You may or may not have noticed, but The Black Narcissus was mysteriously hacked by some random asshole on ‘the Internet’ on Saturday, plunging my mood to fury even though it was looking to be a good day.
My emotional reaction to the situation intrigued me. On the one hand, I felt truly horrified that what could rightly be considered – paltry, in some eyes, if not my own – my ‘life’s work’ – could be erased and the entire fucking site put up for grabs due to some ‘bad actor’ or algorithmic fuckface AI dickhead – whatever ; I understand none of it; none of the terminology, the lingo, the advice I received on ‘servers’ and all the rest of it : I may as well have been beamed in from 1648.
On the other hand, interestingly, I experienced a strange Yoko Ono like artistic contentment in incinerating the past and starting everything from scratch, perfume or non perfume. My groovy days are gone. Writing for Vogue Japan feels like a mirage I invented for my own self esteem. I (can) no longer employ a PR person to implore niche brands to send their latest artifices all the way to Japan. I am on a very different footing, about to embark on a year of retreat and financial diminishment. The book may still be on the museum shelves of a Venetian Palazzo – thanks, Noseprose, for discovering and documenting that, but you can be sure that no Italian film crew will be travelling to my house from Milan to film a commercial – which is what happened just before the pandemic, even though there is no evidence out there now to confirm it – like I say, it feels like i dreamt it up.
still, even if my priorities / future plans have changed, in terms of writing, I am still VERY GLAD that this archive of me, you, perfume, the world, has not just vanished
arigato x
What a dreadful invasion. It must be a shock to find your past writings and such whipped or tampered with. I stumbled on your website postings because of my interest in perfume and a casual and largely uninformed curiosity about Japan. I’m a world away but appreciate your writings and am sorry to hear of this violation. I understand you have health problems and wish you the best
Thankyou !
Thankyou for unlurking and saying hello
Glad my bullshit is back up for people out there to read
So happy & relieved to see you here again-I am a longtime reader but have never commented. I love reading your blog!
Thank you very much for saying so and appearing now.
I will write some new things when i can
Same: I don’t believe I’ve ever commented but I’ve been lurking forever. Your blog and archives are a jewel of the internet, so glad you still have it. Even if they still existed “somewhere” (per The Internet Is Forever), your words belong to you. And I will happily keep reading!
“ a jewel of the internet “
I will never forget this
WordPress seems especially vulnerable to hackers. I have friends who use the platform professionally and they get attacked daily.
I’m always tempted to erase my past and begin again- seems refreshing and invigorating. I sort of did that when I left California for Nepal. Then again, once something is on the Internet, it’s forever!
It is but it felt scarily stolen.
Glad you are still out there !
Ouch, sorry to hear about this. That must have been horribly stressful. Very very glad you’re back in control.
In case you haven’t seen it, your entire site (and pretty much everything else) literally does live on forever at the Internet Archive. For example: https://web.archive.org/web/20200726070049/https://theblacknarcissus.com/2014/08/29/shes-all-that-coco-by-chanel-1984/
Thanks George.
I am a serious tech moron beyond imagining ( which you already know ).
Amoeba level ability ; powerless
I was kind of freaking out when I saw your site was down, so I can only imagine how stressed you must have felt. I often visit your columns, just to re-read excellent writing and also just to feel happy that someone still maintains a blog. I know you are soon going to be going through a period of recovery, and, again, I imagine it will be stressful at times, but I hope you can share your thoughts during the process. I of course love your perfume columns, but the ones about your life are just so raw and so true.
Honestly, I will keep reading this when (re-re-re engaging with my Japan book).
Thankyou so much
I value you a lot even though we have never met x
Thanks for not disappearing! I always look forward to your new posts and often refer to your archived topics.
This is extremely gratifying to read – thankyou
For the archive to be eliminated would be like mental erasure for me
I am also very glad, and very relieved that you have rescued it! X
Ugh but who knows what entity knows my new passwords ( which I literally, obviously, have forgotten )
Is it all going to end up like Saw ?
Perhaps fortunately, I didn’t see what you’re talking about back when it happened. I must have missed it and aren’t really sure what it would have looked like. I don’t even want to imagine.
Holy smokes, but that sounds horribly rotten, Neil. Thoroughly traumatic. Jeez, what is wrong with the world that people doing good things, like you with your lovely site, would be violated, for no reason that I can think of beyond f***ery for its own sick sake. So bloody *pointless*.
But as you say, the slate in some way has been cleaned for you. Downshifting might be also a kind of recharging. I’m excited for you, even if excitement per se isn’t in the cards. I would beg you to keep writing for us — and for you — because I love reading everything you post and I know it does give you a little something back. But if you’re not moved to, or not often, then more power to you, and no doubt something will fill the void. And if nothing does, or not much, maybe that’s not such a bad thing, for now. Love you, my dear Neil. Duncan, too.
P.S. I loved reading about Must and you must have not seen my little reply. I have a new laptop and the fingers can really fly.
I appreciate you eternally (or is that excessive )
At any rate thank you so much
I am clapped out temporarily, but do feel some stirrings :
Hello! I’ve just been getting up to date with your recent blogs as I’ve been a bit busy and missed a few.
I am so sorry to hear about the hack, which sounds traumatising. I find anything remotely like that – to do with computers etc – makes me feel temporarily lobotimsed, like part of my brain has gone missing. I did laugh though at your description that you may as well have been beamed in from the 17th century – it just seems to get more and more needlessly complicated doesn’t it?!
I can’t imagine you not writing about perfume – yours is the most unique voice in the world of perfume blogs. My friend Donald was right to say your writing was a bit Proustian – the flow of observation of your internal world and the honesty, plus the humour. I’ve often read bits out to my partner who hugely enjoyed them too.
I also read about you up-coming operations (you’re right it’s a surprise to read that your last ones were 7 years ago!) and I’m so sorry to hear you’re having to go through that. It sounds as though you’re starting the whole psyching up for it process though and I hope it goes speedily – I suppose you know what’s in store and can plan accordingly. Wishing you all the very best when that comes!
Sorry for the extremely late reply, Rose, and heartfelt thanks and affection my end for this
JE REVIENS
How very, very, very awful! I am so sorry! If you might have been beamed in from 1648, I certainly would have been from 1548, not only not relating to all that digital what-have-you, but wouldn’t have known the Americas even exist! (Which would have been a great pity BTW as the new Harris ticket has installed a new thrilling Prospekt into world events!)
I do hope you manage to sort out the inflicted mess! Best heartfelt wishes from Cologne
Sorry for the teutonic Prospekt! Bloody spell-check!!!
So delighted to know you : thankyou x
We are also very glad. We need your blog as much as you do x
It smites me (that’s the word today on a 7AM sunlit commuter bus) to think you will be stepping back from this writing but I know we will read new words from you again in the future…. Your writing, even just the recalling of moments of your youth, your relationships, your daily journeys, at the aestheticizing distance of vignettes and tableaux (always – per the flaneur — as both fragment and integrity) feels to me like that hunger to both pursue sensation yet make a home, the paradox of sensibility that must surely characterize all devoted writers. This is best communicated I suppose in that moment you revisit with such relish (a little jaded and a little newborn) – for better or for worse always intimate – of smelling scent on another – a passerby on sidewalk, a stranger at a baseball game or on the subway, the glorious diffusion of the animal plus the extra at a party, or from a partner embraced or trailed at a distance on a bicycle in the breeze. The internet is an impoverished substitute for all of these, and your enduring it all of this time has been a kind of performing of perfuming. Thinking of Jasper Johns’ agonizingly ironic credo, ‘the artist is the elite of the servant class’, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this service.
P.S.
In an earlier email, I alluded to a collection of poems related to fragrance. May I send it your way in case it makes for decent convalescent reading?
Please do !
I think your way of expressing things is amazing too.
Thank you very much for this shot of confidence
I’m so glad if these remarks landed properly — thank you for your interest, too — I have sent you a link via IG <3
[Sorry — scratch that, as I did not paste it properly there — here it is instead: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZao5SW9c1PJHqYho79RwdcAOZNTahx2/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101266164571931416633&rtpof=true&sd=true%5D
Please let me know if this does not work!
Also: what is this menacing image? It haunts me a lot…
I don’t know. I pinched it off some arty perfume person on Instagram. It is freakish but addictive to look at I thought and I just chose it without thinking.