2024 was quite a year for fragrance exploration – I wrote reviews for over 200 different perfumes, and well… some of those samples were just too beautiful to resist. When I finally sat down to tally up how many full bottles made their way into my collection, it was (gulp) over 25! Here’s an updated peek at my perfume cabinet, including all of last year’s additions to my collection.
A quick update about my perfume reviews: While I’m no longer posting on TikTok, which was previously where I’d first share my thoughts on new perfumes, you can still find my work in several places, including the monthly roundups on this blog. But for immediate access to new reviews as they’re published, consider joining my Midnight Stinks Patreon – the first paid tier (just a few dollars monthly) gives you access to all new reviews plus three years’ worth of fragrance writing archives.
What I forgot to mention in this video were my favorites! Four immediately spring to mind…
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There is no featured image for this post, although I do implore you to conjure forth in your mind’s eye the following…
My sisters call it a “Sarah special” – a bowl of Doritos, Cheetos, and Funyuns combined into what can only be described as a glorious trinity of processed corn product. It’s probably the last thing someone with borderline hypertension should be eating, which makes it both more delicious and more absurd. The tragedy lies in craving a combination of snacks that’s essentially a salt delivery system when your doctor has just finished explaining the DASH diet to you with the kind of patience reserved for tiny, willful toddlers.
It was a pleasure too private to share, too personal to expose to the judgment of others. The Sarah special lived as a family legend, passed between sisters who understood that sometimes comfort and camdaderie comes in a poorly balanced meal of neon-colored snacks eaten straight from an enormous Pyrex bowl at midnight while binging season 5 of BtVS.
I wrote about weight loss on this blog in 2014 and 2015. The posts still make me wince when I stumble across them in my archives. I called the series “weight loss for weirdos,” as if giving it a quirky name could mask what it really was: another chapter in a lifetime of trying to shrink myself to be worthy. Another echo of my mother’s voice, telling me from age five that my body needed fixing. No matter what size I was – and I’ve been many sizes – I never felt good enough, pretty enough, worthy enough.
I shared honestly, vulnerably, and some readers found comfort in that shared struggle. But I wonder how many others came to this corner of the internet looking for stories about art or perfume or death cafes, only to find yet another thin-seeking narrative. How many thought, “ugh, not this shit again, I thought this was a safe space!” The truth is, I was documenting my reality at that moment, but of all the stories I could have told about my body – about how it moves through the world, how it creates, how it loves – I chose to write about making it smaller. And quite honestly, I hate that for me.
Reading those posts now, I find myself wondering why I found my body’s measurements worthy of documenting at all. I spent precious words – hundreds of them – tracking numbers on a scale, as if that was a story that needed telling. As if the size of my body was somehow more compelling than all the other stories I could have been writing. I don’t want to shame that version of myself who thought these posts mattered – she was doing her best with the narratives she had inherited. But my body’s size was always the least interesting thing about me, even when I couldn’t see that.
Now my doctor tells me I need to lose 25 pounds and follow the DASH diet, and I find myself thinking about the sarah special. It was never a regular indulgence – more like a twice-yearly ritual when I had the house to myself. A ceremonial combining of three specific snacks that only happened in moments of perfect solitude. I never kept the ingredients on hand; buying all three required a deliberate choice, a specific journey to the store for the express purpose of eating them alone, unseen, triumphant in my orchestrated excess.
But of course, after my doctor’s visit and over the past few days, I’ve become obsessed with tracking milligrams of sodium – reading labels, measuring everything. The bizarre plot twist is that in trying to stick to low-sodium, unprocessed foods, I can barely consume enough calories to function. Each label I read is another door closing: this soup has how much sodium? This bread contains what percentage of my daily allowance? My favorite Marie Calendar’s blue cheese dressing may as well be pointing a gun right at my chest. These numbers reshape my relationship with my kitchen, with hunger itself.
How’s this for growth? Me, the eldest child, the TAURUS… I enlisted help. The thing about carrying all this shame for a lifetime is that it gets tiresome. But I’m in my “fuck this shit in particular” era. Years ago, this news from my doctor would have been a secret I’d carry alone, something too shameful to share even with my partner. But I told Yvan first thing, and his immediate response was to talk about how we would address it – facts and numbers and plans. His approach was devoid of the emotional weight I might feel, because he’s far enough removed from my baggage and history to face it dispassionately, but also compassionately because he loves me and wants to help. There’s something freeing in having someone who can hold the problem lightly while still taking it seriously.
Nowadays I find that when friends post about their weight loss journeys on Facebook now, something in me breaks. Each time I press “mute” (or, more often than not, “unfollow”), I’m trying to silence more than just updates about calories and measurements. I’m trying to silence forty-three years of being told my body needs fixing, from my mother’s early diets to my doctor’s current concerns. But mostly, I’m trying to silence the voice that still whispers every time someone celebrates getting skinny: you are still fat.
Every transformation photo, every triumphant weigh-in sends me back to my own posts from 2014 and 2015, makes me want to delete every word I wrote about making my body smaller – but I can’t delete the shame that made me think those posts were worth writing. Each one betrays my body, which has carried me through every joy and grief. It betrays everyone else’s body, too, each one stubbornly existing in a world that has no interest in their strength or their struggle, only in whether they’ve managed to shrink themselves smaller. I want to be happy for my friends, but truthfully, I am just sad and hurt for all of us– especially those of us approaching 50 who can’t eat a bag of Funyuns anymore because it may literally kill them.
I may not be able to eat the snacks anymore, but I can still devour your stories. Tell me about your secret food rituals – the combinations that only make sense to you, the things you eat when no one is watching. Not because they’re shameful, but because they’re your own kind of special. Your sisters might even have a name for them.
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The paths books take can sometimes surprise their own authors. When Ediciones Akal published the Spanish translation of my second book, The Art of Darkness, in 2023, I hadn’t expected my first book, The Art of the Occult, would follow. Yet late in 2024, The Art of the Occult became available to Spanish readers. This unexpected sequence – the second book paving the way for the first – makes the arrival of The Art of the Occult in Spanish feel particularly special.
For both books, I had the pleasure of responding to thoughtful questions from journalist Esther Peñas, whose email interviews were arranged through my publisher. In our wide-ranging exchange, we explored the deep connections between art and magic, the role of the unconscious in occult practices, and how contemporary artists engage with these ancient traditions. Peñas’s thoughtful questions touched on everything from the nature of ritual to the evolution of magical thinking in our modern world, allowing us to delve into the heart of what makes the occult such an enduring source of artistic inspiration.
I was particularly moved by Peñas’s question about what qualities one needs to engage with the occult, as it allowed me to articulate something I feel deeply about the accessibility of wonder:
“…It requires receptivity to possibilities, a willingness to be surprised, to be wrong, to be utterly transformed by what you discover. It asks us to remain vulnerable to mystery, to allow ourselves to be moved, changed, and even open to wonder. These are not esoteric qualities reserved for a select few. They are natural to all of us, even if they are sometimes buried under layers of skepticism or fear. To delve into the occult is really to delve into our own capacity for wonder, our own capacity to stand breathless and humbled by the vast mysteries around us, to feel our hearts open with the realization that there is so much more to existence than there is; that we could ever imagine, and that this infinite unknown is not something to be feared, but something that makes life itself magnificent and heartbreakingly beautiful.”
Here’s to hoping the magic continues and The Art of Fantasy completes this enchanted trilogy in Spanish!
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For every dreamy dress that makes its way into one of my How To Wear fashion collage ensembles, there’s a digital graveyard of discarded possibilities – beautiful things that weren’t quite right because the ruffle-to-lace ratio failed to properly evoke the precise feeling of reading Gothic romance novels by candlelight during a power outage, or the shade of black wasn’t quite the same black as a crow’s feathers found in a cemetery at exactly 3:47 PM on an overcast Tuesday.
I spend hours haunting the darkest corners of haute couture collections, pursuing that perfect piece that speaks to whatever strange mood has possessed me that day. A stunning Alexander McQueen gown? Rejected because the hem wouldn’t appropriately billow in the theoretical breeze of an imaginary Victorian ghost hunt. That breathtaking Valentino piece? The beading caught the light in a way that reminded me too much of morning dew rather than the glimmer of fairy lights in an abandoned conservatory.
Would you believe that for every dress you see in my finished collages, I’ve passed over at least fifty others? Fifty! Each one lovely in its own right, but ultimately set aside because the neckline wasn’t dramatic enough for swooning over ancient cursed jewelry, or the silhouette failed to capture the essence of “widow who definitely did not poison her third husband but has excellent taste in mourning wear.”
A blood-red Rodarte with velvet ribbons at the shoulders, tea-length and slinky – a dress that captured the exact color of freshly spilled… well, let’s say wine. But – and this pains me still – the way it caught the light was more “elegant dinner party murder mystery” when what I required was “secret vampire masquerade where everyone pretends they’re just wearing really good lipstick.” I spent three days contemplating various shades of crimson trying to convince myself it could work. Reader, it could not.
A transcendent Simone Rocha creation in ivory organza with crystal-scattered corsetry and, how to put this delicately? Sequins placed in such a weird way that they’re essentially crowning a pair of imaginary sagging mams, creating an effect that’s somehow crazy fascinating. It’s giving “disco meditation on the drooping divine” when what I needed was “possibly transformed into a particularly elegant moth while conducting questionable botanical experiments.” The upside-down, underside boob crowning was just too distracting for proper ghostly activities.
A Comme des Garçons masterpiece of gathered jacquard cotton that held such promise: a symphony in black with a flared hem that looked like it had been designed by architects who exclusively work in shadows. But alas – while the structural gathering created the perfect silhouette for looming menacingly in doorways, it would make it impossible to dramatically drape oneself over ancient tombstones without getting caught on the carved cherubs. No amount of strategic flaring could solve the physics of proper Victorian swooning. Some dresses simply refuse to compromise between avant-garde menace and classical gothic poses.
An achingly beautiful Alexander McQueen creation that both haunts and taunts me – a sheer, dotted tulle masterpiece with gold sequined unicorns galloping across its surface. Perfect in absolutely every way… except that I couldn’t find a single photo of it laying flat or even on a hanger. And how can one properly daydream about wearing such a magical thing when there’s always someone else already wearing it in the photos? (We need that blank canvas, that absence, that empty space where we can project our own ghostly selves into the dress!) Alas, this unicorn remained, appropriately, too ethereal to capture in the way I needed.
An Erdem blazer that whispered such dark promises, with its dusty pink cotton-candy corsage trailing tattered ribbons against strict black wool like a forgotten Valentine pressed between the pages of a book of funerary customs. But the double-breasted structure and relaxed cut were giving more “eccentric gallery curator who specializes in cursed paintings” when what I needed was “mysterious lady novelist who may or may not have a collection of possessed dollhouses.” The distinction, while subtle, makes all the difference.
An Oscar de la Renta creation that looked like someone had captured the winter night sky and sewn it into a dress – all starbursts and comet trails and snowflakes that might actually be sea anemones frozen in time. The Art Nouveau-inspired crystal embroidery was absolutely perfect for every celestial occasion I could dream up… except that this cheeky little number was definitely more “tipsy on champagne with shooting stars” when what I needed was “solemnly communing with ancient nebulae.” Some dresses are just determined to have more fun than you had planned.
And finally, a Taller Marmo gown of black tulle and cascading fringe that promised every dramatic entrance I’ve ever dreamed of. I passed it by at the time, but now I realize it’s giving “Endora, but make it goth” – like if Samantha’s mother traded her signature tangerine caftans for something more suited to materializing dramatically in your living room at midnight instead of noon. Just imagine the withering looks she could deliver to Dum-Dum in this number, all swishing black fringe and sequined disdain. I could absolutely kick myself because that is EXACTLY the vibe I didn’t know I needed.
Why am I telling you this? I guess because I am sitting on a (virtual) pile of pretty dresses, and I need someone else to play pretend to dress up with me. Sometimes you spend hours hunting for the perfect gown for an imaginary moonlit garden party that will never actually happen, and you have to share that particular form of beautiful madness with someone who might understand. Someone who won’t question why you rejected a masterpiece of haute couture because it wasn’t quite right for theoretical ghost-spotting, or why you have such specific opinions about which dress would be most appropriate for dramatically reading poetry in an abandoned conservatory.
Maybe you’re that someone. If so, pull up a chair (preferably a high-backed walnut throne with blood-red velvet and lurking gargoyles, but I won’t judge if your chair only has regular Gothic architectural details). We can swap stories about the ones that got away – the almost-perfect gowns that whispered the wrong secrets, the beautiful dresses that cast the wrong shadows.
(And yes, I realize these are theoretical dresses that we never would have got in the first place because if we had a spare 36K, we would invest it or pay off our mortgage or something sensible like that. But that’s the beauty of window shopping for ghost-appropriate couture – the price tags can’t hurt you when you’re just playing pretend.)
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The following thoughts have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They’re mental marginalia – scribblings in the corners of my consciousness that I’ve been collecting like loose buttons in a drawer. If there’s a thread connecting them, I haven’t found it. I’m sharing them now partly to preserve them, and partly because my blog’s email notifications weren’t working for about a week and this seems like an appropriately random way to test if they’re fixed. So here are some thoughts I’ve been hoarding, presented in all their disconnected glory…
There’s a scene in DowntonAbbey where Matthew Crawley is absolutely radiant with joy about becoming a father. We all know what happened next.
I find myself thinking about that scene with surprising frequency. It surfaces whenever I become aware of feeling particularly happy or content – this internal warning bell chiming softly: “Remember Matthew Crawley…” As if by tempering my joy, I might somehow slip beneath the notice of whatever cosmic force delights in upending peaceful moments.
Just recently, I was spending an afternoon with Ývan. Nothing extraordinary – running errands, driving around town, feeling productive and at ease. I noticed aloud how pleasant it all felt, then immediately wished I could snatch that observation back like a red balloon escaping skyward, stuff it back down my throat before the gods could hear and decide I was due for a reminder about hubris.
I can trace this tendency to one crystalline moment – driving to school on a familiar route, enjoying mild weather and an ordinary afternoon… until someone rear-ended me. That was the first time it really hit me -literally! – how everything I took for granted as normal and routine could vanish in a poof (or, more accurately, a crunch). Maybe the normalcy was always an illusion anyway. That collision shook more than my car; it permanently altered how I view those quiet, ordinary moments.
Or consider the evening fifteen years later I returned from an utterly unremarkable day at work, only to have my boyfriend sit me down and blindside me with the fact he was leaving me. I wouldn’t believe it in the immediate moment, but his leaving was the greatest gift he ever gave me. What an absolute piece of shit. I think he still reads my blog, unless he’s dead, but one can only hope. Anyway, that was for sure a stark reminder about the fragility of normalcy.
So yes, I’ve become rather vigilant. There’s a part of me that believes if I can just keep my contentment quiet enough, if I can avoid drawing attention to those moments of peace or joy, perhaps they’ll be allowed to linger a little longer. It’s absurd when written out like this – this attempt to outsmart fate by muting my own happiness. Yet here I am, still thinking of Matthew Crawley whenever my spirits rise too high.
I was slicing pickled banana peppers for my salad today when I recalled my distress at seeing videos of people ordering “chop chiles” on their In-N-Out burgers. Just typing that makes me wince. “Chop chiles.” Not “chopped chiles.” The missing ‘-ed’ sets my teeth on edge in the same way “ice tea” does instead of “iced tea.”
But what bothers me more than the grammatical slip is my own reaction to it. The immediate internal flinch, the flash of judgment about the speaker’s education or attention to detail. It feels ugly and hateful, and I hate myself for it, but I can’t stop.
And finally, sneezing. I don’t just sneeze – I SHRIEK. We’re talking full-volume, horror-movie-victim shrieking. It’s not for dramatic effect or attention. It’s because sneezing feels like my soul is attempting to violently exit my body, and my vocal cords are simply reporting the situation as they see it.
Years ago, a friend on social media (I don’t remember who) mentioned hearing their neighbor sneeze through the walls – described it as something like a “a full-body moan.” Presumably of existential distress. I’ve never met this neighbor, but I feel a kinship with them. There are probably dozens of us out there, involuntarily vocalizing our brief encounters with corporeal betrayal.
I wonder if the neighbor and I would recognize each other by our sneezes in a crowded space. A sort of acoustic solidarity among those of us for whom a sneeze is less a bodily function and more a moment of profound displacement, announced to the world via involuntary screaming.
Like Veronica Sawyer up there, frantically documenting her thoughts, I’ve just dumped some of my mental marginalia onto the page. Did you get an email notification for this diary entry? Let me know in the comments! And while you’re there, I’d love to hear some of the random thoughts rattling around in your own brain. What’s your Matthew Crawley moment? Do you have strong feelings about linguistic pet peeves? Are you perhaps my neighbor’s long-lost sneeze twin? Share your margin notes below…
Please note! Haven’t seen an email notification about a new blog post in a few weeks? Please check in! I typically share my musings and discoveries about once a week, so there’s no doubt something here waiting for you to explore. (Even when the emails are being finicky, the blog itself marches on!)
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?
Last week on my blog, I wrote about “challenging the monkey’s face.” If you’re familiar with my annual sharing of Bashō’s New Year haiku, you probably know what I mean. If not, the piece is worth a read. It’s about questioning whether the traits we think are fixed – our monkey’s face – are really unchangeable, or if they’re just comfortable patterns we’ve never thought to challenge.
These waffles, for instance. Whenever Ývan suggests using some of my massive quantities of sourdough discard for waffles, I’m quick with my usual “nah man I don’t eat that shit” because I don’t do sweet breakfast. But I always forget about savory waffles! This morning: cheddar-chive-scallion waffles with fried eggs (using techniques from J. Kenji López-Alt’s recent video). Bonus: extra waffles for the freezer. I used this recipe, subbed buttermilk for regular milk, skipped the sugar, and added about 3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar, and a tbsp or so each fresh, chopped chives and scallions.
(Speaking of challenging kitchen habits – I’m also working on cooking from my pantry more. I recently discovered an entire bag of quinoa hiding in there, unopened for who knows how long! It’s made me realize how quick I am to dismiss ingredients I think I don’t like, without really giving them a fair chance. Last year, I discovered I actually do like cilantro and that freshly grated nutmeg is amazing. So maybe quinoa deserves the same open-minded exploration? I’m trying different recipes and preparations, figuring either I’ll find a way I enjoy it, or I can eventually say, “I’ve tried this a dozen different ways, and now I know for sure it’s not for me.”)
And puzzles? There’s a monkey’s face I’ve worn for 48 years. I don’t do puzzles because they make me feel like an idiot. Not just jigsaw puzzles, but word puzzles, number puzzles, riddles – all of it. I really hate sitting with that feeling of being dumb or ignorant. But here’s a ridiculously simple realization I’ve finally reached: if I don’t want to feel that way, maybe I should work at getting better at these things? (When you actively avoid thinking about something, you don’t reach many conclusions.) So last week I downloaded the NYT puzzle app, and now I’m trying to start each morning with it.
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Original cover art by Richard Bober of Stories To Be Read With The Lights On
Ever since we solved the mystery of the Wrinkle in Time cover artist, I’ve been itching to share more of Richard Bober’s work here. His art pulses with an otherworldly luminescence – sometimes veiled by murk and shadow, sometimes blazing in full ethereal splendor.
In his horror work, this shimmer peers through layers of gloom: take his cover for an Alfred Hitchcock collection, where the master of suspense sits at his desk in an eerily shadowed room. The exquisitely blown glass lamps and lanterns suspended from the ceiling cast their glow through a heavy atmospheric haze, while behind him, the stark silhouette of an upraised arm clutching a knife cuts through all that diffused glitter – a perfect contrast of light and shadow, sparkle and threat.
Richard Bober, ” Belly Up to the Bar”
Richard Bober, Mustapha and His Wise Dog
Richard Bober, Portrait of an Orc
This radiance struggles through a different kind of murk in his pulpy sci-fi pieces, wading through cosmic morass and alien atmospheres. But in his more fantastical works, that same light breaks free entirely – illuminating visions of impossible beauty. Take this utterly bizarre bar scene: at first glance, it’s teeming with aliens of every imaginable variety, but look closer, and you’ll find it’s set in what appears to be an old-world gentleman’s club, all dark polished wood and traditional elegance, complete with a figure in a powdered wig – yet overhead hangs a disco ball, transforming this stately space into some kind of interdimensional nightspot.
On the cover of Esther M. Friesner’s Mustapha and His Wise Dog, a dragon is emerging from what can only be described as a posh fantasy spa-castle-pagoda onto a balcony where regal figures blithely recline in a hot tub overlooking an iridescent sea.I have never read the book, and I don’t know what it’s about, so there’s no doubt that my description bears not one iota of relevance to the actual plot!!
Anyway, even his portrait of an orc – traditionally the most brutish of fantasy creatures – finds a balance between that shadowy murk and shimmering dignity. Ugly but make it fashion, as they say.
Richard Bober, “Lady Vampire”
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle with cover art by Richard Bober
I discovered these pieces in reverse, really. First came his portrait of an aristocratic vampire lady while I was researching The Art of Darkness – a piece so captivating I desperately tried to include it in the book. Then there was that infamous 1976 Dell/Laurel Leaf paperback cover of A Wrinkle in Time, with its red-eyed specter and improbable winged centaur. That cover had lived in my memory since childhood, and when I began work on The Art of Fantasy, I knew I wanted to include this piece of beautiful nightmare fuel.
But I’d been down this road before – previous searches for the artist’s identity had led only to dead ends. By the time my hunt began again in earnest, my book was already at the printer’s, and my blog post about the mysterious cover artist had exploded across social media.
Richard Bober, A Hangman’s Dozen (the executioner is actually a self-portrait of Bober!)
Richard Bober, 12 Stories for Late at Night
Richard Bober, Stories Not For The Nervous
I had no idea then that the two pieces that had independently captured my imagination – the elegant vampire and the cosmic horror of the Wrinkle cover – sprang from the same artistic wellspring. Amid the avalanche of suggestions and theories that poured in during the investigation, there were these quiet, prescient hints – my friend Keith mentioned Bober’s name in my Facebook comments, and on Twitter, Wallace Polsom pointed out those distinctive sickly greens in Bober’s Hitchcock covers.
Adam Rowe of 70’s Sci-Fi Art, whose expertise in this era of illustration is unmatched, lent his considerable knowledge to the investigation. When Endless Thread took up the mystery (a whole story unto itself), their investigation would eventually prove these subtle clues significant, unraveling the threads that connected these works I’d loved for such different reasons.
Richard Bober, Alive and Screaming
Richard Bober, 12 Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do on TV
While most of Bober’s work focused on the fantastical and the eerie, he occasionally turned his eye to still-life compositions with delightfully macabre results. The cover for 12 Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do on TV showcases a gleefully sinister collection – a bundle of dynamite, a bullet, a scorpion, a bottle of poison, some sort of firearm (a musket? I don’t know guns, okay?), and a skull with a lone eyeball rolling grotesquely in its socket.
It’s a vignette that, as it turns out, hints at an artistic legacy carried forward by his nephew.
Matthew Bober, Performance 4
Matthew Bober, Wanderer
Matthew Bober, Requiem
Matthew Bober, Wind-Up Cat
As noted in the Endless Thread interview, Richard’s nephew Matthew remembers the Wrinkle in Time cover as the first book he had read that his uncle did the cover for, talking about it in school. He would later spend time in his uncle’s basement, where paintings were stored around a pool table, and eventually helped digitize Richard’s slides – an informal archive of work photographed on 35mm film.
But most meaningful were the countless nights spent watching his uncle work: “He would always let me sit there and watch him paint. So, many, many, many, many nights, I got to sit there and just watch him work on a cover or whatever he was working on. So I learned an incredible lot from that — to see the profession, what it meant to be a professional, you know, and just watch that. It’s… I can’t even describe what that meant to me.”
Matthew is an artist himself, and scrolling through his Instagram sends me into absolute paroxysms of demented glee. His hyper-realistic still lifes feel like the most perfect gatherings of misfit treasures – think of those sad little ceramic creatures you sometimes find in thrift stores, the ones with slight chips or haunting expressions that make other people pass them by, the forgotten mechanical toys and vacant-eyed dolls that seem to be asking for someone to take them home and give them new life.
In Matthew’s paintings, these precious oddities come together in the extraordinary gatherings. Porcelain doll heads with empty, searching eyes commune with clay skulls, while owls, bunnies, elephants and the most beautifully unsettling clowns gather for what feels like the coziest of strange tea parties. Wind-up alligators and other odd little mechanical toys peek out from the edges, each one seeming curious and somehow alive, as if caught in the middle of their own secret adventures. He captures every worn edge and chipped surface with such loving attention, transforming these overlooked treasures into something magical through sheer technical precision and an absolutely infectious sense of joy.
Every time I look at one of his pieces, I discover some new detail that makes my greedy little goblin heart do shriekingly clumsy cartwheels of delight.
Richard Bober, Happy Deathday
Bober was famously private and perhaps a bit of a technophobe – he had no cell phone, no computer, not even long-distance phone service. His agent, Jane Frank, called him a recluse; in nearly 30 years of representing him, she only met him once, often accepting awards on his behalf at conventions while assuring people he wasn’t merely a figment of her imagination.
For a fascinating deep dive into Bober’s artistic philosophy and his complex relationship with tradition and modernity, I highly recommend this illuminating profile from the summer before his passing: Richard Bober: Gift of the Old Masters.
Bober, With Fiends Like These
Richard Bober, Woman in Black Dress
Richard Bober, Phantom of the Opera Study
What truly enchants me about Bober’s work is its shimmering, glittering quality – a sort of luminous magic that infuses even his darkest artworks. Looking at these pieces, I want to gather up all of Bober’s paintings and stitch them into the most extraordinary ballgown – imagine the sweep of that skirt, each panel flickering between horror and beauty, between the mundane and the cosmic.
The bodice would be crafted from his Hitchcock covers, all those sickly greens and oceanic blues swirling together. The full skirt would be a phantasmagoria of his fantasy works – that hot tub dragon scene forming a shimmering border, while aliens and orcs and vampire aristocrats dance across the fabric.
And there, right at the heart of it, that nightmarish Wrinkle in Time centaur would spread its rainbow wings across the waist, its companion’s red eyes glowing like rubies in the folds of fabric. It would be a gown for a masquerade at the end of the universe, where all of Bober’s creations could finally meet and mingle.
Richard Bober, Hathor Egyptian goddess of love
Richard Bober, College of Magics
Richard Bober, No Body
Richard Bober- Wizard in Purple
I harbor this slightly ridiculous dream: that someday, The Art of Fantasy might go into a tenth-anniversary edition. Let’s be real – my books about weird, dark art are probably far too niche (and, I suspect, so far under the radar as to be subterranean) to ever be bestsellers, but wouldn’t it be something if that haunting Wrinkle in Time cover could land among its pages?
Not that it matters much – Bober’s art is out there now, inspiring new generations of readers and artists, no longer anonymous but celebrated for the strange and shimmering legacy it is. Still… a ghoul can dream!
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?
It hung on our basement door like a sentinel—a ragdoll caught in the merciless grip of an old-fashioned clothes wringer, accompanied by that unforgettable caption: “The truth will set you free but at first it will make you miserable.”
For years, I sat with my back against the cracked vinyl bench in our Milford, Ohio kitchen, watching that door’s decor change with the seasons: a rattling skeleton at Halloween, a jolly Santa during December. But the ragdoll always returned, resuming its position like a stubborn gargoyle, watching over our little trio as we grew: me advancing toward nine, my sister toward seven, the baby of us reaching five.
The kitchen was pure 1970s: mustard-yellow countertops that seemed to absorb every shadow, even in full daylight. I’d slouch at the table, pushing my mother’s Midwestern white lady interpretation of chicken chow mein around my plate, creating smaller and smaller piles until I could discreetly ball it into a napkin. Some nights, it was meatloaf; others, it was her chili spaghetti—a rotating cast of dishes I couldn’t stomach. “May I be excused?” I’d implore beseechingly, already half-risen from the bench. The ragdoll watched my every deception with its blank button eyes.
I never questioned its presence then. It was simply part of our small family home’s landscape, like the perpetual haze of Folgers coffee and Benson & Hedges cigarettes that hung in the air. But its message about truth and misery never quite stuck—I was already a practiced fibber by then, masking my own disgust at my mother’s cooking (sorry, mom) while instinctively developing the tools we’d need later for grander prevarications. By nine, these small acts of self-preservation at the dinner table were quietly preparing us for the years ahead, when truth-telling would become a more complicated matter of survival, when her struggles with alcohol addiction and mental illness became more apparent.
Looking back, I wonder if the poster knew what it was watching over: three little girls at a kitchen table, with me already adept at the art of selective truth-telling, my sisters no doubt soon to follow, if they hadn’t already surpassed me. The basement door might as well have been a stage curtain, with that tortured ragdoll as our silent audience, witnessing each small deception that was really just practice for the bigger ones to come. I wonder if it was appalled at its uselessness or if it found the little trio of budding dissemblers bleakly amusing. I also often wonder if our shared dark sense of humor began with the pained but resigned expression on this rag doll’s face. Most of all, I wonder… whatever happened to that poster?!
Yesterday, my middle sister texted me with barely contained-glee. This is the same sister who solved the JAW CRAZER mystery, by the way. She might be an even more persistent sleuth than me! She’d found it—the exact same freaky rag doll poster —listed for around $50 on a resale site. The photo brought an immediate rush of memories: the sticky give of vinyl against my back, the scrape of fork tines against plates, the strategic redistribution of unwanted dinners. She placed an offer immediately.
The offer was accepted, and that ragdoll will return to us after forty years—no longer a looming presence above our childhood meals but a cherished relic of the kitchen table where three little girls poked at questionable Chinese food and stodgy meatloaf, perfecting their poker faces, pretending to eat dinner.
P.S. I should note that I’m only speaking from my own experience with truth-telling and survival strategies—I shouldn’t presume to know my sisters’ relationships with honesty, then or now. (Though I suspect we all are all lying liars in our own ways, for our own reasons.)
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Every New Year’s Day, while social media floods with “new year, new you” declarations and ambitious resolution lists, I share my own little message – Bashō’s haiku: “Year after year / on the monkey’s face / a monkey’s face.” Perhaps it’s become my own kind of tradition, a cheeky little poke, a humble nudge, a reminder that my familiar face in the mirror greets me on January 1st, unchanged by the turning of the calendar.
I let go of the idea of resolutions long ago. Why make promises to become less – to lose weight, to take up less space, to need less? Instead, I set goals, always reaching for something more expansive – more understanding, more courage, more connection, more of myself. Usually just one meaningful intention for the year ahead. Not to change who I am, but to become more fully who I might be. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always told myself.
This year’s goal crystallized on January 2nd, emerging from a moment of pure exhaustion. I’d just survived two weeks of intense holiday people-ing with Yvan’s family, and my first-ever colonoscopy had just been rescheduled – after I’d already fasted for half the day. I was tired, hungry, and a bit cranky, if I’m being honest. As dinner time approached, I could feel myself sliding into my usual stress pattern: I’d either declare, “Popcorn for dinner!” or order tacos or something equally cheesy and greasy. It’s what I always did when overwhelmed. But then an interesting thought percolated: just because that’s what Sarah always had done, did she have to do it tonight? What if I challenged the monkey’s face? Instead, I threw some rice in the rice cooker and made a light veggie soup. It was infinitely more satisfying, undoubtedly better for my body, and I didn’t spend any extra money. A small victory–though maybe not as tasty.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my patterns lately, wondering where they all came from. They show up everywhere – in the particular way I need my morning coffee prepared (you don’t even want to know me if I run out of the right creamer), in how I arrange my days, in my quick “no” to spontaneous invitations. But are these patterns really protecting me, or have they just become comfortable ruts I’ve never bothered to question?
And what is it about uncertainty that feels so wobbly? When something disrupts my routines – even something as simple as having to settle for a slightly different cup of coffee – why does it ripple through my entire day like an earthquake? Is it really about the coffee, or is it about something deeper – some need for control that I’m only now starting to peek at?
I find myself wondering about all this scaffolding I’ve built around myself. Was it necessary once? Is it still? When did these supportive structures become constricting ones? Or have they always been both at once – offering security but demanding stillness in return?
Sometimes I catch myself counting the costs of being so set in my ways. How many connections have I missed because spontaneous invitations feel too daunting? How many opportunities have slipped by because they didn’t fit neatly into my established patterns? What would it feel like to say yes more often to the unexpected? Would it be as terrifying as I imagine?
But then the practical questions start nagging: how would I even begin to challenge these patterns? Which ones are truly essential to keeping me functioning, and which are just habits pretending to be needs? Is there a way to experiment without risking collapse? Could I start small – maybe accepting a slightly different morning schedule, or trying new approaches to familiar tasks? Would each small deviation really build tolerance for uncertainty, like gradually strengthening a muscle? Or would it just feel like constant, needless stress?
And what about authenticity? If I challenge these patterns, these reflexive resistances, am I betraying something essential about myself? Or am I perhaps discovering something more essential that’s been hiding behind all these careful routines?
Lately I’ve been staring at Bashō’s haiku differently. I used to see it as a comfort, a justification. But maybe I’ve mistaken my face for a monkey’s for too long.
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In this year’s Yule collection, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab celebrates a decade of spectral encounters and spiritual comfort. Here we find grandmothers’ crystal candy dishes alongside parlor séances, Christmas candles burning beside ghostly doubles, and even a mouse stealing bites of lavender-dusted popcorn. From bayberry memories to midnight confections, these scents flicker between darkness and light, between what was and what lingers. Sometimes they’re jaunty and bright, other times they’re weighted with musty glamour and golden memories – but always, they offer solace in winter’s darkness, whether through sweetness, strangeness, or sacred remembrance.
Here are my thoughts on some of these haunting, comforting fragrances.
The Season of Ghosts(bergamot, frankincense, rose geranium, ginger, lemongrass, and blood orange) Opens with the candies that lived in grandmother’s crystal dishes – the confectionary citrus sweetness of pillowy circus peanuts and tangy jellied oranges glowing like stained glass. But it’s the turn it takes, the transformation that haunts: a slow bloom of golden musty glamour that hints at powder puffs and hat veils, of the musky, mossy, bronze grandeur of those perfumes that filled rooms with their presence and lingered for days in fur coats. It’s finding faded sepia-tinted photos in an ornate old candy tin of your grandmother from that unmistakable era, each image radiating the warmth of a moment when time moved slower, and youth seems older than our own age now, more weighted with substance and shadow.
Midnight Marzipan (a ground almond snowpack glistening under a chilly scattering of sugar-bright stars, standing out against a night sky of the darkest cacao) I braced myself for the marzipan in this one; I didn’t even realize I did it, but when I finally smelled what was actually happening in the scent, I realized I had been holding my breath. Though I love marzipan –adore it!– both in scent and taste, it can overwhelm with the high-pitched peal of sugary sweetness. What I got instead was the deep, full, resonant, sonorous richness of barely sweet, dark, dark chocolate. The marzipan was a soft, trilling frill, fluttering at the edges. A duet between Darth Vader and Megan Mullally, where the Dark Side of the Force becomes velvet cocoa-dusted truffles and somehow makes Karen Walker’s signature giggle feel like sugared almond stardust on snow.
Faunalia (a thick, starlit, unspoiled forest, with a burst of wild musk, opobalsamum, black bryony, mandragora, and hemlock) Like opening a forgotten storybook, where the forest’s scent rises between pages tinged with the echo of vanilla – not the sharp bite of pine or wet earth, but something once growing but softly bespelled, slumbering and subdued. The musks feel antique rather than wild, a soft sepia tone rather than vivid green. It’s what you might smell if you pressed your nose to an illustration of dark woods in a Victorian fairy tale, where the ink itself carries old magic and time-worn pages hold the memory of primordial forest and ancient greenwoods.
Poor Monkey (pink lotus root and fig milk with ylang ylang, bourbon vanilla, soft myrrh, fir, khus, and sandalwood incense) Like preserves made from petals gathered too early for dew – a tender, translucent jelly that holds summer’s sweetness suspended in light, the way an altar holds its morning offerings. Fresh figs split open like pale stars, lotus petals floating in milk-white bowls, and unburnt sticks of sandalwood waiting patiently – sweetness as a promise, like tomorrow’s devotions already taking shape in the quiet hours before sunrise.
Pomegranate MilkThe red sun races through winter-stained snow like Dracula’s eyes in that final chase – all grenadine turned lurid and glowing with the day’s dying light. Why does this perfume also remind me of Japanese candy discovered in the back of an import shop, that distinctive musty-sweet chalkiness? Perhaps it’s the way time and context reshape sweetness into something stranger – in sunset’s crimson hour or years on a forgotten shelf, what was once simple pleasure takes on an elegant decay.
Porcelain Krampus (brown leather and a bundle of switches encased in pale white orris root and rice powder, translucent white musk, Himalayan ambrette seed, and milky vanilla.) She sits pristine in tissue paper, this porcelain child with cool milky skin and frost-pale curls, radiating a sweetness both powder-pure and glazed smooth – like marshmallows dissolving in winter air, like sugared pears turned to frost on the windowsill. Though she glows with innocence, you know better. That’s why her tiny severed hand lives in your pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief, small and impossibly perfect, still trailing that haunting whisper of confectioner’s sugar and cold cream. You tell yourself it’s for safe-keeping, and perhaps that’s true in a sense, but really, you’re keeping yourself safe –from her gaze in the dark each night, as she watches you from high on her shelf, with a smile that’s patient and sweet, and ever-so-slightly wrong.
Hard Cider Cake (a thick, spongy white cake spiked with hard apple cider and frosted with whiskey-laden buttercream) A possum-riding gnome rolls up in a car made of twigs and acorns. “Get in, loser,” they grin, “we’re having cider with the Green Man.” What they pour is fresh-pressed and unsweetened, with something unexpectedly verdant lurking in its depths – like drinking autumn sunshine filtered through new spring leaves. The old magics are simple ones: apples and leaves, earth and air, each sip tasting of secrets whispered between the roots of ancient trees
A Cup of Tea in the Verandah (black tea and bergamot shimmer in the glow of sunlit amber as cypress boughs cast lingering shadows, the heart blooms softly with jasmine sambac and tender orris) A single bloom emerges from craggy castle walls like a long-lost, long-gone friend impossibly appearing in morning light – its petals glowing rosy with the same translucent warmth as sunbeams through stained glass. The stone beneath holds secrets in its tea-stained shadows, cool and tannic as bitter centuries of words unsaid, feelings unreturned. Memory blooms here, unbearably delicate yet persistent and softly strangling as ivy, reaching through time toward a cup that was never filled.
Phantom Team of Horses(a spectral cacophony of shimmering, translucent dun sandalwood, grey amber, and wraith-chilled chestnut galloping through the mist-cloaked shadows of time, a clattering of clove and black pepper, and a crack of phantom leather) Through mist and gloaming, phantom hooves prowl and roam – a nutty-woody-resinous haunting that refuses to settle into silence. The wood whispers like morning fog, barely there; a subtle saltiness clings to the chestnut’s echo, while grey amber broods beneath it all, murky as twilight in forgotten hollows. Like those ghostly horses that never quite reach their destination, these scents circle and hover, their spectral stampede more whisper than thunder, more shadow than storm.
The Phenomena of Witchcraft (green balsam, bay leaf, fossilized amber, blackened vetiver, and clove bud cloaked in oud) The morning after a midnight revel, musty clove smoke and primordial resins mingling in the morning’s murk and morass. When witches trade their broomsticks for bar stools – all that wild green magic gone deliciously seedy, forest herbs trampled underfoot in an alley behind a dive bar, sacred incense mingling with spilled spirits. Like knocking thrice on heaven’s door and getting an answer from somewhere decidedly south.
Frau Holle (snow-covered pines, witches’ herbs, bestial musk, flax, and ethereal flowers that represent both birth and death) Sometimes, we run across a perfume that bears little resemblance to our expectations when it comes to its blueprint of notes. Such is the case with this atmosphere of bracing winter mint and bitter forest berries, scattered across the rapidly dissipating warmth of a recently vacated featherbed. The fog from the hearth is dusky and strange, like herb-steeped milk in an abandoned bowl.
Lavender Kitchen Mouse (lavender cotton candy fur and vanilla popcorn balls, sent skittering out of the kitchen with a good-natured wave of our polished wood rolling pin) For a popcorn devotee – nay, a popcorn zealot who would happily survive on nothing but perfectly popped kernels for the rest of time, dental floss bills be damned – there is nothing quite like that first hit of toasty corn. Whether it’s movie theater butter pooling in the ridges, nutritional yeast giving it that umami funk, or simply sea salt bringing out corn’s inherent sweetness (and let’s be clear: adding caramel, or indeed any form of sweetness to popcorn, is an unforgivable crime against both nature and the pure pleasure of popped corn). But here’s something entirely unexpected: that perfect salty-corny base sprinkled with lavender’s crisp, herbaceous brightness. Like finding fresh sprigs tucked between kernels, adding an aromatic sharpness that cuts through the savory warmth. It’s a weird combination and probably shouldn’t work – much like how finding a beady-eyed little mouse nibbling in your popcorn bowl as you reach for another handful would be pretty jarring – but somehow, this odd little creature has charmed its way into my heart.
Ube Sufganiyot A soft swirl of fried dough, a scant sifting of powdered sugar, and a filling that melts all its elements – white chocolate, pistachio, and coconut – into one creamy, nutty reverie. Pair this with Lavender Kitchen Mouse above for the perfect snack box curation at an all-night Wes Anderson movie marathon, where every treat is just slightly offbeat and endearingly peculiar.
Paysage (the pale moon pouring magic: Tunisian opium and mugwort with blackened bourbon vanilla, tuberose, glittering white musk, datura accord, wild plum, and tobacco absolute.) In the bottle, I know exactly what this is: my mother-in-law’s Jólakaka, all rum-soaked candied lemon peel and winter warmth. But on skin, it transforms into something far more mysterious – like a lemon icicle in one of those classic locked room mysteries where the detective finds nothing but an inexplicable puddle of water beside the body. Sharp and crystalline yet impossible to grasp, bright citrus frozen into a vanishing elegance, leaving you to question whether you really understood what you experienced at all.
Eighteenth Lash (vanillekipferl plunked in a pile of pine needles) Buttery, crumbly, melty cookies with a base of bitter, oily walnuts and a rich, caramelized shortbread bottom…baked in the steam and sap of an enchanted pine’s resinous heart, they’ve taken on the deep forest’s secrets – as if being born in the heart of an ancient conifer has imbued them with its balsamic soul. Wear this scent and imagine this treat while Chelsea Wolfe’s haunting voice carries you far over misty mountains cold, where dark things sleep in hollow halls beneath the fells.
The Human Double(a shadow-blackened fougere steeped in an uncanny, discomfiting lavender tar) Imagine if lavender went sepulchral, if coumarin turned to ash, if oakmoss grew on graves – this is the shadow-self of a classic fougère. Though we don’t know this one’s building blocks, we know its intentions: the familiar herbal notes have been submerged in something black and viscous, like catching your reflection in a darkened window at midnight and watching it linger after you’ve walked away. Doppelgangers embody pure existential horror – they violate our most fundamental sense of uniqueness through their unheimlich theft of selfhood. This is what happens when your double claims your signature scent as its own, and worse, wears it with more authority than you ever did.
Gently, Gently, They Are Timid (candied orange and pink peppercorn, sugared freesia petals, vanilla bean, and white honey) “The weird the Spirit brings,” as mentioned in the lyrics of this perfume’s inspiration is jaunty and bright, and indeed spirited. This could be the signature scent of the most gleeful parlor ghost, whose enthusiasm for the spectral life is utterly contagious. The first manifestation brings bursts of rosy spice and diaphanous flower petals before settling into its true form: a tatted lace doily holding the memory of creamed toffees and sugared meringues, all grounded in something as smooth and refined as the cream in a proper lady’s tea. The spirits probably attend her séances just to watch her elaborate table-floating mechanisms with fond amusement – they’re happy to play along with a hostess who goes to such lengths to entertain them.
Lavender Avocado Toast(a toasted slice from the middle of a springy, oaty loaf blessed with a rich green schmear and sprinkled with lemon juice and lavender sea salt) This is not the avocado toast I was expecting – but rather a delicate, floral violet-tinged lavender jam mingling with thick, cultured salted butter of such distinct creamy richness, all melting into warm, crusty golden toast that’s been dusted with what might be flower-infused sugar, might be fairy dust. This is what happens when your trendy café is secretly run by flower fairies who’ve decided to put their own enchanting spin on the brunch menu.
The Flame of the Bear (fir resin, bayberry, myrrh, mistletoe, and oak bark) When I smell The Flame of the Bear, memory catches in my throat like pine smoke: the same grandmother who brought out those crystal dishes of candy I mentioned in The Season of Ghosts had a bayberry candle whose scent is everything that Christmas is to me today, as an adult: a soft sweetness twined with delicate spice, the very essence of evergreen twilights and December promises. She would unwrap it from tissue paper with such care, as if it held more than just wax and scent – and of course it did. Some scents are time machines, and this one carries me back through winters past, when love could be captured in something as simple as candlelight and its reflection in her eyes. I can’t smell this without seeing her light it, then reaching for my hand (so I wouldn’t touch it!)
Krampus Kreme Latte(hazelnuts, almonds, and coffee beans sweetened with heavy cream froth and honey and spiced with ginger, black pepper, black cardamom, and cacao.) When I smelled this extremely robust coffee scent, I thought, “woweee, this smells like spicy Krampus coffeeshop romantasy #booktok drama!”
KRAMPUS’S FORBIDDEN GRIND
#1 in Demon Romance
(CW: coffee addiction, consensual soul bargaining)
When artisanal coffee roaster Peppers McGee* accidentally summons Krampus with her darkest, most potent brew yet, she doesn’t expect him to become her most demanding regular. The way he salaciously savors her honey-kissed foam and black pepper sprinkle makes her wonder if he’s hunting for more than just the perfect cup. Between the scorching intensity of fresh-ground beans and the sweet heat of their growing attraction, Luna must decide: keep playing it safe with her usual roasts, or risk it all on a blend that could consume her completely.
“The coffee shop demon romance I never knew I needed” – BookTok
“Finally, a Krampus who knows his way around an espresso machine” – Literal Demons Book Club
*Peppers McGee shows up in a lot of my perfume stories! See also Blue Oud by Cognoscenti and Eldritch by Pineward
Need more Yule scents? Have a peep at my Yule reviews from 2023, 2022 and 2021 and a single review for 2019 though I could swear I have several years’ worth of BPAL Yule reviews floating around that out there. And I know this because…
…PSSSST! Did you know I have collected all of my BPAL reviews into one spot? I’m about a year behind with adding new stuff to the document, but as it stands, there are over 60 PAGES of my thoughts and rambles on various limited-edition scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab over the years: BPAL REVIEWS BY S. ELIZABETH (PDF download)
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?
A blood-red Rodarte with velvet ribbons at the shoulders, tea-length and slinky – a dress that captured the exact color of freshly spilled… well, let’s say wine. But – and this pains me still – the way it caught the light was more “elegant dinner party murder mystery” when what I required was “secret vampire masquerade where everyone pretends they’re just wearing really good lipstick.” I spent three days contemplating various shades of crimson trying to convince myself it could work. Reader, it could not.
