I have come to Isezakicho park to mull and pontificate. The air is grey and heavy : very hot.
The flowers are woozy.
Odor 93, Fusciuni’s masterfloral, is both scary and soothing. At its heart it is a tuberose – a lovely tuberose , but buried in spook and mulch in the vaguely sinister manner of Rochas Mystere. Or vintage Vol De Nuit extrait – there are distinct resonances to Jacques Guerlain’s inimitable classic here, with the pungent narcissus, vanilla, patchouli, a coquette of Guerlainish powder (both scents are. of similar high quality); but also bonfire -intriguing,modern and witchy (……heart-tugging) smirches of tobacco; cumin; guaiac, vetiver; sage.
The peculiar concoction comes on strong, heavy; weird – i haven’t worn it for a couple of years, but it suddenly seduced me this morning, beckoning me to towards it – then, in my view, morphs into one of the most haunting and ghostly modern perfumes ever made.
I am wearing the exquisitely clean and natural smelling Gardenia by Hawaiian FF on my left arm for a white floral reference counterpoint. In contrast – though they are working very nicely together – sometimes the sylvan assassin lurks somewhere in the space ahead of me; then immediately behind, taunting me from different angles in a tuberosial hide and seek; the flowers shadowing and stalking my presence, with a stark, medicinal sweetness
so it turns out I will not be having surgeries from September after all ( the Company has interdicted leaving ship in the middle of the term :when, understandably, the whole purpose of the enterprise – anxious parents paying reams for the privilege of having their children pass the exams for prestigious universities, which then practically guarantee employment in a top tier industry – is for me to guide them all the way through to the finale.)
that I am considered vital enough to the operation is flattering – and I did broadcast everything a tad too soon when the word was ‘discreet’- i should have consulted with the bigwigs more hand rubbingly groveling- apologetic beforehand :: : but the fact that my pain is also discounted as a meaningless samurai by- product could, if I let it, induce corrosive inner magma
the compromise : I will fulfill my duties until January ( if I can walk – if not I will just become addicted to the powerful painkillers the doctor has prescribed me which I feel no affiliation), and then I will be taking the entirety of the 2025 academic year off as an official, semi -paid leave of absence – in which to operate, recover; become healthy again —— my first ever sabbatical
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i am now on the train to Shinjuku. To watch d perform multiple roles at Gyoen Rosso (including his singing debut)- at the Kings Of Tokyo Stonewall 55th Anniverary.
The tired people in the picture above all magically woke up just on time at Yokohama station.
I took their seats, wearing – as it is full kushinashi gardenia season here :
hair and body bathed in Floris Gardenia shower gel
undershirts sprayed in Penhaligon’s Gardenia
some Tuberosa D’Autunno extract from Florence
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Tubereuse
and a pure tuberose essential oil picked up in Hawaii
The many articles recently published on the phenomenon of prepubescent TikTokkerz begging their parents to buy 200dollar plus niche fragrances has disillusioned me, though it must make the execs at the helm very gleeful ; what a delightful vicious virtuous circle for them … people are buying expensive perfumes BECAUSE they are expensive – so let’s raise the prices even more and it’s a win win situation for everybody !
This, when a recent BBC documentary on the exploitation of workers in the flower fields of Egypt highlighted what a pittance minors involved in child labor practices receive for their efforts to produce the raw materials ( the programme since removed; you can easily imagine at the behest of some billionaire behemoth or other ) has made me feel a bit distanced from all the flash and pizzazz and hyperbole and ugly overblown chemicality of the current industry.
Cynicism aside ( Comete is stratospherically priced of course ), Olivier Polge’s voluptuously romantic Degas ballerina, Comete, still, to my surprise, turned out to be very much worth trying. Plumey, powdery, archly classical with its burst of aldehydes, iris and cherry blossom, (but not dowdy), to me this is reminiscent of Guerlain Insolence – just with far less hair spray, more aplomb. It is rather dazzling, actually, at least on first encounter.
The allure of ‘exclusive’, high end perfume continues unabated.
I have been in quite a few of those of late, up and down like a yo yo, these last couple of years pretty tumultuous emotionally and physically. So it was funny that after a consultation at a hospital in Yokohama – more on that in a moment – I should come across a perfume I have never smelled before for about £10 at one of the more upscale recycle boutiques in Yokohama with such an unsubtle name. ‘Moods’. Not sure it works. And yet it kind of does. But then the bottle, which I find rather cool with its 80’s arrhythmia of diagonal cap, also shows a slight darkening of black serotonin inking into the juice; we don’t expect cool refreshment with this one. I associate Krizia with spice, a certain middle class elegance and Italian density from a time when perfumes still contained ingredients : Krizia Uomo (1984) is a fantastically interesting scent, a jasmine-coniferous soapy Roman manic upbeatness – our friend Maurizio used to wear it with considerable success; Krizia Teatro Alla Scala (1985)- see this vintage piece I wrote entitled ‘I Wish There Were More Spiced Women’ for more immersion in that world),a fantastic little baroque number in the Fendi or Coco mode; sometimes these compressed pungencies lift my spirits when so much perfume now is either inhuman or dull.
Smelling this one you can immediately see that the quality of mass market designer perfumery was so much higher back then : layered; thought out; balanced. To today’s nose this gem comes off as very high end niche, not dated : – a rich, spiced patchouli amber with strong clove and lavender accents that avoids the locker room/ barber shop facets of the more stereotypical fougeres; the mellow, aged patchouli key —- and it lingers and lingers (this would also work really well on a woman – Tora, I think you might need this).
Who should have this one in our household ?I did rather like it on me, but loved it more on the D, who wears incensey aromatics much better than I – they smell more textural. I sprayed some on him before we went to afternoon karaoke in Kannai, after an excellent Thai lunch : it augmented the atmosphere with a warm, leatherette suggestion (we have a weird tradition of going out directly after anything medical, as a perverse form of revenge; I remember going straight to Chinatown for a meal after having two teeth pulled out even though the corn soup was leaking from my mouth, and to a French gastronome bistro in the Bluff area of Yamate following a gastroscopy: the procedure for all intents and purposes like having a hard plastic vacuum cleaner shoved down your throat – but perhaps this was retribution for what was undoubtedly foie gras used in the unctuous Gallic dishes : a taste of your own medicine of what it feels like for a goose.
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Recently, for research purposes as part of my book, I have been somewhat drowning in myself, going through copious notes and files of things I have written over the years. And getting on my own nerves. Overdosing on Neil Craig Chapman. All the intensity and drama! But I suppose that is how I have lived – in a very heightened manner, no time for the dreary. Have I overdone it though? Despite how much I have enjoyed the last seven or eight years in a myriad of ways and continue to do so, I do also feel rather burned out. The world itself is enough to incinerate parts of one’s nervous system (do I need to elaborate?). It is difficult to remain unaffected and buoyant. I find work more exhausting than ever – if simultaneously quite fulfilling now I have the experience – and a nice set of Japanese colleagues that I can be myself with – but with the gradual erosion of cartilage in my knees adding to the strain, the day to day of teacherly incitement has become a literal grind – of bone on bone.
For long term readers of this florid bilge, it will probably seem surprising that my big Japanese Hospital Story – during which I was hospitalized for two months and had to learn to walk again from scratch after two osteotomy surgeries, ultimately taking half a year off from work, was over seven years ago. Time has flown. But indeed they were. When I was on the mend from all that, I then, out of the blue, got the publishing offer for my book: it was madness for a couple of years (in a good way), then a very different kind of madness during the pandemic (not good at all), then going through the reliving of some family trauma together over the last couple of years and picking up the pieces slowly – an ongoing process that is going positively, and for which I am grateful, but it has all taken its toll on the system, I must admit, and here we are again, orthopedically: the effects of those operations, which I knew were temporary, have now worn out and it is time to go through it all again. I saw the same, lovely, English speaking, world famous but not arrogant surgeon who did the ops last time – so a man who literally knows my legs inside out, which gives me some reassurance that I am in the right hands and I will be going in for several operations (four, to be precise), including a full left knee replacement and possibly a right, and having to take another half year off from work from this coming September.
It all feels rather daunting. A lot of pain will be involved. And I won’t have the nice airy, private room I had last time, as I will be in a shared, dingey ward in the dun coloured newly built hospital that he has moved to, and you best believe you will be getting some hyperneurotic posts when I am stuck in there, claustrophobic as an angled trout. Two weeks in the ‘o-beya’, or shared room, with staring ghouls (people in Japanese hospitals often act like lost ghouls – it is as if that is the role they are signed up to play) and then a rehabilitation centre nearby where hopefully I can have my own room and get the leg going (this time it will be one at a time, thank god, so I won’t have to go through the horror of total paralysis and immobility and helplessness, learning to walk again from absolute zero, urging my toe like Uma Thurman to wiggle in her Kill Bill Pussywagon – this time, one leg will be able to drag the other gammy motherfucker around the ward to get it going and I intend to do my absolute best to get in tip top shape as soon as possible. Dance floors, surely, are waiting).
It is going to be challenging. But in another sense, it will be a good chance, in some respects, to take a breather; de-alcolize, be nutritious, think, write, breathe in foul hospital smells and eat nauseating little shirasu fish swimming in cucumber, no sorry I mean it actually will be the pause I probably need to set my life back on track again. And if I can walk again more painlessly at the end of it; get healthier in body and spirit, then I know that it will certainly do wonders for my…….. .. Moods (Groan..…..sorry).
The Black Narcissus 