Erté’s illustration of a perfume bottle for British Vogue, June 1973
Roja Dove Apex: when you live in a pineapple under the sea, but you’ve converted it to a Harley Davidson showroom.
We’re encountering a rose who is not just a protagonist in a horror film but perhaps the film–a cursed film–itself. And not some schlocky nonsense that’s all jump scares and genre cliches; we’re talking the last spine-tingling, pants-shittingly terrifying film you saw and that you’ve begun to have ghastly nightmares about which are starting to eerily echo and reverberate through your waking hours. Court of Ravens by 4160 Tuesdays is, in short, and on paper, an incensey rose chypre–but rumors are the incense component is the boiling blood of a mad cultist mixed with strange and stinging otherworldly herbs; the rose grew sickly and sinister on the unmarked grave of a hanged murderer, and the chypre, well, it’s the usual materials of oakmoss and balsamic elements, but pounded to an oozing paste on an ancient black altar with a secret number of drops from a cracked, cloudy bottle, and I don’t know what’s in that esoteric essence, but it smells shockingly of acrid fright-sweat, bitter adrenaline, and is underscored by a host of sharp, burning pheromones. So, you have probably reached the conclusion that I must love this, and you’re right, and I’m glad you guys can read between the lines.
I am testing BDK’s Ambre Safrano and thinking of a collection of contemporary poetry that I’ve been reading. I’m making this connection because it’s really bad poetry. And I am now 0/2 with the samples that I have tried from BDK Parfums. Now I realize both poetry and perfume and all forms of art are intensely subjective, and what’s considered “bad” in terms of any of it can have a lot to do with personal preference. Ambre Saffano is meant to take us on a faraway olfactory journey, but I think they’ve vastly overestimated the distance this scent has the capability of encompassing because the places that it shows us seem pretty limited.. It goes as far as your laptop screen or the phone, a few inches from your face, as it’s the olfactory equivalent of fanfiction without a single measure of spice, none of the characters have any chemistry, and the writing is weirdly overwrought for a story with absolutely no plot, and then you take that uninspired mess and run it through some sort of poetry generator, and you end up a word salad that somehow manages to be nonsensical and boring and not only are you not enjoying it, it’s actually giving you a bit of a headache. And if I haven’t told you anything about what it actually smells like, that’s because I truly do not know. But imagine a bowl of plastic fruit. A facsimile of fruit, of something sweet and seasonal and juicy that once existed somewhere, but the person who molded this fruit maybe has never even seen this fruit. Imagine you melted down to a slurry those waxy, musty plastic apples and grapes and bananas and dumped in a Costco-sized bag of Truvia, and attempted to make cotton candy with it. And then, for some ungodly reason, you wrote a poem about it. Ok, this review is all over the place, and you’re probably walking away from it dumber than when you started. If it’s any consolation, I am too.
Filigree and Shadow’s The Purest Blue is all sandalwood; sandalwood can feel so lofty sometimes, like it’s speaking some sort of angelic language that you can’t quite parse; it’s over your head. But this is sandalwood that feels nicely tethered, as if there’s a terrestrial translator working on my behalf to decode those epiphanies. What’s even better is that this earthy element, he and I are real kindred spirits, and through his filter, those celestial sandalwood messages get peppered with the slightest bit of salty impish musk, and in his own words, it turns out the angels are insisting “bitch, you need an exorcist.” Tell Me About The Forest (You Once Called Home)is fir and spruce and juniper and is an immediate love. You know I have a huge fondness for fairy-tale forest fragrances, but so many of them are sticky, a fairy forest syrup that you measure a bar spoon into for some sort of Hansel and Gretel cocktail. This doesn’t have that treacly quality; it’s…dryer? Maybe a bit bitter. I feel like it’s a bit of a hermit-ascetic with an acerbic wit and a love of irony. It reminds me of dense, darkened thickets in the midnight woodland art of Tin Can Forest.
Erté Perfume serigraph
I don’t know with certainty that The people you love become ghosts inside you from Death and Floral and is inspired by Robert Montgomery’s poetic conceptual artworks, but much like this particular installation, this perfume is a translucent, tender, neon poem of light and loss and longing. The Death and Floral site doesn’t really list specifics with regard to the notes, just an evocative combination of adjectives revolving around musks, florals, and a “cold vanilla”. Not being a perfumer and not caring to learn anything about it, I can only guess as to what that means. In this case, it conjures a spectral vanilla shrouded in wintergreen morning veils and draped in shimmering shadowed musky, powdery violet dewdrop memento mori jewels. I don’t know if this is wintergreen, maybe it’s birch or sarsparilla, but I recognize something in the family of mentholated musty medicinal miasma, and typically I don’t care for these notes. You could say that in fact, I actively hate them. But I strangely love the deeply unsettling haunted house cold spots drop in temperature that it lends to this already melancholic scent, and I’ve found myself unexpectedly craving it when I’m not wearing it, and when it is on my wrists, I cannot stop sniffing them.
Destrier from House of Matriarch is perhaps the first leather scent I have ever not just tolerated but actually liked. I’m not sure if I’m even a leather fan, but I appreciate that this one just goes so hard. It is not putting on airs, and it’s not in disguise (unlike leather-clad Spongebob Squarepants, above); there is no mistaking it. AND it’s a rather 360° immersive scent experience as well as absolutely immediate, with no lead-in or preamble. Imagine you are an overachieving LARPer, and you took three years of leatherworking classes so that you could make the perfect leather coin pouch to hang from your belt for this intensely anticipated festival you’ve been dying to attend. Even though it’s a tiny piece of a larger, more intricate costume, you want every detail absolutely perfect, from the tanning to the stitching to the embossing. You’ve spent so much time on this accessory that you’re smelling those tanning agents, those fats and oils and chemicals and musks, even in your dreams now. And in waking life, too, even after the event, you are one with that leather coin purse, and you carry it with you everywhere you go. At this point in time, it is stuffed with cedar chips, sweet grasses, and soft moss…because you spent all your coins on those expensive classes and leatherworking tools.
Is Penhaligon’s Babylonmeant to evoke Babylon, the den of iniquity and pinnacle of sin? Or perhaps that groovy Satanic prostitute, arrayed in purple and scarlet, decked with pearls and precious stones, with her golden cup spilling with abominations and filthiness? I’m not sure this softly-spiced, velvet-wooded fragrance is as outrageous or dramatic as all of that. Imagine that golden cup, surely sensationalized to pique public indignation, was instead some sort of humble, unassuming vessel, a bowl of roughly carved but fragrant sandalwood, filled with a milky liquid, redolent of honeyed saffron, the aromatic, earthy warmth of nutmeg and coriander’s peppery-aniseed camphor, and delicately resinous, subtly smoky vanilla. If you’re a fan of Dior’s Hypnotic Poison, but don’t love that obnoxious root beer note, I think you’d find Babylon a more tasteful option. I do enjoy this scent immensely, but I’d still like to smell a more vivid and exuberant perfumed interpretation of this apocalyptic beauty.
Over on TikTok today, I gave a brief, updated tour of my perfume cabinet for 2023. And now that I’ve said that, I am thinking maybe I need to do a longer one for my much-neglected YouTube channel–what do you think?
This little show and tell was at the request of someone who left a comment on one of my previous TikTok videos, but even so, in recent years, I’ve become a little self-conscious about showing off my collection. I know it’s a lot (and believe it or not, that’s not the part I’m worried about being judged for.) I don’t mind saying ‘BEHOLD MY STUFF,” but I never want it to come off as ‘BEHOLD ALL OF THE THINGS I HAVE THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE.” I never want to make someone feel bad about themselves or less-than.
Please keep in mind this is nearly 20 years’ worth of collecting perfumes. I know that when you are new to a passion or enthusiasm, it’s tempting to want to keep up with everything that reviewers or influences are talking about, and it’s easy to spend a lot —way too much—money in doing so. You don’t have to build a collection overnight. You certainly don’t have to build a collection that looks like this. Lord knows, I sure don’t need this many perfumes. But I love to sniff and ponder beautiful, evocative things, and even if I’ve already got something beautiful, maybe even many beautiful somethings, I’m always on the hunt for that holy grail of beauty. It is a strange and wonderful and horrible craving that I can never seem to satisfy.
At any rate, I just suppose this is a little disclaimer and just pre-emptively answering a few frequently (un) asked questions. Because most of you are too polite, but you have perhaps wondered these things. Although I know there are people out there who have twice as many, three times as many, fragrances on their shelves as mine, I am aware that even this is a ridiculous amount of perfumes, and you really don’t need anything even close to this number. I’d love to say that these were all PR or gifted and that I didn’t spend my own money on them…but honestly, except for some of the indie scents from niche-interest creators that I am friendly with, none of them were free, or even discounted. I’m not that kind of writer/reviewer. I’m not on any brand’s radars. I’m just someone who enjoys writing about perfume and does it joyfully and generously even though I am in no way getting paid for it– and as a matter of fact, this enthusiasm has cost me more money than I would ever be comfortable confessing to. But. I do have a full-time job that I have had for almost 20 years now. I am married to someone who has a full-time job. So we are a two-income household…with no children, no car payments, and no student loans. We saved up for this house and between that and the sale of our old home, it is paid for in full– so we don’t even have a mortgage. I don’t go out to restaurants, I don’t travel, and I don’t spend a lot of money anywhere else. So, sure. I am almost stupidly privileged to have the play money to afford an obsession.
Well. Maybe that’s not entirely true. I do have a Patreon where I write about perfume, and the wonderful supporters of that endeavor are giving me money every month. So I am sort of getting paid to write about perfume, I guess? But maybe not in the traditional way of things.
This shadowy photo above was the extent of my collection in 2011 when I wrote about my ten favorite scents for the bloodmilk blog. It’s a little embarrassing to admit that these are still my best-loved fragrances…and yet I have kept acquiring more bottles. What if there’s something still out there that I have not experienced? What if there’s a favorite yet to be found? I don’t dare stop looking! I had to go searching through my Tumblr to find this photo again. Can you believe I still update that thing? I do! I’m stubborn. I’ll be on Tumblr til I die, probably. If you’re curious as to what I was into in March of 2011, have a peek, hee hee!
And is my all-time favorite scent still the cool meditative forest temple dream of CdG Kyoto? (Yes.)
But I also have some new favorites!
The Holy Mountain (this is the old formula from Apoteker Tepe) If you are in the market for a smoky fragrance that smells like maybe the smoke cleared after a super-beardy wizard threw a mystical resin into a fire to conjure an ancient dragon lord or something, but the dragon flew away and the wizard has gone to bed and the fire has burned down so that only the embers are smoldering and the deeply scented, resinous smoke has seeped into all the old wooden beams in the top-most tower room where all the magical shit is locked up…well, The Holy Mountain may be the scent for you.
Stroopwafel from Scent Trunk is a gorgeous gourmand that balances what could potentially be intensely heavy and cloying with something that still feels light and airy, and effortlessly cozy. It feels perfect for what can be a really intense time of year when you’re pulled in every direction, you’re spread too thin, and there’s never enough time. The holidays can be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually draining, and the last thing you want to do is top all that off with a fragrance that leans too far into any of that mess. Stroopwafel is a scent that feels nostalgic to a point, but in the way that books and dreams are nostalgic, unsullied by what goes on in your real life, and even then, it’s saved by various other elements before it can get its hooks into you and become something maudlin or suffocatingly sentimental. This is not to say I don’t connect with this scent, because I do! But in a way that feels like it’s a treasure just for me. Like being wrapped up in something special that I don’t have to share and in it, creating memories of moments that are solely my own. Nostalgia happening now, rose-tinting the present as I am living it. It opens as the rich, fragrant gooey chewy treat it’s named for, that buttery bourbon caramel syrup center and brown sugar deliciousness of that sort of not-baked-all-the-way-through waffled cookie sandwiching it. But alongside all that cozy, sweet warmth, there’s a breath of something cool and breezy, this side of piney marjoram, that side of woodsy cedar, that makes itself known. It’s the emotional equivalent of waking up too warm in bed at night and slipping your toes from beneath your quilt to give them a little chill. Or perhaps baking up a storm in a humid kitchen on a wintry day and cracking the window open to let in a frigid gust of air. In the end, a lovely vanilla musk rounds out the fragrance. At this point, and until you can no longer detect it on your skin, it smells like the sweater you spent all day wearing in that cookie kitchen, but with a light dusting of snow after you left it on top of the woodpile overnight.
Fort and Manle Confessions of a Garden Gnome I don’t believe this earnest little gnome’s secret to be particularly incendiary, but it does present some specific imagery. Shirking garden tasks to sneak into a woodland affair he’s heard rumors about, and, expecting an opulent ball, he washes behind his loamy soil-caked ears and spritzes on his little limbs a soft herbal cologne with notes of violet leaf and strange citrus. What he finds upon arrival is a fairy ring rave; intoxicated pixies and sprites flirting and frolicking across pepper moss, under disco balls reflecting the birch and cedar trees… and the guilty face of the gnome who doesn’t know how to dance.
Chapel Factory’s Heresy is the sharp green metallic floral of violet leaf, mingled with cool aromatic cedar, lofty sandalwood, and the smoked leather notes of vetiver; elements which alchemize into the austere elegance and kindred glooms of a dry, peppery violet incense. If you like the dark ambiance and nocturnal aesthetic of dungeon synth coupled with spectral visionary Simon Marsden’s black and white photographs of haunted ruins and moonlit abbeys, this is a transportive scent that will spirit you away to those eerie, ominous realms.
Oud Wood from Tom Ford is a ghostly, glacial coniferous rosewood sandalwood melange of chilly, bitter, peppery woods. It is a tiny, sinister statue of a scent in an empty room where the temperature drops suddenly, with no explanation. The perfumed version of a little gremlin that appears in a haunting tale; one that skitters in the corners of your vision when the eye is focused elsewhere and inches eerily to your pillow when you’re at the knife’s edge of wakefulness and dream.
Madar from PoesieMilky, custardy pudding delicately spiced with cardamom’s weirdness and melancholic orange blossom water and kooky sugared pistachios, and damn if this isn’t a low-key melodramatic goth rice pudding on its way to a Cure concert.
November in the Temperate Deciduous Forest from For Strange Women is the aroma of a mushroom queen surveying their loamy domain on a cool, rainy morning. A soft green fern tickles your gills as your mycelial threads in turn wave at the worms moving through the rich earth beneath you; the ground mist rises through the dense forest canopy as cool trickles of rainwater drip off the oak and beech and fir trees to dampen the velvet, verdant moss carpeting a cropping of stones nearby. Your reverie is interrupted by the scent of expensive leather hiking boots on the breeze, crunching leaf detritus, and tiny woodland creatures beneath its self-important tread. You smell the smoke and steam and artisanal resins and tannins of a gourmet flask of tea, and before you can let out a little spore-filled, mushroomy warning, you hear a shrill, nasally human female voice chirp HEY Y’ALL WELCOME BACK TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Oh no, you despair, it’s the slow-living mushroom forager YouTube influencers. You sincerely hope they pass you over for your poisonous cousins.
So I guess I will wrap up this tour by letting you know that if you have any questions about my collection, my habits or preferences or anything related to something me + perfume, let me know, and I will round all of those up and address then in an upcoming YouTube video!
If you are curious about all of the perfume reviews I have ever written, you can find them over at fragrantica (which is not a great site and I am trying not to be there), so you can also find all of my reviews on parfumo. Curious about BPAL reviews? I have a PDF with loads and loads of them! It hasn’t been updated since I created it in 2020, but I’ll get around to it sooner or later…
Dapper Mandrake Goes A Courtin’ (elegant tendrils of mandrake, vetiver, and galangal root splashed with a debonaire cologne) This earthy, spicy, jaunty rhizome is a snazzy gent and has splashed a verdantly aromatic-cedary-citrusy essence on his whiskery roots to make a good first impression, put his best foot forward, so to speak. It is unfortunate that in doing so, he neglected to put either foot through a pants leg. But he smells so dashing and handsome that you can almost forget the fact that he showed up for your date without a stitch of clothing on.
Ginormous Yule-ified Yard Skeleton(Sandalwood bones festooned with a pumpkin garland and twinkling multicolored lights groaning under the weight of crushed peppermint snow) You know how sometimes those glossy, glowing multicolored strands of Christmas lights on a dark, cold wintry night look like sour, sugar-crystal candied neon orbs strung on chewy licorice filaments? No? Well, they do to me! Imagine you could just crunch your way through all of them. That’s what this scent smells like, just pure, irradiated broken-toothed-but-worth-it joy.
Snow White 2022(a chilly, bright perfume: flurries of virgin snow, crisp winter wind, and the faintest breath of night-blooming flowers.) Though I’ve tried several versions of the Lab’s Snow White over the years –even one all the way back in 2005!– I have never once written a review for it. It always smells like a revelation, and you know how wily and ineffable those things can be. It’s almost impossible to paint a picture of; it’s all fleeting impressions, like a dream that you wake up from and you’re like, “…I was dreaming of Edmund Dulac’s Snow Queen, and sugared almonds, and fluffy, and chilly-almost-minty-but-it can’t-be-mint-because-I-hate-mint, right? And vanilla, coconutty filigree fluffy snowflakes, and whispery arctic-floral musks? …And you were there, too!” You know, that kind of dream. It sweetly cocooned you all night, and even though you can’t recall the specifics, you can still smell it on your wrists in the morning.
Kentucky Bourbon Fruitcake (a big hunk of homemade fruitcake soaking in 90 proof) buttery yellow cake batter laden with the hypernatural lurid fruity sweetness of jade green and synthwave sunset red candied cherries, a sour bit of citron, and the tartness of dried pineapple; there’s a measuring cup nearby spilling with the potent tannic, caramel-scented fumes of oak barrel-aged whiskey and yeah, you’re eventually going to drench the cake in it after it’s done baking and leave the whole thing on the counter to mellow overnight, but for now you’re gonna stick a straw in it and slurp a bit of the top as a treat for the cook. Maybe munch on a few of those pecans you decided at the last moment not to stir in. It’s your kitchen, your rules!
Pink and Blue Candy Canes(the pillowy warmth of strawberry cotton candy, cooled with a gentle breath of blueberry vanilla mint) I don’t know how to explain this in a way that makes sense to people who function normally. But do you ever resist something or not allow yourself to experience something because you feel in your heart that x/y/or z thing isn’t meant “for people like you”? I’m not even certain what that means, exactly, but it’s a feeling that’s been tethered to my soul, strangling it, for as long as I can remember. And whatever those off-limit things are, I know them when I see them. They’re usually fun, playful, or exciting things, and there’s just something deep-seated within me that’s forever admonishing me, making me feel foolish even for thinking that I could ever partake in anything merry and mirthful, that my presence would ever be welcome at the table of joy. I think the pink and blue candy cane, that nostalgic, old-fashioned hard candy hook in a fusion of blue and pink twisted stripes, epitomizes all of those feelings in one eye-twitchingly sweet, crunchy confection. BPAL’s interpretation of these sweets is a fluffy, spun sugar strawberry jam-scented hug, with a cool, ozonic blueberry pancake whisper of “treat yo’self.” It is warm, and it is gentle, and in my reviews, I desperately try not to use the same words and descriptors as the Lab has used in their note listing (because what’s even the point of me writing this here and now if I am doing that?) But their description of this scent is exactly what it is, and my ramblings here about it are basically just me barfing my angst on you in the meantime.
Birb Mob(starry musk and smoldering pink peppercorn ashes cascading into a snowdrift) Frosty, flickering starlit vistas; a graceful matrix of fragmented crystalline horizon; a dazzling and dreamlike view observed by a curious, many-eyed creature, its hollow bones aloft in a strange sky illuminated by waves of flowing aurora, while three pale moons simultaneously rise in the evening. A soft woody-rosy floral piquancy scents the air as silvery stars fall like snowflakes, sizzling and shimmering in the breathless cold.
Black Julbocken Alchemy Lab (shaggy black wool and a slushy tangle of juniper, mistletoe, winter sage, spikenard, white moss, and terebinth) A blood-memory of pagan festivals, and mystical ecstasy, evanescent shadows coalescing into giant woodland spirits cavorting in the dark, the scent of the animalic and fungal, leathery root and balsamic wood, a reed-wrapped parcel tossed in the flames at midnight, gingery, peppery spiced sparks drifting lazily skyward.
Welcome Unto Thee (champagne and marshmallows) A fairy-tale fruit danish, some lush combination of passionfruit and apricot (but somehow not fruity at all? Like a ghostly indentation where the fruit once briefly was nestled, and then a gremlin crept in and ate it, so it never made it into the finished pastry?) swirled with cream cheese and wrapped in twinkly, effervescent vanilla cream soda cellophane.
Snow Snake (a chilly interpretation of Snake Oil; sweet, spiced musk with a crunch of snow and frost-hardened patchouli) I’ve countless times alluded to the sugared vanilla incense patchoulified potency of Snake Oil, how I adore it, how it’s a massively swoony scent –but the key word there is “massive.” There is no such thing as applying a “little bit” of Snake Oil; even a scant droplet is probably too much. I’ve not yet encountered a combination that can tame its monstrous throw…until they paired it with the wintry shivers of their snow, frost, and ice notes. Imagine Snake Oil’s narcotic slithers relentlessly winding their way up your nose, but then envision those heady slitherations crystalizing into the magic of spiraling frozen undulations, blanketed in the cold and hibernating, snake-charmed, chilled out.
Shortbread Diamonds (crumbly dough made with brown sugar and butter) You think this is going to be a simple, straightforward scent. You would be wrong. It begins as rich, buttery, generously salted–nearly briny– shortbread crust, but just as you’re imagining it quivering with, say, an eggy black olive and manchego cheese mixture just before entering a 350° oven to quiche-ify, it surprises you. It becomes a lightly caramelized oaky vanilla-orchid floral, the type of thing that wants to catch more flies with honey than it does with vinegar, the thing that softens and sweetens with age and experience and has learned to pick its battles, and sometimes that still just actually means all of the battles because your life and what you’ve made of it–and of yourself, in all of your sweet and salty and quichey and caramel incarnations, in all the tragedy and beauty of being a human–is delicious and gorgeous and worth fighting for. I don’t know why this fucking perfume is making me cry, but here we are. The above image is my attempt at making the recipe that inspired this fragrance (I’m afraid I let them get a little brown, le whoopsie.)
Cranberry Honeyed Sandalwood Patchouli Root A gnome and a hare picnic in the forest and share a small pot of sour, tart, aromatic cranberry tea lively with woodland nuances, along with a napkin-knotted plate of rich, brown, sugared-sprinkled honey cake. A bear on a scavenger hunt interrupts. A tense moment. A frog belches on a nearby log. The hare’s whiskers quiver with of mixture of fear and giggles and a sweet dusting of crumbs, and soon, the trio is laughing companionably together as new friends.
Carved Wooden Bookstore (polished oak bark, tiny books with tea-stained pages and faux-leather binding, a scattering of dust, and the gleaming painted fur of a porcelain calico book shop cat) The rich, oaken warmth of a firelit library in a grand country estate that you’ve been entreated to make yourself at home in; your host had to take a phone call, so please, browse the leather-bound titles, flip through those well-worn pages to your heart’s content. Beeswax candles flicker in the reflections of the gilt-edged mirrors hung from every spare inch of unshelved wall space, and as you marvel at the glowing refractions on the shimmering glass, a curious draft tickles your skin and shivers up your spine. Where could this peculiar chill be coming from? The room is nearly as warm as being swaddled in a down comforter in your bed at home! You trace its path to the bookshelf, where you notice a fine layer of dust along the surfaces of the floor-to-ceiling shelving and their contents, with the exception of one pristine title that appears absolutely untouched by time or human hand. You reach out to examine the book, and as your fingers graze the pebbled binding, you hear a series of clicks and the grating of hinges as that solid wooden shelf swings heavily inward…revealing a hidden staircase. Do you a.) hastily fumble the scene back into order, take a seat, and wait for your host? or b.) grab a candle stick and descend into the dark? In either scenario, you’ll smell of a mysteriously cozy Choose Your Own Adventure room full of books and firelight and waxy, dripping candles sitting atop delicate powdery doilies.
Boozy Lemon Shortbread (a sharp, limoncello-spiked curd baked into a shortbread crust, dusted with powdered sugar) The scent of the best, the ultimate, the most winningest cookie to bring to cookie swap night! Just the perfect amount of sugar, fresh lemon zest, and real butter, the good stuff, Kerrygold or your local dairy equivalent–and your secret ingredient: each cookie is served with a full-sized lemon drop martini. I’m not saying you’ll win because you got the judges drunk (and I’m not saying you won’t be disqualified* for bribing the judges!), but I think either way, it’ll be a good time.
*you guys, when I was writing this, for the life of me, I could not think of the word “disqualified.” I kept wanting to write “excommunicated.”
Carved Wooden Cultist Lair (sweet, dark incense swirling around flame-scorched ebony wood) I am currently reading a book called The Honeys by Ryan Lasala. I am actually listening to the audio version at 1.40 speed because I am attempting to read 200 books this year, and in scheming about all the ways that I can make this happen, I’m trying all the little hacks. So this story–which is marketed as a YA queer novel, described as “Heathers” meets “Midsommer,” but it doesn’t really feel YA to me, but then again, my idea of YA is from 20 years ago– takes place at a prestigious summer camp where there is a secretive, elusive clique of teenage girls. The Honeys. I think they are aspiring beekeepers or somesuch. I’m not very far into the book, and they are not the main character (the MC is a gorgeously witty gender-fluid individual, Mars, who is at the camp investigating his twin sister’s death), but when I smelled the incense component of Carved Wooden Cultist Lair, I immediately thought of The Honeys, and of honey in general. If you heat honey on the stovetop, and the lusty, dusky scent of wildflowers, orange blossoms, and jasmine, warming and cooling and hardening in some sort of arcane incense-making process, results in a series of small vaguely bee-shaped cones, smelling of burnt sugars, resins, musks, and florals. They dry and age on sharp, peppery, balsamic-smelling wooden shelves and are sold on roadside stands and farmer’s markets, and whoever lights a little bee in their home is visited by strange, sweet, stinging dreams. (This doesn’t happen in the book, FYI. Just me letting my imagination run away with me.)
Knave of Snowflakes(blackcurrant tarts and chilled rose jam) This is so pretty, it’s almost unreal. Sweet, juicy-jammy, ripe blackcurrants cooked to deep purple stickiness, filling an almond pastry, topped with pillowy mounds of coconut vanilla custard, and served with a tiny scoop of wild rose petal ice cream. And somehow, none of this is in the least bit foody– there’s this ghostly bitter-green veil that delivers the whole thing as a luminous, ferny fougère.
Teapot Full of Angst (black tea with vetiver, almond, black patchouli, tobacco absolute, bitter lemon peel, and oud) What an incredibly weird and wonderful fragrance! This is a thick, rich, gooey tea-flavored fudge spiked with citrus and which reveals some evocative earthy elements that emerge as it dries. It’s as if a pot of strong tea was boiled down with a teacup full of brown sugar, a goodly glug of molasses, and slivers of bright yellow lemon peel, and then the mixture was stirred together with an entire box of sweet, nutty, whole wheat graham crackers crumbs and left on a counter to cool and set overnight. Fast forward about twenty years, and rather than the treat itself, this fragrance smells of its dusty, stained magazine clipping recipe card and which was secretly buried in the back garden by your eccentric relative because they didn’t want anyone to have their recipe after they died. This is why we dig it up and make the hell out of it and shout the recipe from the rooftops– because we don’t believe in gatekeeping the good stuff.
Need more Yule scents? Have a peep at my Yule reviews from 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)
I had such an incredibly lovely chinwag with Pam Grossman for a The Witch Wave PLUS + episode! Pam and I have been in each other’s weird orbits for almost fifteen years now and I feel like this chat was a long time in coming; it genuinely felt like catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen for ages, though, in fact, we were “meeting” for the very first time!
Art, darkness, witchy-and-goth-adjacent feelings, demented joy, and the magic found in the mundane—I ramble about all of this, and I’m not sure that I even properly answered a single one of Pam’s questions, but holy hot dog fingers, did I have a good time!
Interested in learning more about the host of The Witch Wave and author of Waking the Witch? As it happens, I’ve had a lot of Pammy G. content on the blog over the years!
Steeped in surrealism, brimming with wide-eyed and wondrous dream imagery, and dripping with a sort of dazzling, bejeweled magical realism, Gervasio Gallardo (b. 1934) painted an enormous amount of the exquisite imagery that graced the classic Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series from the late 1960s-early 1970s. As well as having been the illustrator of a number of magazines and fiction authors, such as Peter S. Beagle, H. P. Lovecraft, F. Marion Crawford, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, William Morris, Hannes Bok, and Lin Carter.
I could have sworn that I had a battered, well-loved copy of The Last Unicorn with the swoony cover art above, but alas–it is lost! I did, however, find that I had two other titles with Gervasio Gallardo’s creations gracing the covers!
Below that, you will find some of my favorite works from the artist–I don’t yet know if any or all of them are connected to any book covers, but I’m working on figuring that out and will update this blog post with more information as I find it.
Ok, so the thing is: I have read a lot of books since late September, which is the last time I shared an installment of Stacked. And I typically try to be very diligent about having an ongoing draft where I either immediately write a review, or at least some notes or impressions after having finished a book. That way, I do it a little bit at a time as the months go by, and eventually, I have a blog post full of book reviews.
This time around…I did not do that. And I don’t remember a lot of the details and finer points of these books and stories. So I will do my best, but some of these may end up being one-sentence reviews. I’m sorry! I’ll do better next time. MAYBE!
Always the First To Die by R.J. Jacobs As a horror fan and a Floridian who has been experiencing hurricanes for most of my life, I found the overall atmosphere for Always the First to Die –a murder mystery homage to horror movies, taking place in the dilapidated decay of a crumbling old hotel in the Florida keys–to be exceptionally thrilling. And overall, I thought it was a pretty solid story, with the widowed Lexi frantically racing down to the Keys, where she swore she would never return, to retrieve her teenage daughter, Quinn, in the aftermath of a hurricane. With a teenager’s disregard for danger and consequences, Quinn had lied to her mother in order to visit and spend time with her estranged horror movie-director grandfather… and possibly participate in the filming of a sequel to his most famous horror (and possibly cursed!) film …because she knew Lexi would never agree to any of it. But now mysterious and terrifying things are happening, which may be tied to a mysterious and terrifying event from the past –and you may discover enough clues in this fast-paced, duel-timeline story to put two and two together and figure out the mystery. But even if you don’t, I think you’ll have a good time with it. And bonus points if you’re reading it after you’ve lost power in the bad weather and wild winds and rains of an early autumn Florida hurricane…which, serendipitously enough, I was! (This review copy was provided by Netgalley)
What Moves The Dead by T. KingfisherI never thought I’d declare a reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher “a hoot,” but here we are. I adored this clever, charming, grotesquerie of a book, and it had one of the most enjoyable and interesting main characters I’ve spent time with in ages. Retired officer Alex Easton rushes to the ancestral home of their old friends Roderick and Madeline Usher after receiving a disturbing letter, to find the mansion and surrounding grounds in an appalling state of moldy, wormy decay. Both Roderick and Madeline are dreadfully, inexplicably unwell, and even the doctor living under their roof can’t pinpoint the cause. What follows is an eerie and frequently fairly gross romp of Alex trying to get to the bottom of what’s eating at their dear old friends, and even though I hesitate to call this book “funny,”–it actually is because Alex is such a jolly person with a big personality and quite frankly I want a whole series of their adventures.
The Cabin At The End Of The World by Paul Tremblay. I actually hollered WHAT THE HELL when I finished this book. I guess I only read it because I saw that the book had been adapted for film, and I’m kind of a snob about seeing a horror films based on a novel, before reading the novel. So I thought, ok, better read this. If you’ve seen the movie trailer then you know the drill: two dads and their daughter are staying at an isolated cabin and a small gang of fanatical strangers break in, hold them hostage and tell them they’ve got to make some important decisions to prevent the end of the world. That’s more or less all there is to the book. I don’t mind an ambiguous ending, but this one was incredibly frustrating. I gotta hand it to Paul Tremblay, though. He really went there. He did the thing you’re not supposed to (expected to? allowed to?) do in these sorts of stories. Bold move, sir. But I still hated the ending.
Spells For Forgetting by Adrienne Young. I think if I had realized how large a part the romance element played in this story, I might not have picked it up or given it a chance. Unsolved murder and ancestral magic in a rather secluded and superstitious community? Absolutely here for it. Angsty romance and unresolved issues between the two main characters, one of whom is just really awful and childish and annoying? Not so much. That said, and to be fair, there were aspects of the book that I really enjoyed: the rich immersion in such an atmospheric, autumnal little town, and I always love the idea of magic and lore passed down through the generations. Taken as a whole, though, considering the characters and the overall story, Spells for Forgetting just didn’t do it for me. (This review copy was provided by Netgalley)
Tell Me I’m Worthless by Allison Rumfitt As much time as I have spent thinking about Tell Me I’m Worthless since I finished reading the book, I’ll admit–I am still not sure what it is, exactly, that I think of it. A haunted house story where the house is a metaphor for England and a particularly English kind of fascism, a horror novel that centers queer and trans characters, and body horror screaming with the physical and psychic violence and trauma that is enacted on Othered bodies, this is a dark, and intense, and deeply unpleasant book. And you should probably read it.
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz was such an over-the-top treat. The book opens with Alex, a young writer struggling with both the helplessness and impotence of not having written a word in over a year and the fact that she’s lost her best friend, Wren, in a falling out and is feeling hurt and confused by the break. These separate miseries collide in an event early on, where Alex must attend a book launch party for a successful friend–and where she is sure to run into Wren. The night is not entirely a bust, though, because it sets into motion Alex receiving an invite to an exclusive writing retreat held by infamous horror author Roza Vallo at her massive, remote home in the Adirondacks. This could be the impetus Alex needs to unlock her creativity–but there’s a complication. Wren’s going to be there, too. This is the theme for one of my very favorite horror subgenres: artist goes off to create in relative isolation; weird shit happens. And weird shit, it does happen! Between Roza’a unorthodox methods and demands, the almost punitive deadlines the authors are required to meet, the eerie house and its unsettling atmosphere, and even the various attendees of the retreat who may be harboring secrets, tensions are ramped up, everyone’s pushing themselves to their limits, and the slightest accidental remark or mistake may send someone over the edge…but is anything in this house accidental? Or has everything been carefully orchestrated from the very beginning?
Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott I read Beware the Woman in the course of a day. I began in the morning, intrigued by what was meant to be an idyllic trip for Jacy, newly married and pregnant, to visit her husband’s family for the first time. I hung on to every word, as what was a seemingly normal experience of a woman attempting to relax on vacation and get to know her father-in-law–something that should be a pretty mundane, although hopefully nice experience– felt so weirdly off-kilter from the very beginning and slowly became more and more disturbing and steeped in dread. Early into their trip, Jacy’s pregnancy develops complications, and though her regular doctor assures her in a long-distance phone call that these things are a typical occurrence, the town doctor and her father-in-law (who seem suspiciously in cahoots), are treating it very differently. Jacy begins to feel trapped and housebound, she feels increasingly scrutinized and judged–not just in the present moment, but in her past as well, pieces of which are being revealed without her consent. Even her husband seems to be changing in his controlling behaviors and overprotective attitude toward her. I stayed up late into the night, on the edge of my seat, devouring the story so that I could finally learn what was driving the characters and what the mystery was, so in that sense, it was an incredibly compelling story. Once all is revealed, though, I look back and realize that I still don’t know what was driving any of the characters. Not a single one. People are acting in these strange and bewildering ways and doing these concerning things, and I don’t think we ever get a satisfying reason for any of it. For all that build-up, I wanted to be able to attach some reasoning to these people’s actions, and that aspect of the story just wasn’t there for me at all. (This review copy was provided by Netgalley)
All These Subtle Deceits by C.S. Humble This was like Exorcist meets noir detective story, with an on-call, excommunicated exorcist battling demons of his own, etc. I did not love this story or the character relaying it to us. There was a line in the book about some woman’s $300 dye job. First…$300? If she’s lucky. Secondly, “…dye job”? Tell me a man wrote this without telling me a man wrote this, right?
The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton. In a breathless story exploring the dangers of devotion in our favorite sort of dark academic setting, we come to know high-school junior Laura, who, young and vulnerable and full of grand ideas, is obsessed with the very idea of St. Dunstan’s private school and the sorts of experiences she expects to have there, and has convinced her parents to send her to the wind-swept academy. Once there, she becomes fixated upon the intense, fanatical, and quite vicious overachiever Virginia, who leads the school choir and seems to have all of the choir’s members on a short leash. Inducted into the fold–both the choir itself and the circle of “friends” that encompass it– Laura’s world becomes increasingly smaller, wrapped up in the passions and melodramas and rituals of the group, who all bow in deference to Virginia–a leader who is more feared than loved, and who is becoming increasingly more vindictive and unstable. I loved this book and thought that the author captured so well the angst, insecurity, hysteria, and devastation that fuels the days of a teenager without making it feel like an actual YA novel. (Nothing wrong with a YA novel, they’re just not my favorite.)
The Me You Love In The Dark by Skottie Young (Author), Jorge Corona (Artist)Ro seeks solitude, artistic inspiration, and a change in environment to revitalize her practice and retreats for a time from city life to isolated small-town life. The old, creepy house she’s renting provides unexpected companionship that swiftly becomes possessive and terrifying. The art was moody and compelling, but the pacing moved too quickly, and the story could have used a much more sensitive hand.
The Turnout by Megan Abbott. Megan Abbott’s books are a bit hit or miss for me (see Beware the Woman, above), but much to my surprise, I utterly inhaled this story of family secrets and disturbing, propulsive ballerina sister-darkness.
Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter. I read my first Karin Slaughter book last autumn, and I was immediately hooked by the wry, nasty, hot-messiness of her stories. In a Karen Slaughter story, people’s lives are fucked up well before their lives are actually in jeopardy. Andy is in her early 30s and is feeling like a loser, having moved back in with her mom and working a part-time, go-nowhere job after art school in New York doesn’t pan out for her. And then: at lunch in a local diner, a shocking moment of violence erupts in an active-shooter nightmare, ending with her mother, her salt of the earth, pillar of the community mother–cooly, casually, killing the gunman. Chaos ensues from there, and Andy learns that her mother has a past, her life as she thought it was is ending and never, in fact, even existed, and that she’s going to have to get her shit together quickly and be just as ruthless and brutal as the woman–now a stranger– who raised her, if she is to figure out how to survive on her own.
Comfort Me With Apples by Cathrynne M. Valente. Strangely, it would be easy to say too much about this brief book (which I think would have been better served as a short story.) I feel that even the vaguest synopsis will give away what the author is trying to do here, but even so, if you’re even marginally on the ball, you will have figured it out in the first few chapters. Sophia is living what, on the surface, appears to be a charmed life in the utopian gated community of Arcadia Gardens. She has a beautiful home, a husband whom she adores, and the most delightful neighbors. Still, something is off, something is being kept from her right from the beginning. Even if Sophia doesn’t yet realize it, we immediately do. And with one small, peculiar discovery, her curiosity is piqued, and her entire world begins to unravel. It’s funny, I thought I wasn’t a big fan of Comfort Me With Apples, but I have found myself turning it over in my head on more than one occasion. I wonder what it was about this story that spoke to me. Let me know if it speaks to you.
The Last Housewife by Ashley WinsteadSo…do you recall that article on The Cut sometime back in early 2022 about the Sarah Lawrence students who were groomed by a dorm mate’s father into his abusive sex cult? I think there’s been a couple of documentaries on it that have either been released or are in the works. Anyway, imagine if the author of In My Dreams I Hold A Knife used that sensational tidbit of news as fodder for a story of her own. I mean, I don’t know that’s what she did, but if you are in any way familiar with the Sarah Lawrence story, I think it will immediately come to mind as you are reading The Last Housewife.
Girl Forgotten by Karin Slaughter. Andy from Pieces of Her became a U.S. Marshall! Her first assignment comes about via her family’s pulling of strings because it is related to stuff or things that happened in the first book. More cults, more abuse, more women in peril. The pacing was weird on this one. I don’t think I was a huge fan of it.
56 Days by Catherine Howard. There are folks out there that apparently don’t want the real-world problems of the global pandemic intruding in on their gruesome murder stories. I hear that was one of the issues that people had with The Glass Onion movie? It’s part of our present reality, and it’s going to be part of our history, and as humans in this world who are living in and experiencing this world… we can’t pretend that these moments never existed… I mean, of course, it’s going to appear in the fictional media we consume. Get real, people. Anyway, in 56 Days, a couple meets up at the start of the pandemic, and, taking advantage of the weird reality they find themselves living in, they decide to move in together as sort of a trial run. By the end of the book –or rather the beginning, as the book opens at the ending– someone is dead. And with plot twists and no one being who they appear to be, we can safely assume the corpse has nothing to do with the Covid virus.
The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring. This book is probably not going to be what you expect. It’s certainly not what I expected…although along the way, I thought I was starting to piece things together. Turns out I had the gist of it, but I had the shape of things all wrong. I don’t even know what I mean by that. You’ll see for yourself, I think. Mavi, fleeing the violent military regime that destroyed her family, seeks asylum in a rare teaching opportunity at a creepy Argentinian finishing school full of tragic history, curses, and an intensely gothic atmosphere. Don’t get used to the spooky atmosphere or the era in which the story takes place (sometime in the 1970s), and don’t get too hung up on what you assume to be the story, either. I think this is the sort of book where you’ve got to be flexible and switch gears and not be too attached to the story you think you’re reading or the genre you believe it to occupy. Ok, I have said enough! I’ll be curious to know what you think about this one.
The Children on the Hilland The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon. I recall enjoying both of these stories to varying degrees but not being quite satisfied with the endings. In The Children on the Hill we spend time between Violet and her brother and their somewhat odd living arrangement with their grandmother, who is a renowned doctor at an innovative mental illness treatment facility in the country, the Hillside Inn. A traumatized young girl, Iris, comes to live with them, and in unraveling the mystery of Iris’ situation, Violet unearths terrible secrets about the Inn, her family, and herself. Many years later, Lizzy Shelley is a monster and cryptid hunter with a reality TV show and podcast to her name; young girls are disappearing around the country, and in the pattern that emerges, Lizzy senses that the predator may be linked to her own past, her family, and the Inn. With The Drowning Kind, I honestly don’t even remember. There is an old family home with a haunted swimming pool that grants wishes …at a price. As the story opens, Jax learns that her twin sister Lexie has drowned in the pool, and in going home to deal with the estate, she discovers that Lexie had been digging into the history of the property and had uncovered some dark secrets.
The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James I can’t recall why I even picked this book up, but maybe it’s because a lot of BookTubers had mentioned it. Now that I am searching my memory, I think several of them had said The Book of Cold Cases would be good for someone who is just starting to explore their interest in mysteries and thrillers. It does have that sort of feel to it in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s not really graphic or violent or twisty or terribly complex–it’s a bit of a light read, I suppose. Shea is an office worker by day and runs a true crime blog in her off-hours, a fixation borne no doubt from her attempted abduction as a child, which resulted in an event that still haunts her. She gets a rare opportunity to interview Beth Greer, a mysterious local woman acquitted of two cold case slayings, and in the repeated meetings at Beth’s mansion, Shea gets the sense that–aside from the fact that she’s alone with a possible murderer– something is desperately wrong in the house. There’s both a supernatural element to this story as well as a romantic subplot, and to be honest, I wasn’t in love with any of it.
White Horse by Erica T. Werth. I think I loved the idea of this haunted-bracelet-as-portal story of a woman uncovering and confronting her past more than I did the actual story itself. I was constantly cheering for the main character, Kari, an urban Indian of Apache and Chickasaw descent and lover of Megadeth and Stephen King–she was so vividly written that she jumped off the page, and I felt her goading me to keep picking up the book and giving it another go. I loved her personal journey as she navigated the creepy things that were happening to her and the history that she was investigating, but still..something about the story didn’t click with me. A lot of people loved this book, though, so this is probably just a me-thing.
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger. Now quite the opposite of Kari in White Horse, I was not cheering for any of the characters in this book. I thought they were all varying degrees of awful. Hannah’s brother appears to be a successful tech bro, and if you’ve read those three words and already decided he’s a piece of shit, you’re right. He’s gathered some of his nearest and dearest for a remote getaway in a luxurious, isolated cabin that has all of the best amenities that you could imagine– because he can afford it, and he thinks that they all deserve it. Because, of course he does. If you’re expecting a wintry sort of atmosphere which I think most might from the title, it’s not that–this is a cabin in Florida, and a hurricane is on the radar. The rental host is weirdly stalkery, their not-entirely-friendly personal chef shares that the property has a creepy backstory, and this friend-group of guests have secrets and darknesses of their own–and then one of them disappears. This is a book with a twist that I thought was intriguing if it had been explored in another way, in another book, and maybe in an entirely different genre. But in this particular story, it fell flat for me.
Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison and Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. I don’t want to say anything at all about these last two books on my list. Except they’re both feminist horror (though Nightbitch felt a bit more like literary fiction), they’re both darkly humorous in the different author’s voices… and they’re both lycanthropy related. AND they are both in my top three favorites of 2022. Actually, I loved them so much, they tie for no. 2. What is number one? I reviewed it a few months back, but I have been crowing about it ever since to anyone who will listen: Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth.
In 2023, I think these Stacked roundups will be a little bit different in that I will not be reviewing every single book I read. And that is because I plan to read 200 books! Which is…a lot of books …to be talking and writing and thinking about, and that’s way too much work! So the plan is that I will still be doing these quarterly/seasonal collections of reviews, but they will probably just consist of the highlights and standouts. We’ll see. I’ll figure it out when we get there!
That’s a lot. Not sure if I can top that. I’m not sure if I want to try.
Is 2023 the year to read two hundred books? To knit an impossible, magical mystery shawl? To make a soup so stunning that grandmas feel a satisfying flutter in their hearts all the world over when I slurp it?
To do the small, quiet work that no one sees, that I’ll never talk about, that I’ll busily fiddle with all night long only to see it tear under the accumulated weight of a fine morning mist, and begin the next day again to make it faster, stronger, better?
I don’t know! I bet this spider doesn’t know, either. I bet she’s annoyed that I’m bothering her and is thinking man, just let me do my work! Thanks for the inspo, spider, wherever you are. I’ll get to it, too.
I’ve been writing about perfumes on and off for the past twenty years, but I think this is actually the first year I have successfully shared a perfume review round-up, consistently, for twelve months running! Well done, me!
I have been generously gifted with some samples by Caitlin at Red River Apothecary, and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the fragrances she selected for me. I loved the first two that I tried so much that I didn’t even want to wait to sniff the other three before sharing my thoughts. (Edited to add…well, there were five, but somehow I lost one along the way!) I’ll begin with Moria. I do love a scent built around dragon’s blood, and this is one of the most stunning examples I have ever encountered. Dragon’s blood in fragrance is heady and rich and sometimes quite overwhelming in a syrupy sense– but here, tempered with the incendiary floral of black pepper and shadowy black musk, it conjures the honeyed warmth of a mystical lantern glowing in the brooding caverns of Khazad-dûm.
Ozark is so lovely that it makes me strangely weepy; its gentle, refreshing dewdrops, velvety green moss, and deep blue, crystalline waters, it calls to mind a tranquil forest meadow teeming with bluebells and snowdrops and forget-me-nots alongside a cold, clear rushing river. It makes me think of Snow White in her glass coffin in a twilight illustration by Gustaf Tengrenn, and funny enough, it specifically summons two different songs for me In a Glade by Milla Jovovich, but I think it’s a traditional Ukrainian folksong, and Rusalka, Rusalka by the Decemberists, lyrics which lament the folly of falling for the dark-eyed Rusalka, pale as a liminal moon.
Shahwa is an opulent, intoxicating fragrance, a deep, rich, spicy incense that a Red Woman burns (every fantasy story has some version of a Red Woman) while invoking dark gods of pain and pleasure, and Sedona is stories told around a campfire, spirits, and elements of desert florals, Pinyon smoke, and the promise of oncoming rain in the potpourri of petrichor and downdraft of fresh ozone.
Stolas from Fantome is the strangest, most marvelous combination of chocolate and lavender, and this is one of the times I did not reacquaint myself with the notes before testing the scent and coming to that conclusion. So when I double-checked and saw I was right and I did actually smell what I smelled–hot dog, that’s validating. Even after all of this time I feel like I am just constantly wildly speculating. Anyway, this is a musty, dusty chocolate and a powdery lavender, cool aromatic cedar, and something strangely, sweetly waxen. It summons for me something so uncannily vivid and eerily evocative, though not the owl-headed 36th Prince of Hell that inspired the scent. No, this is a dim attic room closed to sunlight for the last century, tangled in pale, filmy cobwebs and frail, milky lace, and crowded with countless wooden shelves upon which are perched dozens of creamy-cheeked, unblinking porcelain dolls.
Stroopwafel from Scent Trunk is a gorgeous gourmand that balances what could potentially be intensely heavy and cloying with something that still feels light and airy, and effortlessly cozy. It feels perfect for what can be a really intense time of year when you’re pulled in every direction, you’re spread too thin, and there’s never enough time. The holidays can be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually draining, and the last thing you want to do is top all that off with a fragrance that leans too far into any of that mess. Stroopwafel is a scent that feels nostalgic to a point, but in the way that books and dreams are nostalgic, unsullied by what goes on in your real life, and even then, it’s saved by various other elements before it can get its hooks into you and become something maudlin or suffocatingly sentimental. This is not to say I don’t connect with this scent, because I do! But in a way that feels like it’s a treasure just for me. Like being wrapped up in something special that I don’t have to share and in it, creating memories of moments that are solely my own. Nostalgia happening now, rose-tinting the present as I am living it.
It opens as the rich, fragrant gooey chewy treat it’s named for, that buttery bourbon caramel syrup center and brown sugar deliciousness of that sort of not-baked-all-the-way-through waffled cookie sandwiching it. But alongside all that cozy, sweet warmth, there’s a breath of something cool and breezy, this side of piney marjoram, that side of woodsy cedar, that makes itself known. It’s the olfactory equivalent of waking too warm in bed at night and slipping your toes from beneath your quilt to give them a little chill. Or perhaps baking up a storm in a humid kitchen on a wintry day, and cracking the window open to let in a frigid gust of air. A lovely vanilla musk rounds out the fragrance. At this point, and until you can no longer detect it on your skin, it smells like the sweater you spent all day wearing in that cookie kitchen, but with a light dusting of snow after you left it on top of the woodpile overnight.
I only started hearing about Pineward sometime last year, but in reading over their website, I just realized Pineward is another project of the person who now runs Apoteker Tepe, which I thought disappeared a few years ago, but I guess it was sold by the original perfumer and has been purchased by this Pineward person. Considering that my favorite Apoteker Tepe perfume is The Holy Mountain, and it smells like a beardy grandmaster max-level wizard summoning the ultimate ancient mystical dragon lord of the 11th realm or whatever, and now I smell the extremely resinous potency of these Pineward fragrances, this is an acquisition which makes perfect sense. I ordered a sampler set, and for the first one, I think we’ll get into Eldritch. Which is what my middle initial stands for. Just kidding, it’s Elizabeth. Eldritch is comprised of my favorite notes, the sweet loamy decay of oakmoss, opoponax’s oaken honeyed leather, myrrh’s aromatic warmth, crushed balsamic fir needles, and peppery, tannic smoke. It’s so, so, freaking good. And now it’s the signature scent of Elizabeth Eldritch, a powerful tiefling warlock with hair that smolders and crackles in the sun, who has a passion for forbidden lore and whose best friend is a giant fire beetle.
Murkwood from Pineward smells like perfumes I already own several similar bottles of, namely Norne from Slumberhouse, Winter from Dasein, The Nue Company’s Forest Lungs, and Hwyl from Aesop. But I love these notes, and I love how they make me feel and the magical places they take me to. I can never have enough of them and I am always on the hunt for the holy grail of these wintry midnight fairytale forest fragrances. With Murkwood, imagine that grail is less a golden chalice radiating a holy halo of light and more a small wooden cup, roughly carved of fir, a vessel for steaming smoky resinous tea drunk under a full January moon on a night with the snow-covered mosses and the frozen earth under your leather boots make a chilly incense of their own. If one were to stop by the woods in a snowy evening where two roads diverged in a wood, one familiar and one less traveled–Murkwood is stepping off the path entirely into that lovely, deep darkness. As a matter of fact, and this is a very niche reference, but I’m putting it out there anyway and I hope you’ll chime in down in the comments if you know what I am talking about–Murkwood is the olfactory accompaniment to avant-garde video game studio Tale of Tale’s The Path, an atmospheric, immersive horror game based on older, darker versions of Little Red Riding Hood.I see that the Pineward shop is closed right now, but this might just be my holy grail, and I am splurging on a full bottle first thing in 2023.
Yukion’na by Ikiryo Perfumes contains an element that I’m weirdly smitten with, and it’s possible you love it, too, or else you really hate it. There’s probably not any in-between. I am not a smoker, nor have I ever been, but I have an inexplicable fondness for whatever that combination of notes is that smells like a pack of cigarettes in an expensive handbag. It doesn’t smell like smoke, not exactly, and it certainly doesn’t smell like an ashtray. I can detect it in my bottles of Sycomore from Chanel, Chris Collin’s Autumn Rhythm, and My, Myself, and I from Ego Facto. I’d guess some combination of vetiver and leather and tobacco, but not all of these scents have these notes, so I guess I really don’t know. Yukion’na is another one that contains this facet that I’m so fond of, and it conjures for me a wintry yōkai, taking a break from an evening of striking terror into the hearts of lost travelers. She secrets herself behind an icy-glittered pine, the bitter decay of last autumn’s chrysanthemum petals crunch under the snow, and with a sharp, pale fingernail, she peels a small, tangerine, its pitted rind falling in a perfect spiral, shockingly vivid against the bone white landscape. As the moon rises over the frosted forest, a thin pillar of smoke plumes from a cigarette held between her citrus-scent fingertips.
I sampled another fragrance from Ikiryo, but I was really uncomfortable writing about it, so that review is for Midnight Stink Patrons only. I know it’s not fair to mention something that I’m not sharing with you, but for record-keeping sake, I did want to note it in the total of perfume reviews I have written this month.
I’ve wanted a fragrance from Gucci’s Alchemist’s Garden collection for the longest time, but I did not want to pay $350 for a bottle. I lucked out and found a bottle of Love at Your Darkest on Mercari for less than half that, and even luckier still, I actually love it. First, the downside, and the answer to a question that lots of folks asked when I first showed a peek at this a few weeks ago: it’s got basically zero longevity. I spritzed with manic abandon before beginning to write this review, and five sentences in, I basically have to jam my nostrils into my wrist to get the slightest whiff of it. So I would urge you to seek out second-hand bottles of this and buy at a discount. As to the scent, it’s lovely. If you like Tom Ford’s Oud Wood, well, that’s the obvious comparison, but it’s not quite the same; it’s still got that dry, peppery, cedary, woodsy oud backbone, but it’s much less chilly, with a bit of rosy-cheeked delicacy, a sort of fresh, uplifting floral note Replace that dusty tome of MR James ghost stories it’s clutching with a big, soft, pink bouquet of peonies. I’m almost tempted to call it “pretty,” but there’s a discordant jangle of something akin to celery seed, a bitter-earthy-salty facet that makes me hesitate…which is fine with me because I think that strangeness, this off-kilter element makes me like it all the more. I think this would be an interesting fragrance for layering with something more intense, like an oud-forward fragrance oil. Or maybe a rose-oud combination.
I had so much fun discussing DS& Durga’s Sexy Vikingwith the Viking who lives with me. Ývan is Icelandic and lived in Iceland until he was a teenager. His immediate family, his mom, dad, and brothers all now live in the US, as a matter of fact, some of them live a few neighborhoods away, but the rest of his relatives are scattered all over Iceland. He goes back every few years to visit, and I’ve been once, but I certainly don’t have enough familiarity with the country to have a well-formed opinion of a fragrance inspired by aspects of it. Well, I mean, I have an opinion on the fragrance, I can have an opinion on anything, but I guess I mean I can’t really comment overmuch on the sense of place that it’s meant to evoke. Ývan tells me that he gets an overall sense of fresh, crisp, evergreen coniferous pineyness. It recalls for him the summers he spent in the youth work program hauling wood from the forest …which I assumed was some sort of unpaid lumberjack gig, but he laughed and said, what kid is gonna do that kind of work for free?
Anyway, his specific memory involves the moments when he would take a rest and just lie down in a bed of fragrant pine needles and close his eyes while the sun filtered through the canopy of trees. He also said that it brings to mind icy evergreens in the wintertime, during traditional graveside visits on Christmas. He and his mother would visit the cemetery with wreaths and candles for relatives that had passed on, and there was a forested path along which they would slush through freshly fallen snow to reach the graves. Overall he likened it to smelling like an ancient woodland Yule wreath, full of wintry bounty. I would add that what I smell, overwhelmingly, is tart, bracing, cold-weather berries. Something bright red and jeweled and so bitter that even the snowbirds won’t eat it. But also a bit like sour, candied grapefruit peels. As the scent wears, this becomes more like a fruity, malty, softly honeyed amber–but either way, it’s a beautiful note. And overall, I think we both agree, it’s an incredible fragrance, and as it happens–it’s stunningly perfect for the winter solstice today (the day this review was written.)
I used to share my Needful Things on a quarterly basis, but I don’t think I’ve shared any at all this year! If you are a subscriber to my newsletter, you may have seen mention of a few of these things that I’m into or recommending or am finding “needful” over the past few months, but there are a few new things in the mix, too–and at any rate, it’s useful and helpful to have all the good stuff and best-ofs all in one place, so here we are.
This screen-capped image above is from the NYT; a friend shared it on Facebook. I was already working on my needful list at the time, and I thought, “hey! that’s kinda-sorta-exactly what I am doing!”
What follows is a bit of a jumble, with no rhyme or reason or overarching theme that ties these things together; some are more recent loves, and others have either proved quite useful or just provided sparks of contentment, bliss, and joy all year long. Some of them are tangible stuff and things and items, and some of them are sentiments or services. Some you can eat, wear, smell, or read. Others are just ideas or suggestions to mull over or principles to guide you. I’m hesitant to phrase that last one in such a way–I’m not the boss of you, and I’m not trying to “guide” anyone anywhere. All I mean to say is that they are things that have provided guidance to me. YMMV!
Uka base coat is a nail polish/treatment I saw worn by a Japanese YouTuber and grew instantly obsessed with. This is 3/0, which is noted on the site as a grayish purple, and sometimes it does appear that way, but more frequently, it’s just the perfect greige. The brand describes the product thusly: “The colored bases of uka contain a tinted serum which takes care of your nails and embellishes your hands.” They’re a bit hard to find in the US, but I found a bottle at YESSTYLE.
Elemis Soothing Apricot Toner I prefer spray toners to the ones you pat onto your face with your fingers (though I do use both) this Elemis one is so nice. What’s it do? I have no idea. I just like the way it feels and smells.
This scalp scrubber thinger is something I have been using for a few years now. My head gets SO ITCHY, and I love to just go to town with it while shampooing my hair. I am not sure where I found the one I am currently using, so I just linked to the Sephora brand, but I imagine any silicone version will do the same thing.
The Laura Mercier caviar stick eyeshadow in Plum. I don’t wear much makeup anymore; just some CC cream, some mascara, and this shadow stick that I use a bit like eyeliner, smeared and blurred just above my lashes. I just saw this eyeliner hack on TikTok and it looks like the easiest thing ever and can’t wait to give it a try. Probably doesn’t work for hooded eyes, but we’ll see!
This Warwick Castle tee shirt. I’ve never been to Warwick Castle, but I saw Courtney Cox play a possessed writer on Shining Vale, and I thought, aha! That’s the look I am going for! 2nd place tee goes to my gorgeous Frankenhooker tee shirt! And I am fairly certain I have mentioned this Beauty is Terror sweatshirt inspired by The Secret History, but I don’t recall where I mentioned it, so that mention may as well not count. Here is a photo of me wearing it sometime last spring, pre-wedding, pre-move, pre-blue hair. Wow. A lot has happened this year!
Alice Crewneck Ribbed Pullover Sweater this is a sweater from Amazon’s The Drop, which I believe is an in-house clothing line that features limited edition capsule collections in collaboration with influencers, but they also have a Staples line which are wardrobe basics available all the time, or at least on a less limited basis. This sweater is from their Staples line, and it is quite possibly the coziest sweater I have ever owned. I got the “porpoise” color, which is sort of an oatmeal grey. The way they pair it with knitted shorts looks to me as if it is meant to be some sort of pajama set, but I think this is too nice to sleep in.
And two other sweaters from Amazon that I actually love even more than the Alice is this olive jacquard crew neck and this navy heather balloon sleeved number. I don’t buy a lot of clothing from Amazon, but I don’t want to spend a lot of money on items that I can only wear for a few weeks out of the year, so it just makes sense for my wallet.
Have I spoken before of my love of Le Bon Shoppe’s socks? (Yes, I checked my archives, and I have, but that was actually a rhetorical question and I don’t care.) Their Girlfriend socks are the coziest socks I have ever worn; they feel cloudlike and squishy on my feet without really looking cloudlike and squishy. When I first saw them, I’ll admit…I thought they were sort of ugly. But once you wear them, you won’t really care, I promise. Their Cottage socks are much cuter.
Embracing color. Oh, you guys. You have seen me through a lot of transitions (some of you who have known me since LJ days saw my twee Anthropologie phase, hee hee!) I’ve come out of my all-black-everything chapter in the last few years, and now I am wearing colors again. It started with all the colors of my favorite 70’s Tupperware sets (which I also tend to think of in terms of the four humours), but in 2022 I rediscovered my childhood love of all things purple. And I am not content to just wear it in the form of clothing! Although I did just splurge on a gorgeous pale lavender winter coat! I also painted a gallery wall in my office a stunning shade of VELVET EVENING, and I even have some purple in my hair now!
When it comes to accessorizing with more color, I got a lot of mileage out of my jewelry from Alexis Berger, whose lovely, luminous pieces are like cosmic winks from the universe. You can read my interview with Alexis here!
Another splurge was this outrageously fluffy Too Collective Robe. I will admit it. I am stupidly influenced sometimes. This time it was via a TikTok influencer who is so obnoxious that I’m ashamed to tell you who it is, but I saw her wearing this robe while she was twerking and eating taco bell, and instead of thinking, wow, this person is an idiot, I thought holy crap, I need that robe. Most of the time in Florida, when you get out of the shower, you’re immediately sweaty again, so I typically prefer a very lightweight, highly absorbent waffle weave robe.
But it has been very cold in the mornings this past December, and I wanted something warmer and cozier, and sometimes I just throw it on over my pajamas as a housecoat in the morning. It’s glorious. I will also confess that I saw her wear this lululemon sweater, and I had to have that thing, too. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.
I’ve long been obsessed with the memory of a certain fried tofu and broccoli in a spicy garlic sauce dish that I used to order from a Chinese take-out place near my work when I lived in NJ. We’ve been eating various incarnations of it 2-3 times a week since the beginning of the past year as I’m trying to recreate the perfect version of it that lives in my head. This spicy “honey” garlic tofu from Rabbit and Wolves isn’t quite the same thing…but it might be even better? And if the tofu looks kinda weird, that’s because it’s not tofu! It’s soy curls. Also, the recipe calls for agave nectar because it’s vegan, but I use actual honey because I am not. Sometimes I use brown sugar instead. They both do the job!
Japanese sweet potatoes, omg. I thought I hated sweet potatoes. But it turns out that I hate the carrotyness of the orange sweet potatoes I am used to eating. Japanese sweet potatoes are fluffier, and some folks think that even just plain roasted, they taste like cake. I am not a huge fan of cake myself, and I think the sweetness of these tubers tends to be subtler than that, but anyway you slice it (or spoon or fork it), I love these things so much.
Cheese on toast. Not a cheese toastie or grilled cheese. But rather: hot, buttered slices of toasted bread with thinly shaved bits of cheddar scattered across the surface to slightly melt into and meld with the butter and become a savory breakfast nibble. I thought this was a little weird at first, honestly. Yvan’s family does this (they’re Icelandic), and I thought, huh, maybe it’s a European thing. But now I am addicted, and it’s the only way I want to eat toast anymore. It’s helpful if you have one of these thingsto get the cheese slices pretty thin.
Slop storage: These “Souper Cubes silicone trays with lids” are pretty fantastic for portioning out your slops to freeze for when future-you doesn’t want to cook that night. One weekend every few weeks or so, I’ll pick two slops from the list above, cook up two bubbling pots of each, and then portion it out for dinners to squirrel away for when I need them. It’s a very good system for nights when my brain is fried, and I don’t want to do a single ounce more of work, I want something low-effort, but I don’t want to order out, and I don’t want a bowl of Golden Grahams because I need to pretend like I am an adult or something. I want a home-cooked meal, and I don’t want to make it! I feel like that a lot.
Know what’s better than spending your money on a bunch of crap and nonsense? Commissioning the services of friends. This year I compensated friends to:
–do a wise and insightful tarot reading for me
–edit a book draft for sensitivity issues
–create a Patreon banner for me
–embark on various artistic collaborations
–maintain my website
–assist me in creating a media kit and related marketing things
If you count yourself lucky enough to have creative friends who offer their energies and efforts to the world, it’s a beautifully satisfying practice to avail yourself of their goods and services.
But speaking of buying crap and nonsense. This is a really ridiculous thing, but I need to do what I can to make cleaning and tidying fun for me. I shouldn’t have to trick myself into having a home that is not filthy, but whatever works, I guess. I got a little roll-y cart to put all my cleaning junk in and roll it around the house with me. I think it reminds me of the media carts that they used to have in the school libraries. I think I just like pushing little carts around.
And this is also a kind of ridiculous thing, but it’s pretty, and it’s serving a useful function, and I love it. We have a weird window in our bathroom that overlooks our neighbor’s house. There’s a hedge between our homes, and I am *fairly* certain that no one can see in our window when I’m peeing, but I can’t be 100%. I didn’t want curtains or blinds in there, so I found this really lovely rainbow crystal window cling film decal, and when the light filters through it at 4:30 in the afternoon, it throws out a beautiful kaleidoscope on the walls. It literally brightens my everyday. And the people in the next house over won’t be able to see me on the potty. Win-win, very good use of $10. You can sort of see it in this video (which is a sneak peek of something I am mentioning below.)
I have been Duolingoing since January 1, 2022. I’m refreshing my French and learning Japanese, and while I am nowhere near fluent in either, it’s nice to learn something every day. I was fast-tracked into French a year early, so I have five years of French from junior high and high school, and I still am smarting about one aspect of that. Two students in the whole seventh grade were chosen to be plopped into a French class with the ninth-graders, and I was one of them. The other, a friend of mine, shared that a mutual friend had said, “I don’t understand why they picked Sarah, she’s such an AIRHEAD.” Fuck off, Erin G. I’m still mad at you, you backstabbing butthole. Anyway, I wasn’t an airhead–I was a DREAMER. Anyway, still mad about that over 30 years later. And at this point, the most I can say in Japanese is “a tasty apple,” but that’s okay. Progress, not perfection.
This was not the year for new music, but this was the year for taking a break from the need for constantly amassing new things to listen to. I miss the me who was constantly on the hunt for and discovering new music, but I don’t miss the circumstances I was living in at the time.
If you are someone who naturally gravitates toward seeking out and sharing the best of the NEW! and EXCITING! It’s exhausting always to have your eyeballs and earholes trained to pick up on marvels and constantly churn out your findings, and then…maybe never even listen or look at that stuff again. This was a sort of chat that I was having with a friend over on Instagram, and I think we both agree that appreciating instead of curating is a struggle when that’s how you’re brain is wired, but man, it is worth it to slow down and immerse yourself–just utterly marinate in– those wonderful things you’ve been collecting. Whether it’s music or art, books or movies, whatever. And winter is such a good time for the slowing down and taking in of things, right? Thanks, Heather, for reminding me of this.
Anyway, this year has been a lot of Dead Can Dance and Heilung and Lana del Rey, and you know what? I’m good with that.
My two favorite books this year were both squarely in the feminist horror genre, with elements of comedy and trauma, and though they come with various trigger/content warnings, I highly suggest them both: MOTHERTHING by Ainslie Hogarth and Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison. The woodsy mushroom desk mat that MOTHERTHING is resting on was actually one of my year-end favorites from last year, and I highly recommend that, too!
Other things that are on my desk: this strawberry frog glass and this little mushroom lamp. Do I even need to rationalize or justify these adorable things? No, I do not.
Netgalley. I got MOTHERTHING through Netgalley! I always wondered how all these reviewers get their ARCs, and I thought eventually, if you just reviewed enough books and had a lot of readers/viewers/fans and maybe got on lots of author’s or agent’s or publisher’s radars, they just…sent you stuff? And maybe that is true, but there are also websites where you can create an account for free to request and read books before they are published and provide reviews and feedback to publishers.
I’ve gotten to read over twenty books through Netgalley over this past year, and most of them haven’t been officially released yet! There is a downside, though. You, as a reviewer, have a rating based on your requested/received/review ratios, so there is a bit of pressure to get the books read and submit reviews for them. The better your rating is, the more likely it is that you will get the books you want. If you are an anxious person, this is probably going to make you anxious. If you tend to resent obligations (even if it’s something that no one twisted your arm to commit to), you may get resentful of the seeming pressure to write these reviews. There is no actual pressure, no one is breathing down your neck. But anyone who is conscientious and hard on themselves about self-imposed deadlines will get where I am coming from, I think.
This is not a new thing, but I don’t think I’d ever heard it put into words before muchelle b. mentioned it in a video. If only I could remember which video it was! But I can’t remember, so I will just link you to her YouTube channel.
In one of her conversations detailing ideas on how to get yourself motivated/inspired/back on track/out of a rut, she references those days when we really might be struggling for whatever reason. We’re resistant to doing anything, even though we know we’re going to feel awful about ourselves if we don’t. And yes, of course, if you have those days, you are perfectly allowed to go with it and just not do a damn thing. You know yourself best, and if that’s what your body needs, go with it.
But I know myself, and I know that it will send me into a spiral if I indulge in the do-nothing days. muchelle suggests “doing the bare minimum.” Don’t want to exercise? What’s the bare minimum you can get away with? For me, that looks like a 15-20 minute walk. Don’t want to (insert your deadline thing here)? Just do it for 15 minutes. Writing your book, studying, responding to emails, making those appointments, whatever. Don’t want to fix yourself a decently nutritious meal? I slice up an apple and eat at least half of it. These are the bare minimum things that I ask of myself on the days my brain feels like everything seems too much. I can say that whatever else did or did not happen today, I moved a bit, I ate a piece of fruit, and I wrote a stupid paragraph or two.
That’s actually what me typing this out right now is. I am tired and cold, and I just want to eat Chex Mix and read the Jacob Clifton Pretty Little Liars recaps (IYKYK) I just bought, but I know I want to post Needful things up later this week, and now I can say I worked on at least one little segment of it today.
I have paid a lot of money over the past decade (probably too much) to have pieces of art professionally framed. Now we have moved and have not yet found a local framer, but I did find this shop on Amazon that sells these ridiculously pretty frames. In the above photo they are framing some stunning floral prints from midnight floriographer, Alyssa Thorne. Along those lines, I also found this antique-looking mirroron Amazon (see a peek at it in the image below) which is not at all antique, but it is also very pretty.
In terms of actual antique items, my go-to is Kate at Roses & Rue Antiques–which is where the Art Nouveau brush and mirror set came from, as well as the Victorian black lacquer & mother of pearl vanity tray came from. It’s actually a pen rest, but thanks to the creative marketing she does in her Instagram stories, I was immediately smitten with her repurposing of it! Also pictured in this tableaux are some gorgeous silver pieces from Under the Pyramids and my beloved Snake Oil hair gloss from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab–these are both things that I wear on a daily basis!
Speaking of smells I reach for on a regular basis, lighting a stick of the gorgeously sweet resins of Hexennacht’s Sanctum incense has become an indispensable daily ritual.
My two favorite perfume discoveries this year are dreadfully unfair to mention, as they have since sold out, but I am going to share the review here again JUST IN CASE you can grab a bottle second-hand somewhere, or who knows, perhaps they may again be restocked!
I cannot possibly sing the praises of Zara’s Bohemian Oudhighly enough. I don’t think ten choirs of angels could do it. But let’s just say you took a pillowy bit of the marshmallow fluff those angels were floating around on and stirred it into the lightest, fluffiest chocolate mousse you can imagine, served it in a hand-carved bowl made from some sort of resinous holy wood, and topped it with the incendiary floral of a dusting of gently toasted black pepper, then you might have an inkling of what we’re all singing about. Bohemian Oud is a splendid delight made that much more fantastic because at less than $30.
Malìa from Nobile 1942 is a twisted and tragic sorcery of sour citrus and bitter woody green herbs, lush, velvet, exquisitely corrupt florals, and a bright, rosy, psychedelic pink peppercorn that borders on utterly unhinged. This is a perfume that feels like a subversive folktale told in shrieking ballads via an experimental rock opera.
Because I cannot possibly end on things that you can’t have, here is an available and very cheap new love that I found this year: Kumba Made’s Persian Garden fragrance oil. This is a really gentle, intimate scent, and when I say intimate I just mean it feels like a little secret, just between you and yourself and the soft skin on the inside of your wrist, and it’s no one else’s business. Imagine a vial of Egyptian Musk diluted in a bottle of Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo. That’s it. That’s the scent. It is perfectly lovely, and I cannot get enough of it.
…but here is also something that is available AND expensive but also very good. If you love the offertory pencil shavings of CdG Avignon (and I do) Reve d’Ossian from Oriza Legrand is that but on steroids and maybe also hallucinogens. You know, the drugs that monks and nuns and holy prophets and saints take to get swole and bench press dusty wooden pews and write trippy ecclesiastical poetry on brittle parchment scrolls? Sure, why not. Hey, look, it’s gothic sex nerds Lord Byron and Percy Shelley! Where’d they come from, smelling of nightmares and bad reputations, all gloomy and grandiose like moody vanilla and smoky leather and rich, sticky resins and horny graveyard strolls at midnight? If Ken Russell made a fever dream of a film about the famous time-traveling debaucheries of Hildegard von Bingen and her companion, Frankenstein’s monster, I think it would result in this glorious perfume. Let’s party.
What are your favorites this year? Big or little, silly or profound, spill all your secrets! This is the least gatekeepy space you could ever hope to find, so I hope you will feel compelled to join in and share all of the things that made your life better this year!
“Music is a ghost.” This is a fascinating thought Jill Tracy shares with me as our interview concludes. And she’s onto something. It’s an intangible thing, you can’t touch it, you have to record it to prove it was ever there. It’s a valid point, and the haunting sort of phrase that becomes ensnared in one’s thoughts, to turn over and over in the mind’s web at night, pondering it’s aptness and worth, nibbling to the core of its meaning.
The end of an interview might seem an unusual place to begin. But then again, perhaps not, considering our subject– otherworldly composer, chanteuse, and sonic archeologist, Jill Tracy. After spending an evening in the company of this San Francisco-based singer/pianist and storyteller, and thrilling to her curious passions and strange tales, time-traveling through the delightful highlights of our insightful chat doesn’t seem like a peculiar way to sort it out, after all.
Her darkly erotic, melancholy songs have garnered critical acclaim, and have been featured on Showtime’s Dexter, CBS-TV Navy NCIS, and several feature films. But in recent years, Jill Tracy is also known for traveling to unusual locales to research and compose spontaneous music. This has included a grant project from Philadelphia’s famed Mütter Museum to compose alone amidst glass cases of skeletons and specimens; as well as abandoned buildings in San Francisco’s historical Presidio, a 1700s military base, purported as one of the most haunted locations in the country.
And it is with regard to one of these extraordinary locales that we narrow the focus of our interview.
Jill Tracy reveals another unprecedented project—The Secret Music of Lily Dale, a musical excavation of the mysterious, private town of mediums and Spiritualists in upstate New York. She recorded her singular piano music, channeled at night inside the original 1883 Lily Dale auditorium, site of séances and spirit communication services for over a century. She has captured field recordings from the mystical Leolyn Woods and chilling nighttime rainstorms to create an authentic, never-before-heard sonic journey into this strange, little town that talks to the dead.
It is my extreme pleasure to share her eerie Lily Dale adventures and uncanny musical insights.
Are there ghosts to be found here, of the musical sort, or otherwise?
Read on to find out…
SE: Finding beauty and inspiration in the dark corners of history, you’ve composed in the Mütter Museum, and conjured music in all sorts of fantastical haunts—decrepit gardens, cemeteries, murderous mansions, abandoned asylums, ancient redwoods, and haunted castles. Tell me the inspiration behind your Sonic Séance work?
JT: It really began as part of my live concert. Performing my songs is always such an emotional experience with the crowd to begin with, I thought it would be profound (and challenging) to create a piece of music right before their eyes, have them be a true part of it. They would give me the energy and I would give it right back to them musically.
A composition just for us, never existing again outside of that show. It was an intense, moving experience— people would cry, hug me, and say the music transported them to a place “they never realized existed, but needed to go.”
For me, it was revitalizing— the opposite of songwriting, or even film scoring. There was no set intention, structure, rules, limits. It was all about abandon. Being fully alive in a moment. And sadly, how rare this feeling is today in most people’s daily lives. I wanted to be a gatekeeper to that hidden place deep within.
I began conducting entire spontaneous shows, inviting the audience to unusual locations, where the work was created on the spot, never to be heard again. I call these performances “Sonic Séances.” It’s a gorgeous retaliation to today’s incessant pressure to archive everything— at the expense of living it. Why don’t we create a beautiful secret together just for us? Let’s have a solely interior experience! People were thrilled to put away their phones and simply be.
From there, I began to travel alone to unusual locations to research, immerse myself completely, and utilize the particular sonic energy of the space to unearth this secret, spontaneous music.These travel projects would be documented. I refer to them as “musical” or “sonic excavations.”
(Jill Tracy composing inside Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. Photo by Evi Numen.)
How did the idea to record in Lily Dale germinate?
For years I had been fascinated by Lily Dale, and hoped someday to visit. Through my Sonic Séance work, I became friends with Brandon Hodge, a renowned collector and expert of antique spirit communication devices. His specialty is planchettes; he lives in Austin and operates the great website MysteriousPlanchette.com.
When I was touring in Texas back in 2014 or so, we met and spent hours talking, surrounded by his lavish collection of planchettes, rapping hands, and spirit trumpets— we began talking about Lily Dale. Brandon put me in touch with Robert Murch, who is a Ouija board historian and collector.
We ended up all being interviewed together that year by Collectors Weekly for a fantastic article by Lisa Hix “Ghosts in the Machines: The Devices and Daring Mediums That Spoke for the Dead.”
Shortly after that, Lily Dale reached out to have the three of us come and lecture. In phone meetings with Lily Dale’s great librarian Mandi Shepp (Marion H. Skidmore Library,) I found out she was already a fan of my music (had all my albums!) and really loved what I was doing with my musical excavation projects. She invited me to visit as a guest off-season. (Lily Dale fully opens its doors to the public only a few weeks in summer.)
When I asked, “you don’t happen to have a piano there do you?” she unexpectedly replied, “Oh, there’s a grand piano in the old 1883 auditorium…” It was like (excitedly) “ding ding ding!” Jackpot! I knew what Fate wanted me to do…
I was officially invited by the Lily Dale Town Assembly to begin the project that year (2017.) I pretty much booked a plane ticket and traveled there days later!
I had no idea what to expect, but I wanted to experience Lily Dale off-season, with no one around except the mediums and Spiritualists who live there. I had to be totally self-sufficient— just me and the gear I needed. I felt like I was living in my own private little ghost town. My first trip was in early May, NOTHING was open. There was not even a place to buy groceries. I did not have a car. I had to hoard up on food and supplies in Buffalo, on my way in from the airport. I stayed in a medium’s home by the lake. Spent many hours in the woods. It was an extremely solitary and introspective time. Very befitting to begin this work..
I feel one must completely tune out to truly tune in.
(The moonlit streets of Lily Dale. Photo by Jill Tracy)
You said something in an interview with TOR from 2009 that particularly struck me: “Sometimes I feel that magic and the suspension of disbelief is the only thing that matters….” and that “In the end, it is the mystery that prevails, never the explanation.”
In the spirit of “honoring the mystery”, how did you mentally/emotionally/spiritually prepare for approach this sonic excavation of Lily Dale?
I love that you picked those quotes! And that particular interview! Thank you. Two of my constant mottoes.
My life’s work has always been about “honoring the mystery,”— the forgotten, those stories and places lost through time …it’s vital to preserve a sense of marvel and wonder now in a world trying its best to destroy, mock, or debunk it. I feel it’s my duty to be a beacon, a tether to these places. And the greatest thing I can do is to transport my audience there with me— just by listening.
Everything around us is vibrating at a particular frequency, A human’s hearing range is approx 20hz to 20,000hz. That’s a really small bit— we’re missing so much!
We’ve all been in a room with a dog. and the dog is going nuts and you know something intense is happening, but we can’t hear it! And you think about everything we’re missing, and what is that dog missing outside of its range? It’s frightening to think of experiencing ALL frequencies that are actually happening around us. Does it go beyond time and space? Is there constant inaudible communication from unknown sources? Could we tune in, if only for a second?
There are studies about 18.9-19 hz, that’s just below the range of hearing– sometimes called the “frequency of fear.” We can’t hear it as tonal information, but we sense it. And it affects us secretly.
I am obsessed with Infrasound. These are sounds which occur right below the threshold of human hearing. We don’t register that we hear them, but we are affected internally. There are interesting studies from the UK, regarding people who were all terrified in a particular building, claiming it to be haunted. They measured some machinery down in the basement of the building, and I don’t know if it was from fans or generators, but all the machinery was vibrating just below 19hz. So, are these people really seeing ghosts or are they just reacting to this “frequency of fear”? This frequency is also where the human eyeball vibrates, so could this account for people seeing spirits out of the corner of their eye?
And certainly with musical notes, there are specific notes, certain scales, melodies— and universally, people will say “oh, that sounds scary!” or, “that’s a joyous piece of music!” But these are just frequencies. Music is merely a selection of frequencies played in a pattern. What gives it such power to evoke different emotions? It’s magical, It really is.
(Photo of Jill Tracy’s hands by Bailey Kobelin)
When I begin a musical excavation in a new locale, I first like to discover the resonant tones, or close to it. I will go in and explore on the piano to see where I’m getting some kind of activity. And it could just be to my own ears, something that conveys a sudden emotion… does it make something in the room vibrate when I get to a certain place in the keys…does the building make a sound or seem to react? You can find it pretty quickly, where this response is coming from, and then I’ll start to hone in and play in that tonal space to begin. It’s the way in. Think of it like tuning in a radio, connecting with the signal.
The compositions I create in these kinds of projects, are all Instrumental spontaneous music. It’s just me, reacting authentically. I can’t prepare anything. It’s not like I sit there with paper, and try to write a piece. That just blocks you, really. I stood in my own way for years with this, because my brain was full of useless noise. I thought— “this is crazy, what am I going to play? I’d better do all this research, sketch it out, have a plan, bring tons of notes,”—and you know what? That’s the worst thing you can do. You’ve already removed yourself from the moment. You’re nowhere near anything real if you clutter your thoughts like that.
You must turn your mind off and become the antennae. Melodies do begin to reveal themselves. They are fragile, living things. Almost like stream of consciousness or automatic writing.
These pieces become talismans of actual moments in Time and Place.
(Front Gate Entrance to Lily Dale, circa 1906. Courtesy Lily Dale Museum.)
I’ve never been to Lily Dale (although in central FL, we do have Cassadaga, a spiritualist community that is somewhat related to Lily Dale and where I make an annual pilgrimage). I’d love to hear your impressions of the place.
The two are related. Lily Dale, NY is on Cassadaga Lake. Spiritualists settled here in the 1800s because it was so picturesque and inspiring. Like a storybook. Woods, lake, even a tiny beach. There are indigenous mute white swans on the lake. I would drink coffee and watch the swans swim outside my window.
But if you just arrived to the tiny town, you might say “This is all there is? This little place??” For me, the power of Lily Dale was what I discovered delving deeper— lurking between the cracks and the quiet. The unseen. it made me tap into a part of myself I wasn’t sure existed before.
On the surface, the town has a very home-spun “Mayberry” quality. For example, the gentleman who runs the museum, Ron Nagy, was kind enough to unlock and open the museum for a private visit, so I could research there off-season. Ron called me and said, “Where are you? I’ll come and pick you up in the truck!” And I replied “ I can probably walk there.” (The entire town is just a few small blocks.) And he said “no, no I’ll come and pick you up.” OK, so then here comes this truck and I’m thinking well, who knows, maybe he’s going to take me outside the grounds or something… but I get in, and he drives to the end of the block, and he says, “…here we are!” I could have walked there quicker than waiting for him, it was so funny.
All the residents were very gracious and welcoming to me. Even as the outsider musician alone in a town of Spiritualists and mediums. The mediums really respected and were fascinated with what I was doing. They would constantly tell me I had mediumistic power, and I learned much in turn from them.
(The enchanting architecture of Lily Dale. Photo by Jill Tracy)
One thing that took me a couple of days to get used to—It was awkward, but then I started to love it— was the idea of “Spirit.” The fact that they believe in an ever-present Spirit, and are constantly getting messages from “the other side.” Spirit is used as plural. You or I might probably say the “Spirit World” or “Spirit Realm”, but Spirit, to the residents of Lily Dale, is akin to the all-knowing power of the Universe.
When I first arrived, the medium I was staying with said, “Oh, Spirit told me you would probably love to stay in THIS room.” I thought to myself, “…ok?” And I replied jokingly, “Well, Spirit has good taste!” But then you realize quickly to them this isn’t funny, this is just daily life as a Spiritualist. Those “on the other side” were constantly with us, even blamed for unlocking doors and leaving dimes on the living room carpet. I began to find it enchanting. Much like when you were a child and had an invisible friend who was always with you.
And then there’s the architecture. The eccentric, charming clapboard houses, very Victorian, they look like dollhouses! The proportions are quite strange. They’re small, and often the windows appear too big for the house. The history is that Lily Dale began as a camp with tents, these Spiritualists and free-thinkers wanted to meet and share ideas. But then there was a desire to settle and create an actual town— and it wasn’t like they were able to bring renowned architects in there. So it was essentially the local folks and craftsman building these homes. They would borrow trends of the time— some have Roman columns, and some very classical or Greek looking facades, and then others very Victorian in appearance. So the proportions are all very strange and whimsical.
There are no sidewalks or curbs. So it feels like a movie-set. Everything is all inclusive, open, and connects to everything else. Even without knowing these facts, you subconsciously get a peculiar sense of connection, whether via otherworldly forces or otherwise.
(Jill Tracy recording inside the 1883 Lily Dale Auditorium)
What can you share about the energy in Lily Dale and how it shaped the music you created?
How did you begin the process?
When I first walked into the empty 1883 auditorium. I felt enveloped by this energy, like a welcoming fog. Imagine the particles of memory in this place—the site of historical spiritualist gatherings, séances, lectures, for over 100 years!
I don’t believe energy ever truly leaves a place, it all becomes collective. Time is non-existent.
Susan B. Anthony spoke here, as Lily Dale was very supportive of the Suffragettes and the Women’s Movement. Harry Houdini supposedly walked these grounds in his ongoing hunt for fraudulent mediums. Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a devout Spiritualist— the home I stayed in was actually one of his favorites on his beloved trips to Lily Dale. And now I was here too…
The grand piano sat on the stage — a very old, rare instrument made locally in Buffalo, NY by C. Kurtzmann Company. I was told it was the only piano on record being purchased for the auditorium. I Think of all the people who had touched this piano, and sat on this very stage summoning spirits for over a century. I was altering the very dynamic of the place now, adding my imprint just by being there.
I would spend my days doing research and exploring, and then enter the auditorium alone, just before sunset. I had a key, and would lock myself in. I would rarely turn the lights on.
I loved playing the piano as the last shards of sunlight cut through the vast room (with about 300 empty seats and massive angular ceiling.) I felt like I was performing for an invisible audience, which slowly faded into complete darkness.
At first I began setting up the microphones as I would do in a professional recording studio, attempting to get a clean, close sound from the piano.
But as I began to listen back to the tracks, I became more and more enamoured of the tremendous watery echo of the room itself, the hollow sounds of the building, and the birds outside.
In fact, I went completely against my original idea, and began setting up mics all over the auditorium, so the piano was set into the scene— instead of trying to disguise or hide the background noises. These textures were so compelling to me, they began to drive the actual work. The environmental and unidentified sounds are as much the orchestration as the music. As you listen, it’s like you’re there WITH me as it happens.
At dusk, the birds would always go crazy, and gather around me in the auditorium— in almost an Alfred Hitchcock-like fashion. It got to where I would sometimes play a melody, and then a BIRD would sing it right back to me! I couldn’t believe it. So there are lovely moments of compositions featuring call-and-response from native Lily Dale birds.
I like to surround myself with significant objects that hold the story of the location. I was given an antique spirit trumpet and also an actual piece of stone from the cottage of the legendary Fox Sisters. (The remains of the cottage, which burned down in 1955, are in Lily Dale.) I kept them with me on the piano.
Lily Dale dislikes paranormal investigation and does not welcome it on the grounds. As Spiritualists, they believe spirits are everywhere, communicating with the dead is part of daily life— so why disturb our tranquil, private community with noisy crews and electronic gadgets? It seems invasive and pointless to them.
Mine is a more parapsychological approach. It’s not about chasing or “hunting a ghost,” but rather to bask, and gently immerse in the collected energy of the place—be part of it. Allow it to mingle with me as it chooses.
My piano is the portal.
(Lily Dale Auditorium on World Peace Day circa 1905. Often in these historical shots, an empty chair is seen front center, possibly a welcome symbol for disembodied spirits to join in this realm. Photo: Courtesy Daniel A. Reed Library (SUNY) Fredonia.)
I’m fascinated with what I call “sonic residue,” echoes, and impressions that remain in environments, buildings, and objects. For me, uncovering the hidden music within these spaces is the closest thing to time travel or channeling. It’s it own ghost.
I would say every night aloud— as I sat alone inside the auditorium: “ I am going to play some music now. Any spirits here, are welcome to join. Any spirits here, are welcome to make their presence known.”
And things do happen.
One night I became very frightened; there was this odd melody appearing in my head— constantly, as I walked the narrow Lily Dale streets, and in the woods. When I was in the auditorium later that night, my mind found it again and automatically started to play it on the piano—a key I’ve never played in— and the building just started to—react. I’ve never gotten scared doing these projects, but I suddenly became terrified— but forced myself to keep going. And it was not an evil-type of feeling, but just pure magic. I knew I had discovered something powerful. Like I had crossed a bridge between worlds. The building wanted this melody to exist. And it was to become part of it.
As the melody progressed, I heard a thunderous crack, thuds, steps, whispering, and I mean— this is late at night, 1am, there is no one around. You’re next to the woods, there’s just nothing. And I had locked myself in. My heart pounded. I kept playing in the dark. I wanted to flee, but I realized as I played the music that this was everything I ever wished would happen. This was absolutely, undeniably real.
You will hear this in the recording. As I listened back days later, I heard things I never recalled experiencing that night. I became unnerved even listening.
“The Secret Music of Lily Dale” pretty much manifested itself into being. I did not expect to create an entire album during my time there. But it’s the kind of album I’ve always wanted to do. Like Erik Satie, Brian Eno, or Harold Budd— it’s got that sort of graceful, eerie ambience. But also this dark classical, cinematic feel, a bit of Pink Floyd, Bernard Herrmann, akin to instrumental pieces I’ve released previously. But— these are all spontaneous!
A sonic souvenir of my nights alone inside that mysterious town beyond the veil.
(Twilight in Leolyn Woods, Lily Dale. Photo by Jill Tracy)
How do other elements of Lily Dale come across in these pieces?
I did various field recordings. I spent a lot of time in the Leolyn Woods surrounding Lily Dale. There is a gigantic tree that was struck by lightning in the 1800s– and it’s purported to be the most powerful location of energy in Lily Dale. They call it Inspiration Stump. People from all over the world gather at the stump to receive messages from Spirit. I decided to record at that exact spot, capture that experience to tape. What is it like to be all alone, standing at Inspiration Stump— or at night in the woods when there’s absolutely nobody around?
One afternoon, the weather forecast called for a thunderstorm. I went into the old auditorium, and underneath that vast roof, could hear the elegant tinkling of the rain. I got all the mics set up, I heard the first thunder clap—and started recording. I had to be super quiet— so I just ended up lying on my back in the dark, in the middle of the 1883 Lily Dale Spiritualist auditorium, dozing on a little blanket, gazing up at the ceiling, listening to the rain. It was just the most beautiful thing, being alone in this renowned auditorium with over a century’s worth of spirits and seances— all of this history and its echoes enveloping me.
I also recorded Lily Dale’s legendary bell that rings throughout the town to beckon people to the Spiritualist service— and receive messages from the other side.
(Orbs photographed along the Old Fairy Trail, Lily Dale by Jeffrey Kulp)
Do you believe in spirits? The ability to communicate with them?
Were you changed by your time in Lily Dale?
I approach this project as neither a believer nor non-believer, but expanding my mind to possibility. I do believe in other realms, phenomena, and collective energies far beyond human comprehension. There is so much we don’t know, we can’t even begin to fathom.
Lily Dale certainly transformed me. I experienced many things I can honestly never explain. A medium took me into the woods late at night and taught me to find orbs and fairies. There are the most utterly chilling photos of me at the piano— surrounded by glowing blue orbs, or in the woods, with floating white spirits surrounding me. I stood in the woods late at night, in pitch darkness, and sang different frequencies aloud, which supposedly the fairies are drawn to—and a group of us began to see glowing winged creatures (with our own eyes) emerge from deep in the trees. We all saw them. And were stunned. These were not fireflies or insects. I will never be able to explain these moments, but they were real, and brought me to tears.
Music and sound has always been my bridge between hidden worlds. They are both strangely similar.
Music in itself is a ghost. It’s completely intangible. Once a note is played, it vanishes into the air, never to be heard again. I find that simultaneously chilling, inspiring and heart-breaking. The only way we can even hold onto music is to have an archive of it, a recorded version. But the real thing is only played once— and disappears. Where does it go?
The most beautiful questions of all are the ones for which there are no answers.
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(This interview first appeared on Haute Macabre and UnQuiet Things.)
The Secret Music of Lily Dale (music album + companion book) is now available in both hardback and digital versions HERE.
