Funny thing. Every time I stumble across a new morbid artist or designer of dark goods and want to do a bit of research on them, and especially if I happen to think “A-ha! Here is something really awesome that no one else knows about yet!”, 9 times out of 10 it is a “Curses, foiled again!” scenario because someone else, smarter and and quicker than me, has discovered and blogged about these macabre luminaries first. And I’ll be damned if it isn’t always the same someone!
One’s first instinct is to be a little irritated. Especially if one is sometimes weirdly competitive about these things. How dare they, right? But then one may smarten up and start to think “…hmm…this individual has an extraordinarily keen eye, utterly exquisite taste, and obviously a wonderfully engaging, compelling manner in writing about all of these things that we both seem to love. Don’t be annoyed, be curious! Who is this fascinating person? Get to know them! You guys are no doubt kindred spirits!”
And of course it was so. Katie Metcalfe celebrates the strange and unusual, the damned and unseen over at her blog, Wyrd Words & Effigies. It is “a path through the dark to wild, forbidden places”, and functions as a space for dark fashion, alternative lifestyles, dark literature, black metal, experimental and ritualistic music, offbeat films, in-depth interviews, relevant articles and links and unsettling visual art and photography.
In getting to know Katie, I discovered she also has a wonderfully enchanting personal blog, or Livslogga (Swedish for “life log”), The Girl With Cold Hands, where she beautifully documents her Nordic journey in her beloved new home. In devouring her daily chronicles, I was reminded very much of how I felt when I read Johanna Spyri’s Heidi. Heidi was a favorite book and character of mine while growing up, and Katie is a little bit like a black metal Heidi. Well, except Heidi was in Switzerland, and Katie is in Sweden. But when reading about Katie’s beloved forests and daily rituals, I am brought right back to how I felt when I read Johanna Spyri’s description of the Alpine flowers, the friendly goats and the bright stars seen through a hayloft window at night. The similarity being, I suppose … that there are pure and beautiful and wonderful things in the world–many of them just small moments, little details even–but we must pay attention and open our hearts to these things!
Also–did I mention that Katie is a photographer herself, as well as a poet? Today I talk with her about all of these fascinating things and more–as well as offer you all a chance to win copies of two of Katie’s books, Dying is Forbidden in Longyearbyen and In The Hours Of Darkness. Read below for my interview with Katie Metcalfe and be certain to leave a comment to be entered in our giveaway. One week from today–October 21, 2016–one winner will be chosen at random to receive both of these books.
Mlle Ghoul: I’ve been following Wyrd Words & Effigies for a long while and love how you consistently and thoughtfully share art and music with the world. Can you tell me a little bit about the things you choose to share? The imagery, aesthetics, and sounds that ensnare and obsess you?
Katie Metcalfe: Wyrd Words & Effigies embodies my lifelong obsession for the strange and macabre, and works as an archive for all of my shadowy finds. I want to offer my readers a path through the dark, a journey across boundaries which separate this world from others.
Everything featured on the blog, ever since the very first post back in 2013 (a review of the gloriously horrifying book The Ritual by Adam Nevil), has been very carefully considered. Whatever it is that I’m presenting, it needs to be able to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. If it keeps me awake at night, even better.
I’m devoted to unearthing art which honours the eerie and untamed, and strengthens the blog’s ‘wyrd’ vibe. Creatives such as Bill Crisafi, Darby Lahger (Old Hag) and Valin Mattheis have been ensnaring me with their work for years. More recently I’ve become infatuated with the freehand, worlds-away-from-anything-else tattoo art of Noel’le Longhaul (Laughing Loone), the gorgeously grim embroidery of Carrie Violet and the moody photography of Anna Ådén.
I’m also a curious bugger. I like to creep underneath the skin of those who inspire me and find out what makes them tick. I’ve interviewed dozens of inspirational souls over the years, including Ragnar Bragason the director of the Icelandic cult film Metalhead, Dayal Patterson author of Black Metal : Evolution of the Cult and Sara Larocca-Ramm co-founder of Sisters of the Black Moon.
Black Metal is an essential part of my everyday life, and is very much at the core of Wyrd Words & Effigies. It offers what other music is unable to, and grants me passage to a deeper understanding of myself. Whilst Black Metal is the leader of the pack over at the blog, anything that snags my heart strings, and introduces me to a new kind of darkness is always introduced and celebrated. Recently I’ve been obsessing over the sounds of Anna Von Hausswolf, Graveyard Train and Phosphorescent.
Side Note : A few years back I created a magazine to accompany the blog. It was my intention to release this publication several times a year, but complications with the second issue saw production grind to a halt. For the first issue I decided to tackle death because, despite my fascination for everything surrounding the subject, it was something I greatly feared. By creating the magazine I was able to confront this fear, and learn to embrace the coming end. You’re able to find a promo video and download link for the magazine here. It’s entirely free to download and read.
With regard to inspirations and obsessions, do you find that they seek a place in the poetry that you write, or are your poems a space for say, emotions, or other bits of internal flotsam that you are working through?
My devotion to the Far North sees me returning to it time and again in my work. It’s through this devotion that I managed to find my voice as a writer. I’ve spent many years researching into the Inuit and their culture, as well as the folklore of North America and Scandinavia.
Living in Sweden gives me the opportunity to embrace the North tight, and become even more curious about its cold secrets.
Death is an extremely valuable resource for my writing. I’ve used my own experiences with death in my work on many occasions, and have gained from the therapeutic benefits. Through writing poetry about loss, I’ve found the capability to grieve for those who have passed, to heal myself and move forward.
The occult has a powerful influence over what I’m creating, and I’m always looking for the next strange thing to investigate and write about. I write poetry with the hope that it will unsettle the reader, and slip them a chill which is practically impossible to shrug off.
I’m also greatly inspired by the everyday. Spiderwebs embellished with dew, sunlight bleeding through the trees late in the afternoon, or the rise and fall of my boyfriend’s shoulders as he sleeps. By being shackled to our phones we miss so much. I’m making an effort to spend less time in front of a screen, and more time being present and noticing the life I can touch.
I burn to perform, and relish bringing my visualization of the North and its dark wonders to the stage. I tend to don furs and bones when I’m performing. They assist in empowering me, and enable me to better embody the characters in my poems.
As someone who has spent more than half of her life living with mental illness, I often look for new ways to explore the effects of depression, anxiety and eating disorders. Nothing repairs my soul better than creating a poem I can feel proud of. Poetry is an extremely effective way to reach out to people who are struggling, so I always share what I write with the hope that it will cross the path of a person who needs it.
Have you always written poetry, or is this a more recent creative outlet? What other kinds of writing do you engage in?
I was four years old when I decided that I was going to be a writer, and penned my first poem when I was under double figures after being inspired by a National Geographic documentary about wolves in Yellowstone National Park. My Grandmother used to video tape hours of wolf documentaries for me, and I would spend whole weekends drinking tea, eating beans on toast and sitting wide eyed in front of the TV.
All through my childhood I wrote stories and poems inspired by the supernatural and nature. I would write longhand in books I’d stolen from school, and on a typewriter which my Grandfather found at a carboot sale for a couple of quid. I can remember my Mum complaining about the noise of my typing coming through the kitchen ceiling.
When I was fourteen years old I developed anorexia nervosa, and at fifteen was admitted into a psychiatric ward where I stayed for nine months. It was during this time that I started to write furiously. I would write shitty children’s stories, and poems about my experience with ‘The Voice.’ I kept two diaries, one for the nurses – full of lies, and one for myself – full of self-hate. I spent several hours a day writing my diaries using an elaborate gothic font. If I wrote a word wrong, I’d tear out the page and start again. I’d also write lengthy letters to another anorexic who had a room down the hallway, and the nurses would be our posties, bringing out letters back and forth. Both of us were on bedrest, and walking down the hall to each other’s rooms was forbidden.
Five months after I was admitted into hospital, I felt an urge to recover, to abandon my anorexia. It was then that I decided to write a book about my experiences, and started what was to become my first published book Anorexia : A Stranger In The Family. Writing about my experiences with an eating disorder though poetry and non-fiction, combined with years of CBT and continual support from my family enabled me to eventually make a full recovery.
Writing about my life continues to be a valuable creative outlet for me. I established my first blog in 2004 and have been blogging almost continuously since.
I have completed several (fucking terrible) novels over the past twenty years, but thankfully they never made it to any bookshelves.
I’ve immensely enjoyed reading your Livslogga, or life log, chronicling your experiences in Sweden. What are some of the things you love most about this beautiful country that you’ve found yourself in? What’s been the most difficult adjustment? And tell me all about the concept of Fika, because I am completely obsessed.
My biggest love is for the man I wake up next to every morning, my True North, and his beautiful daughter. I love his family and friends who’ve welcomed me into their lives with every blessing. I love the forests that surround us, and how I can still, after nearly a year, find secret places to explore. My man is originally from a small town in the middle of Sweden called Hagfors, a place which has cast a spell on me. The town is surrounded by dense forests populated by moose, bears and wolves. We currently live on the outskirts of a city, and when we start the four hour journey to visit his family, I become giddy with happiness, anticipating the roads becoming quieter, the forests thicker and the night sky darker.
The most difficult adjustment I would say has been the language. I love the Swedish tongue and can happily listen to it for hours. However learning it has been more difficult that I imagined. But, my confidence is growing small bit by small bit. The Swedes are also quiet. Very, very quiet, and as a Brit who is used to almost constant chatter, this has taken some getting used to.
Fika is one of my favourite aspects of Swedish culture. To non-Swedes Fika may appear to as simply ‘having coffee,’ but it’s so much more than that. Fika is all about taking a moment to slow down and truly appreciate the moment. If you’re with friends, you enjoy their company. If you’re alone, you can sit quietly and contemplate with your coffee and cinnamon bun. I take a Fika by myself every afternoon or on the rare occasion with a friend, but when we visit my man’s family, it’s a big family affair. We sit around the table with freshly brewed coffee and something delicious made by his mother.
John Bauer, Elsa Beskow– I see these artists referred to lovingly on your blog quite often. Talk to me a bit about what they mean to you.
I went to a Rudolf Steiner School from the age of 7 – 14 and it was here that I first encountered the worlds of Beskow and Bauer. I grew up surrounded by Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians and the odd Dane. Scandinavian culture played a pivotal role in our education, from the food we ate, to the decor we crafted at Yuletide, and, of course, the books we read. Nature was an invaluable part of my schooling, and the attitude that everyone around me had towards nature was greatly influenced by the Scandinavian mind-set.
I can remember sitting on the couch at my best friend’s house, working my way through her collection of Beskow books. I would stare for hours at the richly detailed illustrations, imagining that one day I would live amongst similar trees and lakes. My obsession with Bauer’s art was rekindled in 2001 when I listened to the music of Mortiis for the first time. (The video for Parasite God was featured on a video tape I received free with an issue of Kerrang!) I noticed that his logo was in fact a Bauer art work from a popular Swedish Christmas annual Bland Tomtar Och Troll (Among Gnomes and Trolls). Since then I’ve written widely about Bauer and have made numerous pilgrimages to his hometown of Jönköping and Jönköpings Läns Museum which holds the world’s largest collection of Bauer’s work.
I know that you are an avid thrifter, I’d love it if you could impart of bit of thrift wisdom to us…what’s your secret for finding such amazing things? Do you go shopping with something in mind, or do you go with an open mind and let the shelves and racks of goodies speak to you? Do you have a holy grail item that you’re always on the lookout for?
I’ve been thrifting since I was under double figures, as my family could rarely afford new clothes. My wardrobe has always been 90% second hand. I always go thrifting with an open mind and think that the best pieces of advice that I can provide are to go with plenty of time to spare and go through everything. Don’t leave one rail untouched. If you find something really special and it’s too large, consider getting it altered. I’ve recently started to explore colour, and this has opened up a whole new world for me. Don’t be afraid to step outside your box.
You spend a great deal of time, it would seem, in your beloved forests, both ambling leisurely and taking it all in, as well as running. I’m not a runner by any means, but I do like a brisk walk, and I am always looking for the perfect sound to accompany my exercise. Do you listen to music when you run? I can imagine you listening to the blackest medal as you traverse through the icy winter trees, but I am totally ok with being wrong! Tell me about some of your favorite music to listen to while running and stretching your limbs in the cold.
Sadly, I don’t have access to music when I’m running! The wind through the trees is my soundtrack. But if I were to choose, I would have my boyfriend’s band Rimfrost blasting in my ears. It has the energy that a lot of black metal lacks.
I understand that you are also fan of horror films! Is there anything excellent that you’re watching right now and would recommend? And does your choice of reading material fall into the same category? What’s on your bookstand right now?
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t infatuated with horror. As a child I would regularly stay with my auntie who was a horror fanatic. I always pillaged her bookshelves before bed,and would lose myself in The World’s Scariest Ghost Stories and Misty annuals from the late 70’s.
While I could read her books, her extensive horror VHS collection was off bounds. I’d hang around it, studying the tape covers obsessively, willing the years away. Having already encountered Anne Rice on her bookshelf, I was particularly taken with Interview With The Vampire, and made the decision that when the day came to choose a video to watch, that would be the one. The day arrived when I was twelve. Needless to say, life was never the same afterwards.
My boyfriend and I have been looking to the past and its offerings in recent months, and have been binging on Stephen King – Thinner, Needful Things and Cujo. The TV series Rose Red and The Langoliers have also made for immensely satisfying binge watching.
I’ve been disappointed with much of the horror released in recent years. Less tits and more atmosphere please. One of the best new(ish) horror films that I’ve seen recently is The Babadook. After twenty years of a diet consisting almost strictly of horror, it takes a lot to unnerve me. But that film…it had all the right ingredients. I was left feeling deeply disturbed and content. Shit, several months after I still get chills when I think of it.
My choice of reading material is generally pretty dark, but at the moment I’m struggling to state my appetite for horror as the library in town has limited English stock! I’m close to finishing Tracks, a haunting tale by Louise Erdrich. I’m looking forward to going to England soon and bringing back some of my favourites, including Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. One of the most unsettling stories that I’ve read in a long while.
You’ve touched briefly on your blog and elsewhere on issues you’ve struggled with– depression and appearance related insecurities/anxieties, for example–and how you are taking steps to overcome these things. Can you talk about these things, how they’ve affected you, and how you are slowly conquering them?
I was first diagnosed with depression when I was fourteen, the same time as I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. Mental health issues run in my family on both sides, and I can remember displaying OCD tendencies when I was a small child. My ill mental health meant my teenage years were spent being lonely, thin and terrified. I was teetering on the brink between this world and nowhere for such a long time that I still get surprised that I’m here at all. A good part of my twenties were spent building myself back up from the husk I had become.
Being open about what’s going on in my head is extremely important to me. I spent many years trapped, unable to talk about how I was really feeling. I used to feel ashamed and broken. But I’m no longer afraid to reveal the workings of my head. The stigma that is attached to mental health sickens me, and I want to do my part in pulling down the barrier that separates and alienates people with mental health problems.
I was advised to start taking medication when I was fifteen, but refused. It was only several years later in my mid-twenties when I agreed to start taking meds. They changed my life and helped me to have a quieter head. I came off my medication which helped with anxiety and depression several months ago. But it was a mistake and I went to a bloody dark place for an awfully long time. I’m back on my medication now, and am slowly recovering my true self. My concentration and creativity is still on the weak side but I’m trying to be kind to myself, and accept that it takes a while to get back to full strength. I believe that if we can access help to be the best versions of ourselves, be it medication or talking therapy, we need to fully embrace it.
Thanks very much Katie, for your candor and your openness and for sharing of your life and loves and inspirations with us!
There must be something exceptionally splendid and special in the air right now (or could it simply be that we are now in the month of October– the most wonderful time of the year?) My beloved friends are really outdoing themselves with regard to their current creative ventures and artistic endeavors, and I wanted to take a moment to spotlight, (for all of my twelve readers, haha) some of the remarkable things that are available right now from these dazzlingly brilliant visionaries. See below for an array of outstanding projects and collaborations resulting in needful things of the most enticing and uncanny sort.
Whispering Death by Becky Munich
Munich Art Studio and Casketglass Art have teamed up to celebrate a month of haunted days by releasing an extremely limited set of art prints inspired by the mystery and magic of Halloween. An intimate experience, only 20 print sets are available for purchase and will not be re-released, and in honor of the joyously macabre traditions of the Halloween season, each order is shipped with additional ghoulish treats for you to keep or share with others.
For the scented tapophile: in what will be an on-going collection, the new Haute Macabre + Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab collaboration is launching with two new fragrances, Burying Point and St. Louis #1. Made exclusively for Haute Macabre by master perfumer Elizabeth Barrial, the collection is based on favorite cemeteries around the world; the first installment features St. Louis #1 (drooping Spanish moss and crumbling marble, sweet olive blossom, 13-year aged black patchouli, and offerings of Bay Rum, Florida water, and tobacco), located in New Orleans, and Burying Point (damp clusters of brown patchouli, dried maple leaves, black sage, spikenard, and curled, misshapen mandrake roots), the oldest cemetery in Salem.
Friends who have visited our house and wondered at the ghostly chamber music and dark, dreamy sounds we sometimes haunt you with? It’s Meredith Yayanos‘ eerily beautiful music from The Parlour Trick’s Blessed Unrest album …and right now you can get the digital version on bandcamp for a mere $6.66–OR!–you can pre-order the vinyl repress (which you should do, because it will sell out in the blink of an eye!)
Visit Haute Macabre to read the introduction to the bloodmilk Book Club for this season, with Sonya Vatomsky’s “Salt Is For Curing” as the current selection. Also included in the post are two special giveaways: one, a chance to win a copy of Sonya’s book, and a second, a chance to win a jewel from the bloodmilk shop. The giveaway runs until November 1st, so there is still plenty of time.
As you know, we sold out of the Occult Activity Book Volume Two even faster than anticipated! Neither this volume or the previous will ever be re-printed or re-created, so if you missed out on the opportunity to purchase this rare tome full of fantastical arts and word witchery, you will never again have another chance. HOWEVER! Don’t summon the demons to do your freaky time travel bidding just yet! Our friends at Haute Macabre are giving away one deluxe edition of The Occult Activity Book Volume Two, which includes the book and all the goodies. If you missed out on this exceedingly special project and are hovering at cusp of committing dire and dangerous magical crimes to acquire one for yourself, why not enter the giveaway instead?
AND, a few upcoming things that you need to keep an eye out for!
Artist: Dana Glover
Morbid Fantasies is a richly illustrated reader’s guide to Gothic literature, guiding fans both old and new over the ever-changing face of this most ghoulish of genres. In its pages, scholar Jack Shear covers the history, key themes, and major books in the Gothic movement from its inception through the current day. It’s a love letter to this often misunderstood and under-appreciated form of entertainment, hand-bound and designed by Tenebrous Kate with featured illustrations by Dana Glover, Becky Munich, and Carisa Swenson. I hear this may be available as soon as next weekend, so be sure to check over at hereticalsexts.com to grab a copy for yourself!
California sprawls across a multitude of landscapes and has amassed a history full of the strange and unusual. There are secrets in the desert. Secrets in the cities. Strange and unusual happenings in the odd, dark places of the coastal state.
Strange California is 26 tales of strangeness, lavishly illustrated, that will pull you into another world, a world where migrant girls stand up to witches who live in orange groves, where trickster magpies try to steal souls from Russian sisters in the early days of Fort Bragg, where water is both currency and predator, and Gold Rush-era ghosts wander the streets of San Francisco alongside panther ladies.
When my brother in law called us on the evening of September 30th to warn of a hurricane headed our way that was predicted to be massive and deadly, I’ll admit, at first I wasn’t overly concerned. As someone who has lived the majority of their life in Florida, it seems that every time I hear this, it’s never as big a deal as the general public makes it out to be. It usually spins out at sea, or changes in direction, or lessens in intensity by the time it makes its way to our shores.
Of course, once I moved to New Jersey, all of that changed. I lived in a flood zone and we were hit back to back two years in a row. The above photo is from hurricane Irene in 2011, on August 28th, taken around around noon (and a month before I was to move back home to Florida.) At the height of the flooding, perhaps 4:00 or so, not even the top of this sign could be seen. As a matter of fact, a rescue boat may have zoomed right over it. I watched, alone in my darkened home as the flood waters crept down the street, over the sidewalk, climbed the hill to my front porch stairs, and stopped, silently at the uppermost step. It was too late to rejoice, though, for my basement had already started to fill with water and ruined several hundreds of dollars worth of rare books, as well as a few nostalgic favorites.
So now I guess you could say that my attitude towards these things is not as cavalier as it once may have been…but I nonetheless found myself shrugging it off and thinking “eh, it probably won’t even touch us.”
And then I remembered my grandmother. A 95 year old woman who is immobile and on oxygen and intermittent hospice care and utterly dependent upon those who care for her. Although my partner and I could hunker down and weather the storm, the same would not hold true for my grandmother and her caregiver, who lived seven minutes up the road from us.
I worried and fretted all week long about this. Hospice, though I appreciate the services they provide for her–free services, I might add–was absolutely useless as it related to providing a bed in a facility for her, or really, any sort of help or suggestions at all. I suppose you get what you pay for, right? My advice to you if you find yourself in a similar situation is this: do not wait for an emergency to find out what your hospice team’s emergency plan is for your loved one. You may find out, as we did, that there is no plan at all.
We finally decided to bundle my grandmother into the car (no small feat with someone whose legs no longer work and who is considered “non weight-bearing”), packed up a caravan, and both myself and our capable caregiver/trusted friend Pam headed an hour west with the intent to beat the evacuation crowds and make our way toward my sister’s house. To be perfectly honest, I had all these visions of disaster and chaos on the road (at one point I was imagining a lava flow headed straight toward us), but we arrived without incident.
Poor Pam! While she was supposed to have been traveling this day, it was for lovely vacation birthday purposes; evacuation was not at all what she had in mind.
We were doing quite well for a while. Hurricane Matthew gusted and raged around us in Orlando, though of course not nearly so severe as on the coast. We had electricity the first evening there, and enjoyed air conditioning and cold water and movies and music in company that was only slightly cramped. On the second day, however, we lost power.
We had come prepared for this eventuality, and thanks to a back alley oxygen deal (it was a really weird thing; long story short– we procured a portable oxygen compressor from the back of some guy’s van in a sketchy apartment complex), my grandmother did not go without for very long. My brother-in-law had the foresight to purchase a generator earlier in the week, so we were even able to supply a fan and a light to her bedroom, where she could eat her chocolates and read her gossip magazines in relative comfort.
Me? I knit by the light of a light of a battery-powered mini lap desk lamp. Just like my ancestors did in the olden days, ha. I finished a shawl, as well as, a pair of socks. And three books.
The power came back on a day and a half later and we celebrated Pam’s birthday with sandwiches, cupcakes, more movies, and the lowest setting that the AC could possibly handle.
We headed home as soon as we received confirmation that the electricity was back on in both of our homes. Luckily, there was no damage to the houses, although a tree was nearly split in half in my grandmother’s back yard. My beloved Viking immediately suited up and got to work cleaning up the debris and detritus, while Pam tidied up and got my grandmother back in bed, and I restocked all the food we had to throw out. A day later we are exhausted zombie people, but immensely grateful. The storm could have been much worse than it was, and we had a comfortable safe place to hide out, amongst friends and family and folks who love us.
Also: it upped my productivity, and I am always thankful for that!
(The photo at the top of the page is from the yard of one of our neighbors. Yikes.)
I have a complicated relationship with rose-centered fragrances. They are heavy and suffocating, and smell to me of obligation and resentment and impossible women. This line of thinking depresses me of course, and so on top of that, I associate rose with sadness and depressive episodes. Needless to say, my fragrance wardrobe does not consist of many rosy perfumes.
Earlier this past year, a few months apart, I sampled and fell in love with two small tester vials of absolutely stunning (and terribly expensive) scents. After careful consideration I decided they were both full bottle worthy and once they arrived I ascertained that what I now had in my possession smelled nothing like the fragrances I remembered testing and briefly swooning over. Furthermore, one smelled distinctly like roses, of a sort, and the other has rose listed at the very heart of it–which somehow I had not noticed when I checked out the notes beforehand. Or maybe I was so besotted, I never even checked!
Guerlain’s Encens Mythique D’Orient is marketed thusly: “An ethereal frankincense leaves only a fleeting mark on this fragrance, while rose imprints its fiery accents”. It’s composition includes top notes of rose, aldehyde, saffron; heart notes of pink pepper, vetiver, patchouli; base notes of forest floor, ambergris, frankincense.
It’s a very sheer scent, and indeed, quite rosy. Why didn’t I sense that with my initial sample? I haven’t a clue, because it’s there, immediately, sour and bright and sparkling right out of the bottle. I think it’s the pink pepper that gives it that weird effervescence.Or maybe the aldehydes, which sometimes smell metallic and fizzy to my nose. If there’s incense here, it is demure and unburnt. There is an undercurrent of something bitter and green, anchoring it to the earth, otherwise I might imagine this as a rose blossom in midsummer that’s somehow broken from the stem in a sudden breeze and floated skyward, amongst the sunshine and clouds.
Encens Mythique D’Orient conjures sensations of diffused light and hazy warmth, and it’s the sort of scent that almost smells better in the space where I was standing a few seconds ago, rather than on my person in the immediate moment. The scent a silken scarf might trail in its wake, not heady or heavy, but rather a luxurious, delicate, understated glamour. It is so translucent and so full of light that I cannot associate it with the somber roses my mother wore. And yet–this is going to sound really weird–it makes me think of the rose motifs in Revolutionary Girl Utena…which was definitely a weird, dark story. In particular, it recalls brings to mind Sunlit Garden.
Fate for Woman by Amouage…well, OK, this one is a stretch. I don’t think it smells very much of roses at all, which is why I was so surprised to see it listed prominently in the notes. Here’s the description, which I had somehow also never read before today, but trust me, if I had, I would have purchased it without even sampling it first.
Fate for Woman is a chypre oriental with a rich floral heart intensified by a dark and destructive accord resonating with the tumultuous unknown. Top notes: bergamot, cinnamon, chilli, pepper.
Heart notes: rose, narcissus, jasmine, frankincense, labdanum.
Base notes: vanilla bean, frankincense, benzoin, castoreum, patchouli, oakmoss, leather.
“The tumultuous unknown!” Goodness.
Fate opens up with cool, nose-tickling pencil shavings and spicy, peppery florals follow soon thereafter, just the barest wisps of jasmine and rose. A bronzed and leathery labdanum slinks in and gives way to billowing quantities of powdery vanilla. What remains is the intensely scented blend of talcum powder cut with that opening note of pencil shavings, which seemed to play into every phase and facet of Fate, despite the fact that cedar isn’t even listed in the notes.
The tumultuous unknown, it would seem, is a powdery abyss, teeming with the souls of #2 pencils.
Somehow, of course, this still comes back to my mom (it always does). I wish she were still here to try these scents with me, and discuss our thoughts. Of course, this is quite a bit of revisionist history on my part: we never had many perfume discussions and we certainly didn’t sit around with a pile of samples, anointing ourselves with this scent or that, and making notes and comparisons.
But man, how I wish we had. These are some weird roses, mom. I wish you could smell them, too.
A gathering of death related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about related to matters of death & dying & mortality.
…and speaking of Death Cafe, I have just facilitated my fourth and final Death Cafe Orlando event. It was a lively, yet bittersweet gathering, but I can’t be too sad, for I have passed the torch to some truly fantastic folks, and in the meantime, I am gearing up to begin Death Cafe Daytona Beach to serve the Volusia County area! Our first event will be in early 2017 and I couldn’t be more excited.
A video posted by S. Elizabeth (@ghoulnextdoor) on
Our winner is Eden Royce! Thanks for your comments and for sharing your obsessions, everyone! Be looking for more nosy interviews and fun giveaways on Unquiet Things in the near future.
In the meantime, were you wondering How To Wear a Swan Children Alchemy scent giveaway? Well, of course you were. And I’ve got you covered.
This past month has seen a slow shift into a less hectic pace and has presented me with more time to focus on things I have been neglecting. The past year has been so busy, especially the earlier part of the summer, and so it was easy to ignore things piling up…as in literal, actual piles and stacks of things that just kept growing and slowly taking over the entire house.
I spent the greater portion of August getting these things sorted and settled. Stacks of books were dismantled and properly shelved. Art was hung on walls, makeup and brushes were given a home, and jewelry is now untangled and on display. It’s about time.
Currently I am obsessing, just a bit, over okinomiyaki…which, if you don’t know what that is, it’s basically (as far as I can tell) just a savory Japanese pancake. I think it usually always contains cabbage, but from there you can probably add whatever you like: shrimp, pork belly, chicken, sausage, squid…whatever. Or maybe shredded carrots and lots of green onions, if you don’t want to add any meat.
I see some people refer to it as “Japanese pizza”, but maybe that’s because it seems a bit like junk food? Or maybe because it’s a flat disk-like food with lots of toppings? Who knows! Anyway, here’s a basic recipe for it, and it’s fairly easy to make. You mix a bunch of stuff together, fry it, throw some other stuff on top, and serve it. Here’s a shopping list for the items that might present more of a challenge to locate, if you wanted to make it for dinner tonight: okonomiyaki kit // dashi // bonito flakes // kewpie mayo // okonomiyaki sauce
How did this okonomiyaki obsession begin? Well, I blame it on Wakakozake, an anime I started watching last year. Shown in 2 minute episodes, it follows Murasaki Wakago, a 26 year old woman, who likes to go out to dinner or for a snack and a drink, every night after work. Somehow, they took that concept and turned it into a half an hour live action show (or maybe the animated short came second? I’m actually not sure.)
On the surface, it’s not very complex: our main character picks a restaurant or a bar, she orders something and eats it, musing on its delicious qualities all the while. Sort of like a food blog, I guess, but much less pretentious. Wakago can be silly and is a bit of a day-dreamer, and there’s such a lovely lack of artifice in her observations. Also, I loved what this reviewer had to say about it, and after reading this, I really did start to think about the many layers of Wakakgo’s reflections and interactions. And although, as the reviewer notes, the show barely scratches the surface of this way of thinking. It’s fascinating.
“I think one of the best things about this series is how it both introduces and scratches the surface of a side of Japanese thinking and approaching food that is very specific and methodical, yes, but even that touches on something that is very characteristic of traditional cultural aesthetic values in Japan – there is not only a right way to prepare food, but to eat food, and to evaluate, criticise and appreciate what is placed in front of one.”
Sometimes I will prepare dinner, and depending what sort of mood we are in, we will either have our meal at the dining room table, or sit in front of the tv and watch something. Lately, my response to the question of “what shall we watch?” is “I want to watch the lady eat!”
Nope, I’m not creepy or anything.
Some more one-word reviews for you on films I have recently watched:
I just finished Jeff Vandermeer’s extraordinary Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Acceptance, & Authority), and now I’m at a bit of a loss and I don’t know what to do with myself–the perils of reading something so wondrous that you just don’t think anything else can measure up! The books tell of the mysterious, dangerous wilderness of Area X and the humans exploring it: several decades ago, an inexplicable environmental change occurred and a large swath of land and sea was sealed behind an invisible and largely impenetrable barrier. “Inside it, nature shifted. It grew wild and pristine, dense and fertile—improbably pure, as though nature had said “Enough!” and reclaimed itself.” It’s an uncanny, and genuinely surprising read that haunted me for days and probably will continue to do so for a long time to come. With this series The New Yorker refers to Vandermeer as The Weird Thoreau, and …yeah, I totally see that.
Also read, to some degree of enjoyment or another:
Currently smelling: the few offerings from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s The Art of the Unicorn collection. I have not yet made much headway, but I can tell you that De Vos’ Unicorn (sugared peony and rose-tinted vanilla with mallow, white musk, lavender buds, and a touch of apricot) smells like a brothel run by a flock of scrumptious marshmallow peeps. But like, peeps if…they weren’t purchased stale and on sale after Easter, but rather if some enterprising, over-achiever foodie made a bespoke, hand-crafted batch of peeps. After a few hours, the scent softens becomes very much like my beloved but sadly discontinued Antique Lace, so it is definitely going to be hoarded away.
Incidentally, did you know that the collective noun for unicorns is a “fondle” of unicorns? Well, according to Wondermark it is. I’d like to add that it’s no doubt a “glittering fondle of unicorns.”
Funny thing. Every time I stumble across a new morbid artist or designer of dark goods and want to do a bit of research on them, and especially if I happen to think “A-ha! Here is something really awesome that no one else knows about yet!”, 9 times out of 10 it is a “Curses, foiled again!” scenario because someone else, smarter and and quicker than me, has discovered and blogged about these macabre luminaries first. And I’ll be damned if it isn’t always the same someone!
I’ve immensely enjoyed reading your Livslogga, or life log, chronicling your experiences in Sweden. What are some of the things you love most about this beautiful country that you’ve found yourself in? What’s been the most difficult adjustment? And tell me all about the concept of Fika, because I am completely obsessed.
You spend a great deal of time, it would seem, in your beloved forests, both ambling leisurely and taking it all in, as well as running. I’m not a runner by any means, but I do like a brisk walk, and I am always looking for the perfect sound to accompany my exercise. Do you listen to music when you run? I can imagine you listening to the blackest medal as you traverse through the icy winter trees, but I am totally ok with being wrong! Tell me about some of your favorite music to listen to while running and stretching your limbs in the cold.
You’ve touched briefly on your blog and elsewhere on issues you’ve struggled with– depression and appearance related insecurities/anxieties, for example–and how you are taking steps to overcome these things. Can you talk about these things, how they’ve affected you, and how you are slowly conquering them? 
