother who could say of her last tomato, “To what better use could it be put?” than feeding her child’s happiness. That liverwurst sandwich, by the way, became such an indelible detail that years later, when I was interviewed about the Wrinkle in Time cover art saga, it was the only thing I could recall from the entire story!
The Wind in the Willows packed picnic baskets of pure imagination: a yard of French bread, sausage fragrant with garlic, cheese that “lay down and cried,” and bottled sunshine from Southern slopes. In Heidi’s world, simple meals became feasts: toasted cheese and fresh goat’s milk in her grandfather’s alpine cabin, tasting of freedom and mountain air. In Harriet The Spy, Harriet M. Welsch’s tomato sandwich appeared like clockwork, made the same way every day by her nanny Ole Golly (white bread, ripe tomatoes, mayo, and though I’d add salt and pepper, I doubt Harriet would approve).
When my mother was monitoring every bite, allowing only Weight Watchers-approved foods and endless bowls of undressed salad, I found myself drawn to the strange, exotic foods in books: Edmund’s Turkish Delight in Narnia, the pickled limes Amy March coveted at school. I had no idea what these things actually tasted like, which made them perfect for fantasizing. They existed purely in my imagination, where no one could measure their calories or deem them forbidden. No Weight Watchers points chart in the world could calculate the value of magical sugar covered in snow, or the tart sweetness of pickled citrus traded like contraband between schoolgirls.
And speaking of fantasy feasts, the dwarves raid Bilbo’s pantry with a gleeful abandon I recognized in my own hidden snacking: seed-cakes vanishing, buttered scones disappearing with raspberry jam and apple-tart, followed by mince-pies, cheese, pork-pie and salad. Then more cakes, ale, coffee, eggs, cold chicken and pickles. The Redwall books fed these fantasies – deeper’n’ever pies, greensap milk, meadowcream pudding, hot cornbread studded with hazelnuts and apple. Between crackers crushed in my pockets, I devoured these imaginary feasts.
In Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, a plate appears loaded with Southern comfort: fried chicken, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, cornbread, and those titular tomatoes. The chocolatier in Chocolat reads her customers through their cravings. In Like Water for Chocolate, a single chile in walnut sauce captures all possible flavors: sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, hot with pepper, subtle with nuts.
But food can speak of darker things too. The Secret History’s feast spins out of control – soups, lobsters, pâtés, mousses blur together with Tattinger champagne and brandy until the room tilts with excess and abandon. In Castle Dracula, Jonathan Harker’s journal opens not with terror but with dinner – an “excellent roast chicken” served by his gracious host. And in Rebecca, the narrator torments herself remembering teatime at Manderley: dripping crumpets, crisp toast wedges, mysterious sandwiches, that special gingerbread, and angel cake that melted in the mouth. These are meals haunted by what comes after.
I actually started writing this piece seven years ago, just a simple list of meals from books. But, like the best stories about food, it was never really about the food at all. It was about hunger and love and what happens when those things get tangled together, about mothers and daughters and all the ways we learn to feed ourselves when no one else will.
Yet it’s not these haunted meals or desperate hungers I want to carry forward. What I want now is to nourish what was starved. I imagine setting a table for my younger self, covering every inch with the food of these beloved books: warm cottage bread fresh from the oven, slathered with sweet butter and honey, piled with slices of ripe tomatoes and sprinkled with salt. Crumpets dripping with melted butter, currant buns still steaming, seed-cakes and apple tarts and mince pies. A tureen of rabbit stew with dumplings, cornbread flavored with bacon fat, blueberries gathered by small determined hands. Hot oatcakes wrapped in clean napkins, brought by a mother who knew how to feed children’s souls as well as their bodies. I’d tell that hungry, hiding girl that she can eat until she’s satisfied, that there’s no need to count or measure or feel shame, that the crumbs in her pockets were not crimes but survival. And maybe I’d set a place for my mother too, hoping we could both finally taste something sweeter than fear – forgiveness, served in portions large enough to fill all our empty spaces.
Next month marks eleven years since she died. My body remembers before my mind does. It asks for comfort reads and crackers in corners. The old familiar hungers, the slow work of healing.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
In times of deep shadow, humanity has always reached for two torch flames: magic and art. Often, they burn as one – each a way of touching the invisible, of shaping reality from the raw stuff of imagination and will.
Each an attempt to make sense of a world that sometimes seems senseless, our fingers stretching toward that distant spark of understanding.
Art’s power lies not in offering escape, but in its unflinching ability to witness, to record, to create. It reflects our full humanity – our grief and our joy, our rage and our hope. Through this honest reflection, we find our strength. Our imaginations aren’t exits from reality – they’re tools for seeing it more clearly, for envisioning what could be.
Creation is an act of power – a reaching inward to find something stronger than our circumstances, a way of claiming space in a world that sometimes seems intent on shrinking us. We raise our hands to shape, to shield, to shatter what needs breaking.
Right now, many feel a profound weariness. But across time and space, across every circumstance, humans have made art. Like moths drawn to flame, we spiral ever toward the light of creation. It’s not just how we resist – it’s how we exist.
Art speaks what cannot be said plainly. Through it, we express the inexpressible, share what feels unshareable. These creations may come from any time, any place, any hand – but they speak to something universal in the human spirit.
Every brushstroke, every sculpted line, every carefully chosen word is a thread connecting us to everyone who has ever faced uncertainty and chosen to create anyway. It builds bridges between hearts, between centuries.
This is why we cannot stop making, cannot stop imagining better worlds into being. Art isn’t a luxury to set aside until better days. It’s how we live through all our days – through grief, through rage, through moments that feel impossible to bear. It’s how we express our truths, how we find each other when the weight feels crushing, our hearts, our voices, our visions blazing with possibility.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
Memory works in funny ways, living in fragments and feelings more than solid details – it’s a bit like peering through the glass at a dollhouse scene, where some things snap into perfect focus while others stay pleasantly fuzzy around the edges.
For years, I’ve carried this memory of a childhood museum visit: walking up dark ramps, my small hand probably clutched in my grandmother’s (Lady Sue, my father’s mother – not to be confused with Mawga, my maternal grandmother, who starred in so many other childhood adventures and shows up frequently in this blog), as we gazed through windows at tiny rooms that glowed like jewel boxes in the dim light.
When I mentioned this memory to my youngest sister recently, she immediately suggested that it must have been the Museum of Miniatures in Carmel, and for a moment, those fuzzy edges seemed to sharpen. And so we made plans and last month, I made my way to Carmel, excited to revisit this piece of my childhood. But as soon as I stepped into the charming converted church that houses the current museum, I knew this wasn’t the place I remembered.
More talks with my sister afterward and some internet digging led us to the truth: those childhood memory-fragments lined up perfectly with the Thorne Miniature Rooms in Chicago. In later looking at photos online, I felt that little jolt of recognition – aha! yes! These were the elegant, carefully crafted rooms I remembered. Seeing them again brought back not just the memory of that visit with Lady Sue, but all the stories that shaped my young imagination around miniature worlds.
Because it wasn’t just those museum rooms that captivated me – it was the stories about tiny people living secret lives right next to us. The Borrowers, The Littles, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and later, Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty – these tales changed how I looked at every little corner of the world. Every crack in a baseboard, each mysterious hole in a garden wall, became a possible doorway to some hidden community. These stories taught me to start looking for the magic in everyday things – a postage stamp becoming a masterpiece in a tiny gallery, a safety pin transformed into a sword, a teacup doing duty as a bathtub. Even now, I catch myself being careful around established rosebushes, wondering about the tiny homes and borrowed treasures that might be tucked beneath those thorns.
This fascination with miniatures followed all three of us sisters into adulthood, though it manifested differently for each of us. My sisters embraced their childhood love of dollhouses with grown-up collections – their tiny rooms filled with perfectly arranged furniture and carefully chosen accessories. But my relationship with these little dwellings has always been more complicated. Despite how much I loved peering into these perfect little worlds, I never felt I deserved a dollhouse of my own. My reasoning, flimsy as it was, went like this: I can’t even decorate my own full-sized home properly. My pretty things tend to pile up in heaps and clusters, like a magpie’s collection waiting to be properly shown off. If I couldn’t handle organizing normal-sized spaces, what business did I have trying it in miniature? (Though in a funny twist, while I’ve denied myself a dollhouse, I’ve somehow ended up with quite a collection of creepy dolls over the years – but that’s a different story, one about how childhood fascinations grow up right along with us.)
So when I visited the Carmel museum last month, I found myself comparing its treasures to both my childhood imaginings and my adult hesitations. The museum, housed in that converted church, felt like a different kind of sanctuary. It was full of impressive recreations, from Sherlock Holmes’ 221B Baker Street to the Addams Family mansion, and the tiniest details that caught my eye and made my heart go pitter-pat–jewelry boxes with impossibly small hinges, tiny treasure chests that looked like they’d been plucked right out of a dollhouse-sized Cave of Wonders, and best of all, a perfectly scaled beaded necklace draped across a lady’s vanity.
These museum pieces were worlds away from my beloved Borrowers and Littles, with their clever makeshift solution, like Arrietty using a clothespin for a hair clip or a fallen leaf as a lampshade. Here, instead, every piece was crafted exactly to scale, tiny treasures made with as much skill and care as their full-sized versions. I pressed my face to the glass just like I did as a kid, amazed at how these craftspeople had caught not just the look but the very soul of these tiny objects. The way light played on the miniature beads, the faint gleam of tiny metal clasps, the careful arrangement of microscopic bottles and brushes on the vanity – each detail showing just how much artistry is possible at such a small scale.
As a kid, my imagination ran wild with possibilities. I even believed, with that rock-solid certainty that only kids can have, that a microscopic civilization lived in my stomach, surviving on my daily bowl of Wheat Chex. Now, as an adult who collects perfumes and ghost stories, who knits and cooks and lives among creepy dolls, I see it’s all part of the same impulse – this need to gather and arrange small things, to create little pockets of order in an oversized world.
Whether it was the Thorne Miniature Rooms or somewhere else, that museum visit happened to little-me, and it was a very formative memory! Though now I wonder how many other childhood memories I’ve mixed up or mistaken–but is it even a childhood memory worth having if there isn’t a little bit of magic and mystery and make-believe mixed in?
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
The Demon of Vanity and the Coquette, from ‘Der Ritter vom Turm’, 1498. Albrecht Dürer
Earlier this week, I shared that medieval woodcut I love sharing periodically, the one where a woman is steadfastly avoiding the devil’s attempts to show her his booty hole. With the reminder that “there will be days that the devil’s gonna try and show you his butthole every chance he gets but friends, the secret is you don’t have to look.” It was meant to be gentle wisdom about protecting your peace, about not torturing yourself with election numbers.
Now, that wisdom feels hollow in my throat.
Today, what’s crushing isn’t just the devil’s same old routine – it’s watching so many Americans eagerly lining up for front-row seats to the show again, crawling right back up that hellish poopshoot even when it works against their own interests. The choreography hasn’t changed, and neither, it seems, has their appetite for it.
I’ve been staring at this blank page for hours, deleting and rewriting, trying to find words that don’t feel inadequate. Maybe that’s the point – maybe there aren’t “right” words for moments like these. Maybe all I can offer is my raw truth: I am angry. I am heartbroken. I am sitting here with fury choking my throat and tears clouding my vision because, once again, we’re watching basic human dignity being treated as debatable.
To my friends who are trans, who are queer, who are Black and brown, who are immigrants, who are disabled, who are existing every day in a world that keeps trying to legislate you out of being: I see you. I love you. I am holding space for your rage and your grief and your exhaustion. Your humanity is not up for debate. Your right to exist is not a political issue. Your lives matter infinitely more than my comfort in speaking up.
I keep thinking about how we’re all just trying to be human in a world that seems hellbent on grinding down our edges until we fit into smaller and smaller boxes. The exhaustion feels physical – a weight pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I’m cycling through waves of rage and despair and a bone-deep weariness that comes from watching the same patterns play out again and again.
I am so disgusted, so disappointed right now that I don’t even know what to do with these feelings. It would be so easy to sink into this muck of despair, to let it swallow me whole. But even in this darkness, I see you all still shining. Still creating. Still making beauty and joy and community in the face of everything. You remind me that resistance doesn’t always look like grand gestures. Sometimes it looks like surviving. Sometimes it looks like joy. Sometimes it looks like loving each other so fiercely that it becomes its own kind of revolution.
I don’t have answers. I won’t pretend to have wisdom to offer. What I do have is my voice, my vote, my resources, and my promise to keep showing up. To keep listening. To keep learning. To keep doing the work.
Because the devil and his butthole aren’t going to banish themselves. And we’ve got work to do. Right now. Today. This minute.
If you need me, I’m here. If you need to rage, I’m here. If you need to cry, I’m here. If you need resources or support, I’m here. We get through this together, or not at all.
In my doom-scrolling over the past 24 hours, I’m seeing it all – yes, people threatening to leave the country and berating their friends and family members for voting with hate and fear in their hearts. I’m seeing the wishy-washy “we can still be friends no matter how you voted, show some compassion and empathy” posts, as if basic human rights were just a difference of opinion. But I’m also seeing people rallying, sharing resources, posting actionable items, building networks of support. And then I came across these words from Tyler Thrasher that struck me right in the chest: “nothing changes [in how we engage and show up for each other.] We continue to love. To foster community. To advocate for those in need and most importantly protect our peace.”
I know these movements, these sentiments aren’t new. Not after disappointment in 2016, not before that, not now. I’m clear-eyed enough to know things aren’t going to fundamentally change in our lifetime, or our children’s, or even our grandchildren’s. This is long work. Ancient work.
And so we keep going. Because in all this darkness, I see you persisting, nurturing each other, holding space for tenderness even now…. and somehow, in between the tears and the rage, we’re all still imagining better worlds into being.
Even in expressing all this, I still worry all the time that I don’t have the correct language or the proper words for moments like this, that no matter what I say in moments like these, someone’s going to have a problem with it. But they’re going to have a problem with my silence, too. So you might as well speak what’s in your heart and mean it. What other choice do we have?
A note before we begin: I wrote most of this post in those strange, suspended days before this morning’s devastating election results. As I sit here now, trying to reconcile my small personal joys with the weight of what’s happening in our world, I find myself cycling through waves of anger, grief, and a deep, gnawing worry about what comes next.
Chuck Wendig articulated it perfectly this morning: “What I know is that I don’t know. What I know is the things I thought I knew, or that I believed were true, really aren’t, and that once more I exist in need of a word, perhaps a German one, that expresses both the act of being shocked and a total lack of shock at the exact same time.”
Part of me wanted to scrap this post entirely – it feels almost frivolous to talk about movies and recipes and foliage when so many of us are grappling with real horror and uncertainty in our lives. But. I find myself clinging to these small moments of light, these tiny victories and simple pleasures. Not as distraction, but as defiance. It’s saying: yes, we’re hurting, we’re scared, we’re angry – and we’re also still here, still cooking dinner, still telling stories, still finding ways to nurture ourselves and each other. Sometimes maintaining our rituals and celebrating small joys becomes its own kind of resistance when the larger world feels overwhelming.
So I’m sharing this post, written in a different emotional landscape than the one we’re in now. The world feels heavier today, darker. But we have been here before, and we know how to hold each other through the long night. We always find our way back to the light.
31 days of horror movies! For those who haven’t been following along, I committed to watching and reviewing a horror movie every single day in October. TLDR; my favorite viewing last month was SHE WILL. My brain is now approximately 75% jump scares and spooky soundtracks. I’m simultaneously proud of once again completing my annual challenge and ready to watch nothing but Japanese lifestyle videos on YouTube for the next month.
I watched a handful of these films while I was visiting my horror-averse sister; because she sat through a few of them with me, I promised rewards of Bridgerton marathons and cake. I actually adore scandal and gossip and melodrama and sparkly beaded frocks so I enjoyed it more than I thought! (I will say though, it could use more vampires and werewolves and eldritch horrors from beyond.)
Cooking & Eating
After a month of microwave popcorn and bowls of soup squeezed in between movie viewings, I’m getting back into proper cooking.
For many years, I have pooh-poohed quinoa as gross and pointless. Turns out all you need to do is flavor it. Whatever you’re seasoning it with, add some more. Then, a lot more of that. I stirred some lemon juice and lots of homemade pesto into some hot quinoa, and it was absolutely delicious. As an aside, “hot quinoa” sounds like an Urban Dictionary entry. Also, I don’t use a recipe for pesto; it’s basically every herb I’ve got in the garden (basil, sage, fennel, chives) + whatever nuts I have (pumpkin seeds, almonds) + garlic + lemon juice + olive oil + parmesan.
After working with sourdough for the past four years, I finally got brave enough to begin adding extra junk to it. I just made a garlic + parmesan loaf and a pickled jalapeño + sharp cheddar loaf, and they were insanely good. (This is the sourdough recipe I use, but I have been experimenting with higher hydration.)
I have been making this Thai coconut shrimp soup at least once a week for the past two months, and it is marvelous. I also made a kabocha squash soup that I garnished with cilantro, and that one bowl of soup turned me into a cilantro lover.
While I was visiting my baby sister in Indianapolis, we spent an afternoon in Carmel and went to a small-plates style restaurant called Divvy. I love little bites of all kinds of things; it is my favorite way to eat! Highly, highly recommended.
Reading
Finally catching up on my nonfiction TBR pile that got neglected during movie month. Currently, I am reading:
Fiction-wise, I recently finished the following three books…
Snake Oil by Kelsey Rae Dimberg Three women’s paths collide at a wellness company when its charismatic founder starts losing her grip on her billion-dollar empire. Not wellness horror per se, more like a wellness thriller, but I feel like it’s taken the best and strongest of all the concepts and ideas written about in the past few years and honed it into something really enjoyable.
She’s Always Hungryby Eliza Clark A delightfully weird and darkly amusing collection of stories about hunger in all its forms, from body horror to alien flora to the all-consuming desires that make us human. There is one story that is alternately so dumb and absurd that it’s actually brilliant. Like many collections, there are hits and misses, but overall, I thought it was a hoot.
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister Wherein siblings deal with their supernatural family inheritance in Appalachia and the ancient bargain they made with their cranberry bog. This weirdly reminded me of my childhood love of The Boxcar Children – both tap into that deep satisfaction of seeing siblings create their own world and systems of care, even in (or especially in) strange circumstances!
I saw proper autumn foliage for the first time in I don’t know how many years! It was glorious. This photo was taken just outside my sister’s house as the leaves were only just beginning to fall.
We did not have much luck growing tomatoes or zucchini this year, but we learned we can grow unlimited eggplants, serrano peppers, and okra! Next year I am planting ALL of the peppers!
The relief of falling back into routines. Yvan’s broken foot this summer really threw me off in more ways than I realized. I’ve begun waking up early again and journaling my dreams, and I didn’t even realize how much I had been missing that little morning ritual. Also, the more frequently I write about my dreams, the better I get at remembering them, and my dream life is starting to feel all the more rich and vivid for it!
A new ceramic cooking skillet. My old one was so gross. I want to cook ALL the eggs now! And a salt grinder (I’ve just been pouring directly out of the Morton’s container my whole life, hehehe.)
When friends say something nice about you! I was mentioned in the very excellent Hauntology Now! substack last month, and I was so humbled and surprised. What a lovely thing!
Currently Inspired By
My new tea shelf! Now that Yvan is on his feet again, he was finally able to finish this project. This means all of our teas are out of boxes and in plain view now, so we will remember to drink them!
Caitlin McCarthy’s Goddess Oracleis a moonlit treasure chest overflowing with mystical beauty and arcane wisdom – a brilliant gem for art enthusiasts and practitioners of the unseen alike.
The prolific and insightful art writing of Elizah Leigh, whose keen eye and thoughtful commentary continually inspire me to look deeper and write better.
All the things I’ve been gloriously wrong about lately (quinoa needs seasoning! cilantro isn’t evil! Bridgerton could use some eldritch horrors but is still fun!)
The quiet pleasure of creating order from chaos, whether it’s recording dreams, or reviewing 31 days of horror films
Finding my way back to these rambling little life updates.
The necessity of fierce determination and tender care for the times ahead.
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a summoning for The Art of the Occult, featuring bloodmilk, BPAL, and Roses & Rue Antiques
BEHOLD, MORTALS!
By peculiar planetary alignments and mysterious postal machinations, signed copies of The Art of the Occult: A Visual Sourcebook For The Modern Mystic have writhed their way back into existence! Like phantoms at dawn, these tomes have a habit of dissolving into the ether – so if you seek to infuse your Hexmas season with deliciously strange splendors, the moment pulses with possibility. Summon your copy directly from my web-realm before they skitter back into the void!
For those who haven’t yet ventured into these enchanted pages, imagine slipping into art history’s most bewitching territories: automatic drawings scratched out in prophetic frenzies, sacred geometries encoded in cathedral stones, mythic beasts prowling through moonlit gardens of esoteric symbols, and cosmic maps charting the vast seas between worlds. Here, in the spaces between reality and dream, generations of artists have attempted to capture glimpses of the ineffable.
Within these pages, you’ll encounter both celebrated visionaries and hidden pioneers of mystical art. Witness Hilma af Klint’s monumental temple paintings, created decades before abstraction was “invented,” channeled from realms unknown. Lose yourself in Madge Gill’s mediumistic masterpieces, thousands of intricate works produced in trance states by moonlight. Follow Remedios Varo’s alchemical transformations and Leonora Carrington’s occult bestiary. Delve into the fierce, shadowy visions of Marjorie Cameron and the wild-souled ink drawings of Vali Myers. In our own era, discover Laurie Lipton’s ethereal graphite phantasms, Alison Blickle’s modern mystical narratives, and Shannon Taggart’s haunting documents of contemporary spiritualist practices. From the symbolic paintings of the fin de siècle to the resurrection of witch-worn folkloric imagery, these artists translate their otherworldly experiences into visual feasts that still pulse with uncanny power.
This is more than just an art book – it’s a skeleton key to understanding why humans have always yearned to capture the uncapturable, to paint the invisible, to draw down the divine. Through 175 carefully curated artworks divided into explorations of The Cosmos, Higher Beings, and The Practitioners, you’ll discover how artists across time and space have translated their mystical experiences into visual feasts that still resonate with otherworldly power.
Perfect for:
Modern mystics and seasoned skeptics alike
Your favorite art historian with a taste for the transcendent
That friend who has more crystals than socks
The coffee table that yearns for something more esoteric than casual conversation starters
Anyone who’s ever wondered why humans keep trying to paint the unpaintable
Your own personal cabinet of curiosities
The cosmic wanderer who collects beautiful oddities
Hexmas giving (because nothing says “seasonal cheer” quite like a deep dive into mystical artworks, and everyone’s shelf needs a touch of the numinous)
These enchanted editions tend to vanish rapidly. Summon your signed copy before they return to whatever dimension they came from. No incantations required (though your incantatory reviews if you already have a copy are always appreciated!)
Art is, after all, magic made visible, and hopefully you will consider this book your grimoire. Here, in its pages, each brushstroke is a conjuring, each line a spell cast in pigment and possibility. Within these collected visions and voices, the unseen takes form and the ineffable finds its image.
Stora Skuggan Fantôme de Maules Ghost roads converging on a cemetery, whispers of a green-cloaked figure vanishing into mist. Fantôme de Maules unfurls like a secret, a sylvan, spectral musk, dark green twilight gleaming through branches, hovering just above the skin. The green here isn’t lush or vibrant, but austere – the color of twilight filtering through pine needles. There’s a whisper of lavender, more herbal than floral, and a hint of dry, shadowy spice – prickly subterranean murmurs from some hidden place. I catch wisps of mossy flowers through the mist, their fragrance elusive and fleeting, obscured by that omnipresent veil of cool, verdant fog. It’s beautiful, in a melancholy way, like stumbling upon abandoned ruins in a forgotten glade. The scent carries a weight of isolation, of time stretching endlessly through silent forests, the grass and loam of secret paths trodden by solitary feet. The bittersweet ache of chosen seclusion, of a world deliberately left behind. The gossamer soapy-powdery aspect feels like a fading remnant of civilization, washed away by years of woodland solitude. It’s a fragrance whose presence is defined by absence, a mystery I’m not sure I want to unravel – what’s missing, or why it matters.
Clue Warm Bulb opens with a subtle but singular blend of fuzzed salinity combined with the scent of a heating element, evoking the imagined aroma of a Himalayan salt lamp covered in a fine patina of dust. I have several of these lamps, and mine don’t smell like much of anything in particular, but this opening is always how I thought they would smell. It’s the essence of warm, mineralized air, like you could smell the soft, pinky-orange glow emanating from rough-hewn salt crystals beneath a thin veil of settled particles. The fragrance makes me think of the lamp’s alleged ability to ionize the air, creating an olfactory impression of a purified, slightly electric atmosphere tinged with a hint of neglect. As it develops, the scent undergoes an unexpected transition, as if a forgotten offering has been left near the lamp’s warm glow: a small dried bouquet and a marshmallow, both altered by proximity to the salt lamp’s warmth and accumulated residue. Imagine pressed flowers; their colors faded but still discernible, mingled with the powdery sweetness of a marshmallow slowly desiccating in the lamp’s ambient heat, all covered by a ghostly layer of time’s passage. Though not a scent that wildly excited me, Warm Bulb’s quiet journey from dusty, electrified minerals to withered floral sweetness proved to be an interesting olfactory experience, even just to think about and write about, if not to wear.
Crushed Fruits from Regime des Fleurs shimmers and unfurls like an overripe reverie, fruit flesh and flowers awakening from brandy-soaked slumber; an ultraviolet tumble of plums, an infrared rush of raspberries, a kaleidoscopic cascade woven through the fold of a forgotten black velvet painting, glossy and dripping and beckoning with the urgency of a thousand hummingbird hearts. That 1970s canvas time-shifts into a 1990s dress, empire-waisted, bell-sleeved, phantom filigree choker at the throat, echoes of stompy boots, an ambery oxblood slash of Spice or Black Honey staining ghost-lips. A current of boozy bitterness and dusky incense, a smoky scent of hazy late neon nights bleeding into dawn, of kisses that taste like vintage lipstick from a dream you haven’t had yet but always remember the moment before waking.
Arcana Wildcraft Daydreams of Trees is an olfactory landscape that defies botanical reality. Though violets are conspicuously absent from the listed notes, they emerge as unmistakable titans, ascending to arboreal majesty in a fantastical forest. In this otherworldly realm, violet blooms tower like gentle giants, their presence both awe-inspiring and benevolent. Colossal purple petals the size of skyscrapers, soft, velvety, and gossamer-thin despite their impossible scale, filter the sunlight, casting an ethereal glow that’s mirrored in the scent’s interplay of light and shadow. Beneath them, a tapestry of green unfurls – crisp, resinous, alive with the whispers of coniferous giants paying homage to their violet overlords. A cool breeze carries hints of herbal sweetness, mingling with the earthy richness of the forest floor below. These floral kaiju drift through the fragrance like benign Mothras, their movements sending waves of sweet, powdery aroma cascading through the air. The very essence of the forest seems to pulse throughout – a complex amalgam of woody warmth and floral opulence as if the boundary between tree and flower has dissolved completely. Daydreams of Trees is a perfumed dreamscape of quiet grandeur, a world where towering floral sentinels stand watch over a woodland transformed by their vast, violet shadow.
Carnival Wax Deathtrap is a smoky vanilla-incense-sandalwood-resin scent full of vaguely oracular pronouncements; it smells profound in some indefinable way. It wraps me in a nebulous aura of mystery and hazy hidden knowledge – though no one knows who hid this knowledge, why they bothered, or if anyone’s actually looking for it. I go about my daily routine feeling like a walking enigma, a bearer of arcane secrets, while everyone else is probably just wondering why I smell like a dusty old pile of books or some such. Deathtrap transforms me into the keeper of a cosmic puzzle that nobody asked for; it has cast a spell on me, convincing me of its intense profundity while simultaneously robbing me of the ability to articulate why. Trying to explain its essence is like grasping at the fading wisps of a vivid dream. The words hover just out of reach, shimmering with meaning, only to dissipate the moment I open my mouth. I’m left with nothing but a lingering sense of having touched something mystically significant, even if I can’t quite remember what or how.
Cocoa Pink Paper Butterfly is a lilting confectionary cradlesong of lightness, sweetness, and softness – frosted tea cakes, sugary breakfast cereal milk, delicate pearls of vanilla musk, and wisps of phantom florals. But like all lullabies, it carries an undercurrent of melancholy beneath its gentle exterior. Why are the songs we sing to innocent babes so often tinged with sadness? And so, somehow, this sweetness and light immediately draws forth a wistfulness from deep within. It’s a perfume that deserves its own entry in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows –
Paperiperhonen /pa.pe.ri.per.ho.nen/ n.
-A state of being in which one finds comfort in gentle sorrow, like being wrapped in a lace shawl knitted from memories and dreams, a cocoon of bittersweet reverie.
-The paradoxical sensation of feeling most alive when embracing one’s melancholy, finding unexpected depth and richness in the quieter, darker emotional landscapes.
-A moment of bittersweet clarity in which the veil between joy and sorrow dissolves, revealing that our deepest mirth and most wrenching tears spring from the same well of human experience
This fragrance doesn’t smell of sadness, but it smells like sadness feels – soft, sweet, and strangely comforting. And now, as I finally explore this sample from earlier in the summer, I’m struck by a new wave of melancholy: it was a limited edition, no longer available. This realization adds another layer to an already complex emotional experience, embodying the very fleeting beauty it captures.
Mihan Aromatics Mikado Bark is a cozy, comforting scent without any of the typical hallmarks perfumes of coziness and comfort rely on. It’s not rich or foody, and I would not say it’s overly nostalgic in any particular way. It’s a fragrance whose spicy, woody notes are all not exactly ghosts of themselves, but they’ve all been shushed and hushed, and all together, their muted echoes harmonize with exquisite subtlety. It’s a perfume that hovers like a hazy veil, both grounding and uplifting in its gentle presence. It carries the softness of lamplight pooling in shadows at dusk, yet also evokes the fleeting warmth of sunlight piercing gloomy afternoon clouds. The scent invites introspection, smoothing sharp edges and muting bold tones into a delicate accord. It’s as if familiar aromatic notes have been reimagined – their essence captured, then softened and warmed. The fragrance conjures the image of a lone verdant remnant amid a sea of faded crimson and rust as October yields to November’s chill. Lingering in the air, it embodies the autumnal, contemplative spirit of hobbits, reimagined as a gremlincore playlist steeped in hauntological reverb.
Two fragrances from Solstice Scents immediately conjured some very specific imagery for me…!
Devil’s Tongue: Beelzebub thunders into Bike Week, his presence a tempest of lime and leather. Ancient wings, creased like a well-worn jacket, flex as he grips chrome handlebars slick with condensation from his frosty margarita. The air crackles with a zesty electricity, mixing citrus sting with infernal heat in a heady cocktail. Beneath his wheels, the earth exhales a deep, earthy groan – a mix of smoke and unholy soil that speaks of vast, wicked subterranean realms. At the edge of town, he pulls into a ubiquitous coffee franchise, the aroma of seasonal vanilla latte cutting through the infernal haze. The barista, unfazed by the sulfurous fumes, squints at the order screen and asks with practiced cheer, “Is that for Beelz, or is it Bub?” The Lord of Flies accepts his steaming cup, his “thanks, babe” shrieking out in a voice that’s part anglerfish daydreams, part chiropteran echolocation. With a final rev that sounds like the gates of hell grinding open, Beelzebub toodles off into the sunset, leaving behind a trail of vanilla-tinged brimstone and the faintest whiff of lime-kissed leather.
Thornwood Thicket: In the depths of the thicket, juicy purple orbs split open, birthing a swarm of cooing, jellied creatures that multiply with alarming speed. Sticky berry nectar drips from gnarled branches, transforming these chirping morsels into mischievous imps that skitter through the underbrush, their numbers doubling with each twig they snap. Ancient trees groan under the weight of the burgeoning horde, their woody sighs mingling with the fruity frenzy. The forest floor pulses, a living carpet of vegetation that shivers and expands, sprouting more berry-scented fiends with each quiver. Every breath draws in air thick with frenetic, fragrant energy as these jammy juggernauts overrun the woodland, their sweet symphony rising to a fever pitch. The once-serene grove twists into an ever-expanding maze of berry-fueled bedlam, leaving visitors dizzy in a haze of multiplying aromas and rambunctious, fruit-filled pandemonium.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
For the final day of my horror marathon, I’m watching Ghost Story from 1981 – a choice that feels meant to be after spending time with Alice Krige in She Will yesterday. Throughout this month of horror viewing, I’ve followed various threads and themes, and one of the most intriguing has been my unplanned journey through Alice Krige’s performances. From Gretel and Hansel to She Will, I’ve found myself drawn to her remarkable ability to transform from vulnerable to vengeance-seeking, from earthly to otherworldly. Ghost Story, one of her earliest roles, seems a perfect way to close this journey, as it showcases her gift for inhabiting characters who move effortlessly between our world and something more mysterious.
Though I read Peter Straub’s novel years ago, the details have largely faded from memory, leaving behind only atmospheric impressions and half-remembered plot points that feel more like déjà vu than actual recollection. It’s a peculiar way to approach the film adaptation – familiar yet fresh, like returning to a house you lived in as a child. [Edit: I just read this review to refamiliarize myself with the book, and they make it sound so good that I almost want to read it again.]
The story follows the members of the Chowder Society, four elderly friends who gather regularly to share ghost stories. When one of their sons dies mysteriously, it forces them to confront a terrible secret from their youth. Through flashbacks, we learn of Eva Galli, a beautiful and mysterious woman who captivated their younger selves. During a drunken encounter, their unwanted advances led to her death – a crime they covered up and have kept secret for fifty years. Now, a woman named Alma Mobley, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Eva, has appeared in their lives, seemingly intent on revenge. Even though I don’t recall much of what I read, I’m realizing that the film strips away much of what made Straub’s novel so rich – in the book, Eva is an entirely different sort of supernatural entity, and the town of Milburn itself is practically a character, with Straub weaving an intricate tapestry of its inhabitants, their relationships, and the way evil slowly infiltrates their lives. The movie foregoes this larger canvas to focus more narrowly on the Chowder Society and their secret.
The film brings together an ensemble cast of Hollywood legends – Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Houseman – as members of the Chowder Society. At first, their old-world mannerisms and antiquated phrases like “twaddle” and “the jimjams” paint a picture of genteel respectability. But as the film peels back layers of time, we discover a far uglier truth. The flashbacks reveal not distinguished gentlemen, but predatory young men surrounding a lone woman, their drunken desire leading to Eva’s death.
Watching this in 2024, it’s impossible not to think of how frequently we’ve seen this pattern play out in real life – respected, powerful men whose carefully maintained veneers of dignity mask histories of violence against women. With each new revelation about a beloved male celebrity or public figure, the shock lessens; the pattern becomes clearer. These men in Ghost Story, with their literary quotations and refined mannerisms, represent a particular type of masculine privilege that uses cultural sophistication to disguise darker impulses. As the internet wisdom goes: “men is too headache” – a phrase that manages to be both funny and devastatingly accurate when considering centuries of similar stories, both fictional and real.
The parallels between Ghost Story and yesterday’s viewing of She Will are striking. In both films, Krige portrays women who suffer abuse at the hands of men in positions of power and influence. Both characters find their way to revenge through supernatural means – Eva through ghostly manifestation, Veronica through the power of the witch-burned land. It’s fascinating to see how Krige, from these early performances to her recent work, has brought such depth to these stories of women turning trauma into terrible power.
Horror delights in showing up everywhere – in perfumes and podcasts, in fantasy shows and folk tales. It lives in vengeful ghosts and haunted apartments, but it also surfaces in unexpected moments, in stories that seem to be about something else entirely. Through films about power and transformation, through tales of revenge and redemption, horror keeps finding new ways to speak to both personal and universal truths. And that’s the thrill of it. Each October, I return to this ritual of shadows – watching past midnight, reading between meetings, stealing moments wherever I can find them – because horror reminds us we’re not alone in our darkest moments. It gives shape to our fears, voice to our rage, and sometimes, unexpectedly, light in the darkness.
P.S. Here’s a little video I shared today of some Halloween fragrance picks!
P.P.S. I also watched the new Salem’s Lot this October, but it was so bad I decided not to even write about it! What did you think?
Day Thirty-One of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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For day 30 of my 31 days of horror celebration, I found myself drawn to She Will, a 2022 psychological horror/folk horror film that feels like a hidden gem in the “good for her” subgenre. If you’re not familiar with this particular corner of horror, it encompasses films where women who have been wronged find their way to revenge or redemption, often through supernatural means. Think Jennifer’s Body or The Vvitch, where female trauma transforms into something powerful and terrible. Midsommar frequently comes up in these discussions, though there’s ongoing debate about whether it truly fits the category, given how the cult systematically manipulates Dani, breaking her down and rebuilding her as part of their commune through careful orchestration of trauma and false community. These genre conversations are always evolving as we collectively examine these films through different lenses. What matters is what resonates with you, and She Will definitely felt like a strong addition to my own list.
Beyond its compelling premise, what sealed the deal for me was the casting of Alice Krige in the lead role. Having just watched her mesmerizing performance in Gretel and Hansel earlier this month, I believe I’m entering my Alice Krige era. Though I primarily knew her as the Borg Queen from Star Trek, I’m now discovering her extensive career in horror – a delightful revelation that’s perfectly timed with my month-long horror deep dive.
In She Will, Krige plays Veronica Ghent, an aging film star who retreats to a remote Scottish healing center following a double mastectomy. Accompanied by her young nurse Desi (Kota Eberhardt), Veronica arrives at a mystical woodland estate where the ground is tragically rich with the ashes of women burned as witches centuries ago. As Veronica grapples with her own trauma – both from her surgery and the abuse she suffered as a child actor – she discovers that the land itself seems to be offering her a supernatural means of retribution.
The film cast its spell on me immediately, reminding me, at least initially, of weird fiction wizard Robert Aickman’s eerie story “Into the Woods.” Like Margaret Sawyer in Aickman’s tale, Veronica finds herself at a remote retreat that promises some form of healing or escape. Just as mysterious paths surround Margaret’s Kurhus through dense Swedish forests, Veronica’s retreat is encircled by Scottish woods that feel alive with strange possibility. In both works, the isolation isn’t just geographic – it’s a severance from the normal world that allows for profound transformation. Both women enter these spaces as one thing and risk emerging as something else entirely. The Scottish wilderness in She Will is captured with the same kind of brooding atmosphere that Aickman conjures in his prose – a sense of gloom and barrenness that somehow promises something more than mere desolation. The trees stand like ancient sentinels wrapped in perpetual fog and mist, creating that same chest-clutching unease that Aickman does so masterfully.
Aside from immensely enjoying the brooding atmosphere and reveling in my fondness for “people head off to a remote place and weirdness ensues” horror, the heart of the movie lies in watching the relationship between Veronica and Desi unfold. There’s something quite lovely about seeing their initially frosty dynamic gradually warm into something genuine and meaningful. Their growing connection grounds all the supernatural elements in something deeply human and real.
Clint Mansell’s haunting score further enhances the film’s emotional resonance. As a devoted fan of Mansell’s work on The Fountain (my favorite soundtrack of all time), I was thrilled to find his signature ethereal, swelling compositions enhancing the film’s otherworldly elements.
Looking back, I wish I had planned a double feature of She Will and Gretel and Hansel – both films showcase Krige’s remarkable talent for bringing depth and nuance to roles that blur the line between victim and avenger, between the natural and supernatural. Both stories exist in that liminal space where fairy tale meets horror, where women’s pain transforms into power.
This late in my horror marathon, it’s been fascinating to trace the various themes and performers that have captured my attention – from my exploration of apartment horror to my Osgood Perkins phase, and now this unexpected Alice Krige mini-retrospective. She Will is perhaps among my favorites of this month’s viewing, offering something sophisticated and strange, a folk horror tale about vengeance that feels more like a dark fairy tale about resurrection and redemption.
Day Thirty of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
