Author Archives: ginzaintherain

I was too busy gazing at Mount Fuji floating above the clouds the other day to remember that April 2nd was actually the ten year anniversary of The Black Narcissus. Then the next day, I had an absurdly busy day in the freezing rain doing all my pre-work errands in one day, including getting my third Moderna vaccination booster somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Yokohama – lost and drenched; then yesterday I was pretty much out of action because of that, curled up under the covers, unable to move.

Today it is sunny again, though; I am back to almost normal energy and thought that maybe I should rectify the situation. After all, a decade isn’t nothing.

The Origins

In 2008 I started writing about perfume. Just one day, I sat down and did it. And I loved it. Prior to that, having been an obsessive of scent all my life since childhood – like music, perfume has been the soundtrack of my existence, as I am sure it has been for most of you – once the Internet became more commonplace and readily available, I would sit down and feast my brain for hours on all the classic perfume review websites that became popular from the beginning of the 2000’s. You know the ones: Bois De Jasmin, Perfume -Smelling Things; Olfactoria’s Travels; Now Smell This, Fragrantica: there was just something so utterly compelling and absorbing and addictive about being able to read about what is essentially invisible and ephemeral but which I had been buying and wearing and smelling myself for decades in beautiful wording; I would read and re-read certain descriptions of perfumes again and again – and it almost felt like meditation. Divorced from everything else in the world, just one perfume at a time, in its own context; described; embellished; sometimes captured.

Before this, in the late nineties I had only had a couple of books on perfume – John Oakes’, which I read until it collapsed; and Susan Irvine’s, in which I first saw the Caron bottles that made my eyes stand out on daffodil stalks of lust (Caron was never available in the UK, at least where I grew up, and I had never even heard of it until I saw the pictures of Nuit de Noël, Nocturnes, Tabac Blond in all the illustrated photographs which must have accumulated many hours of ogling and coveting in total: perfumes, in the pre-digital age, beyond my grasp and knowledge. Scents that felt like magic talismans to me; untouchable.

Around this time – I can’t remember when, exactly; to me, pre-writing feels like some inchoate darkness of nothingness where I was still alive and overly sentient as ever but just floating in the ether, unanchored by any testimony – my friend Helen, who I grew up with listening to Prince and dreaming over perfume back home – she lived just five minutes down the road – rapturously collecting our free samples from the department store or scratching the perfumed strip Christie Turlington and Linda Evangelista adverts in Vogue and opinionatedly holding forth about those that we esteemed vs those that we scathed – one day out of the blue sent me a photocopied version of Luca Turin’s original; Le Guide which she had carefully downloaded and printed out, and which became practically a sacred text to me. The fact that it was in very difficult French made it even more potently out of reach; some parts I immediately set about translating, almost as an academic exercise, like the ones I would do at university; if the translation came out well and sufficiently, beautiful I would feel a great sense of personal satisfaction and pleasure and then enjoy sending it back to H who enjoyed it just as much – it sent us off floating into dreams. Where the sites on the Internet were entertaining and exciting treasure troves of information, this – from twenty years earlier – took it to an entirely different level to me, to the level of extreme beauty. Something beyond the everyday – to a place sealed off in eternity.

Although D and I in our time together in England and Japan had always been creative, organizing themed costume parties, art events, immersive piano recitals and the like, for a long time, I still felt very stunted internally – I think he did too until he started doing performance art and making films – without even entirely quite realizing how or why. Friends had often told me I should write, but I didn’t have a subject (apart from myself!) ; I think they said this because of the famously long letters I would send to them from various locations, Rome, Cambridge etc, probably unbearable to look at now). However, when I surreptiously started on my perfume reviews, at that stage a combination of intuitive blurting and meticulous editing that I honed like a miniature sculpture, I felt a sense of achievement and happiness I had never felt before, and I kept doing it on a regular basis until I had described every scent in my possession and had made something I called The Menu, literally a thematically categorized, nerdish guide to my own collection – including all the samples (!) that I would offer up to guests when they came round for dinner. What would you like to try? Wait here a minute. Or : come upstairs and let’s try that one on. All great fun. People loved it. And then I started to get the idea for a full book.

At this stage, developing confidence, I was planning to try and get a publishing deal the old-fashioned way. Get a literary agent; find someone willing to publish; pick up my work at a bookshop. Feel delighted. Gloat. Which is pretty much what happened, actually, although it was a lot of hard of work and a lot more difficult than it sounds. Firstly, most agencies are primarily looking for the next fiction big deal – and I am strangely incapable of investing time in fictional characters – there is just so much going around me and inside me in real life that I can’t even contemplate creating non-existent entities as vessels for my themes: I love literature – it was my specialization at university – and personally feel that I learned the central tenets of existence through it, my philosophy hugely shaped by the writers I read against the clock and wrote fraught, deadlined essays over.

But I can’t come up with such works myself. And perfume is not an easy sell. Fragrance itself, as an everyday luxurious, but essential commodity, is, obviously – it is a multibillion dollar industry. But most people don’t want to read books on the subject: the odd, typically realized magazine PR-type article will suffice for most people, who, in my opinion, on the whole just sniff something they find at the airport, at their local retailer, or on a friend and ask what it is and then buy it and wear it for a while: they don’t need all the wordy fragrant verbiage we perfume lovers churn out, it is actually quite an odd idea for a lot of people I have found, as though you were writing in ancient Sumerian or Sankrit. Somehow, though, with the help of Helen who sent off a lot of very nicely presented applications for me, because I would have made a pig’s ear of it all, after a whole series of rejections, one London-based literary agency – liked my writing style and my idea of a perfume book on scent divided into a note by note thematically organized structure (original at the time and since taken up elsewhere, but before that most books were either alphabetically or chronologically ordered), showed some interested in my project: I was convinced that this would make perfume more relatable to the general public and be a commercially viable idea, and one that I could make appealing and enjoyable to read – and my agent eventually agreed.

The problem at this stage was that I had absolutely zero web presence. The Luddites, or the original technophobes, emerged at the time of the Industrial Revolution, which started in Birmingham – which happens to be where I am from and perhaps explains my uselessness when faced with modern technology. I had made no inroads on the internet at this stage, and we just had the crappiest dial up which took an eternity to connect. The book idea was still pitched at various bookfairs by my agency though, and apparently almost got signed, but my complete absence online was deemed too problematic – and understandably so (it almost seems quite arrogant of me now to have presumed otherwise! Who the hell did I think I was ? I was just an English teacher who had sniffed a few perfumes – hardly Michael Edwards). The thing was that I didn’t especially like the word ‘blog’ or being thought of a ‘blogger’ – it just doesn’t sound particularly impressive or interesting, almost denigrating, like a geek slogging away at their computer day and night for minimal gain – who knew how rich the Youtubers could get – or so I snobbishly thought at the time. I just wanted to be somehow launched on the world and ‘discovered’. But this was completely unrealistic.

And so at some point, D proposed, insisted, I start a ‘blog’ of my own. I resisted. I didn’t like the idea of being instantly read by strangers; it felt too close to the skin. Too immediate (precisely what I love about it now: and he absolutely knew instinctively that this is how I would feel). So one day, ten years ago during this very same spring holiday, he dragged me into the front garden, took a picture of some narcissus flowers that had opened and then another of an old Caron Narcisse Noir box from the collection, got on WordPress, typed up one of my reviews from the Menu: and minutes later we were live.

The Name

In the same way that I wanted nothing other than Burning Bush for my cabaret alter-ego, if I had a blog it was always going to be called The Black Narcissus. Firstly, since childhood I have been captivated by Greek and Roman myths, which feel removed and eternal, existing on an immortal plane somewhere beyond: for me, they are sometimes a form of refuge. (When I went to Crete as a seventeen year old I was completely ravished by it: in heaven. Just everything about it: the ruins at Knossos. The searing sun. The food. The men, wearing Kouros. The scent of eucalyptus. Duncan’s mother’s family is also from Cyprus, birthplace of Aphrodite, and one of my dreams is for us to go there one day and just revel in that environment for a whole summer: maybe meet some Greek Cypriot relatives and eat bucketloads of oregano-feta salads and yoghurt spooned with thick honey – is anything actually more delicious? ).

Secondly, since very young childhood, when I was always reading books in the garden next to the rosemary, I have always adored flowers, and the words ‘narcissus’ and ‘hyacinth’ are somehow especially resonant for me: wet and green and delicious sounding; the sybillant ‘s’ sound exquisitely floral: onomatopoeic in their lexical representations of the living flowers. The origin of the legend – of both flowers, actually – is of course quite a sad one, like many ancient metamorphoses, and whether I am narcissistic or not is not for me to decide: (probably, to some extent). I am certainly introspective and not afraid to stare into the reflection and the inner abyss, though I like to think I am also immensely interested in other people and the world outside, but I do have a melancholic side and a tendency to love music in a minor key, and horror films, and not to shy away from the darker side of things in genral, and so thought that a ‘black narcissus’ was perfect in this regard.

I have, I will admit, sometimes wondered whether there might have been writers who are ethnically of African/ Afro-Caribbean heritage who might have been understandably surprised that I took on this name, but at the moment of deciding on my blog identity, I felt that the obvious references to the Caron classic – that this was simply a direct translation of the iconic orange blossom perfume’s name – as well as the shrill, technicolour histrionics of the Himalayan monastery melodrama Black Narcissus from 1947, which I love, encapsulated everything I wanted to express as my personal perfume writing space, and seeing that no one else was using it, I didn’t hesitate.

The Experience

In a word: thrilling. As an impulsive person by nature, being able to think, photograph or trawl images, write, and post within seconds was, and is, like a dream come true. If that sounds incredibly naive, you are probably right, but although many of the pieces I wrote initially were very thought out and properly considered, as you know, many others are not; just a snap here, a sentence there, a ramble, a splurge – whatever is happening and whichever perfumes I smell and how they fit into the immediate environment of a particular emotion on a particular day. Write. And press publish. And although at first I had no idea who was reading – if anyone – (as those of you who also have websites, you will probably know how difficult it is to recruit readers, or ‘followers’, which I always think sounds unpleasantly acolyte or disciple-like: but without anyone reading you are ultimately just a tree falling silently into the forest; and it all definitely takes a very long time, unless you are the hot young latest thing who taps into the ‘beauty’ zeitgeist and you do makeup tutorials and videos and this is so sexy! kind of posts – but I myself am actually rather camera-shy).

Gradually, readers did emerge from the cosmos, though, and started commenting. Perfume maniacs, people who liked a good story: and I thrived off the interactions – and still do; even more than ever if anything – particularly in these ever increasingly difficult times we are living in. Back then at the beginning, The Black Narcissus was more exclusively perfume-based I would say; Neil Chapman slightly more in the background as I tried to create wordpaintings of perfume; sometimes perhaps too self-consciously, but I was often pleased with the results nevertheless, and I liked carving out my own space (isn’t this the thing with having something that you have created; that you know it is uniquely yours, because no one else can do precisely what you do, even if it is only, in the grand scheme of things, a mere drop in the ocean of what is beingn said?).

After a year or so of posting regularly, one day I got a message from a writer who was setting up his own perfume magazine called ODOU in the UK. He had read some of my stuff and asked if I would like to contribute; I said yes straight away and so I reworked a piece I had written around that time that I had called Perfume Haters, which he then featured in the first or second edition. I have to say that seeing myself in print was amazing; I then also did something for the literary magazine Shooter, a paen to perfume called Through Smoke; the ODOU piece the following year then winning the Jasmine Award Literary Prize, a truly exhilarating day in London where I got to meet a lot of the most celebrated perfume illuminati like Persolaise, The Candy Perfume Boy and Pia Long, who was also in the running with me – we were sitting next to each other at the back of the auditorium when the winner was announced – and who is now making her own perfumes as well as creating scents for houses such as Zoologist.

Those first years (2012- 2016, say), feel relatively ‘innocent’ to me now. Though in hindsight, we do often see our past experiences through rose-coloured spectacles, and probably if I were to go into the archives – which I don’t very often but find very interesting when I do as I have no idea what exists there – it is an Alice In Wonderland of The Self – I would find a lot of sturm und drang and psychomelodrama along with all the enthusing over Japanese fleamarkets and ‘recycle shops’ which were lot more abundant and full of eye and heart-busting vintage perfumes at that time: I don’t think The Black Narcissus has ever been just a repository of perfume note information, as I always wanted more and just can’t help myself, but it was, at least when I first started out, a lot more parfum.

That was then though: and this is now. The last five years have been crazy. For me, and for the world, everything has been far, far more tumultuous and difficult – a real rollercoaster ride of the nerves, and this has also been reflected very clearly on here. I simply wasn’t able to divorce myself from my own circumstances. From a personal perspective, for a start, in 2016 I suddenly found out that I had a degenerative condition of the knee in which in both legs almost all of the cartilage had worn away or disappeared – a genetic inheritance that was inevitable but probably not helped by living at the top of a steep hill in Kamakura, which I used to walk all the time and which became extremely painful. Soon, this necessitated a major operation, two months in a Japanese hospital and sixth months off work during which I had to learn to walk again, a rather difficult experience that was nevertheless greatly expedited and improved by being able to post from the hospital bed – almost immediately after surgery – and having exchanges with the truly lovely people who often frequent these pages. This was an extremely positive aspect of my memories from that time (five years ago today as I write I would still have been getting around the hospital in a wheelchair, writing ridiculous posts about god knows what and having fights or a lot of laughs with the nurses). Getting home after all of that I found that having all that time was actually wonderful for writing…….and probably if I could somehow do this as full time as a job I would, although I do think ultimately that working and being in the ‘real world’ teaching high school students is also good for me in many ways as it keeps me grounded, and gives me the feeling that I am doing something good for the world, rather than just indulging in extreme perfumed decadence.

On the subject of which, after a slide into a deep personal lowpoint around February 2018 (the aftermath of severe medical situations is underdiscussed), one very cold, miserable, grey rainy day full of fear and self-loathing in Kamakura I received an unexpected email that my book had finally found a potential publisher – and thus began the whiplashed ultra-energizing into London meetings and trying to put a book together at breakneck speed while working; both deliriously exciting and indescribably exhausting, with a strong dash of David & Goliath, followed by the delight of receiving the gold-finished tome in the post – a day I will never forget – and the promotional terrors of being on BBC radio live and making a commercial with an Italian notebook brand, beloved by Hemingway: Moleskine, being in the Japan Times, and then writing for Japan Vogue, among other things – I definitely had my Warholian more than five minutes of mini-fame, and it all happened because I kept writing non-stop on here and gradually got noticed. This was an amazing time in many ways; an unforgettable whirlwind of activity, drenched in perfume; I had it coming out of my eyeballs; I was able to read Perfume translated into Italian, and even got to be published in China.

At the same time, while all of this was going on (and a whole lot more), the world was moving generally in a violent and terrible direction, and I found that it was actually completely impossible to keep it all out of my ‘perfume blog’. Perfume has been a constant throughout; either new releases or vintage, or posts on smell in general, or on Japanese culture, as I love writing about that as well, and sometimes cinema, music and art, but the olfactory has always been the main focus by far as in many ways I feel we do live through smell, even in very difficult times. And yet the Outside will have its way and infiltrate absolutely everything.

Sometimes, it has been overwhelming. I am sure you have felt exactly the same. For me, beginning with the nationalistic fervour and lies of Brexit and then the threat of the possibility of Donald Trump becoming the president of the United States in 2016 – just writing that name has already polluted this post but it feels unavoidable to mention – was something I felt as akin to dark clouds looming over my spirit in a way that felt more than just political or emotional but also psychical, on quite a deep level – on a blood and brain level – and I know a lot of people, especially the more sensitive, feel and felt very similarly even if others close to me just thought I was going completely overboard and losing the plot. Each to their own. For me, though, it is all linked: the jingoism, the idiocy, the aggression, the bigotry, from Bolsonaro to Putin and now the unforgivably awful war that is happening as we speak – it is all in the same vein. Of macho bullshit and racist (and homophobic) intolerance. And then coupled with the excruciating two years of the pandemic, which thankfully we seem to be moving out of (hopefully?), but which was happening concurrently – precisely why kind Vladimir chose this time; cynically exploiting the vulnerability, with the madness (and it was madness) that ensued in societies as a whole, each with their own list of problems seemingly designed to drive you personally nuts, it has been a very very intense – to put it mildl – half a decade.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t know, being the person I am, I have been unable to divorce all of this from the perfume writing. The impulse to express is strong, but it is of course heavily coloured by what is going on around you. And sometimes I have embarrassed myself with almost incoherent posts of rage, or highly emotional outpourings about trapped in windowless rooms pre-vaccination or about the great impotence you feel watching Russian armies pointlessly rampaging through Ukrainian towns and massacring civilians ; or the intolerable rise of the hypnotizing demagogues in general, or people attacking other for wearing masks : all of it has pushed us to the limit of what we can deal with, and sometimes I have possibly ‘gone too far’.

And yet I think of The Black Narcissus as a continuing diary, a life lived in real time documented in words and pictures through the prism of smell, experience felt in any given moment and then described, no matter how unsettlingly, which is why I never delete posts, even if I don’t think they are very good or find them slightly mortifying. To me, they are all part of the tapestry, and in any case, the more honest those posts are, the more responses I seem to get from readers. When I think of all the words that exist in this space; not just the posts themselves but all the fascinating conversations that ensue in the comments section, I feel that writing this blog has truly been a thing of wonder. It has not just been nicey nicey, politey politey perfume chat, which can be relaxing and pleasant in its own right and certainly has an important place in this world – but also extremely beneficial – and it would seem mutually. For me, particularly during the double whammy of Donald and Covid – at the height of the berserkness generally, when I was reactive as a keg of kerosene, being able to vent on here and get such thoughtful, intelligent, understanding, sharp, and often hilarious responses was incredibly therapeutic and defusing for me psychologically; others contributing to various discussions also seemed to feel the same and we would toss in a Scent Of The Day as well for good measure just to retain some sanity and humour and keen perspective. Although tougher on the soul, I think of this latter Black Narcissus period as even more important to me.

So thank you. Some of you have been reading this off and on, or even continually, since its inception (arigato; it has been amazing). Others have tuned in more recently. Thank you to you too. I appreciate it all. All the personal interactions and musings on perfume and everything else have been like a life saver for me ; the whole a precious testament, and I intend continuing ad infinitum – as long as I am allowed.

Recently I have been concentrating on my Japan book – a far-reaching memoir, wide in scope, very personal, quite intense, and which I have written quite a lot of this spring holiday, I am really pleased about it how as these things don’t always flow, but this definitely has), and I will be presenting some of it to my agent soon when I am happy with how the sample chapters sound; and then hopefully will be working on a full book release at some point in the not too distant future if anyone seems to be interested. Simultaneously, I will, of course, be writing on here, continuing the daily/weekly/monthly/yearly cycle of experience and expression with you.

For me, it is a joy.

Having a fantastic three day discovering of Shizuoka prefecture, including the cities of Numazu, Mishima and Shizuoka – all far bigger than I had imagined, with dreamy neon underbellies.

Last night was a delirium of transcendent cinema and then getting lost in the cherry blossom festival at the castle, my mind and eyes oversaturated.

This morning was a much more standard Saturday coffee and shopping type morning – Shizuoka City swankier and more gleaming than I would have anticipated: they even had a Louis Vuitton, an institution I would never enter in Yokohama or Tokyo as the levels of brand veneration there is like drinking anti-freeze for my general serenity. But as D says, the people are ‘much less twitchy’ here, a notch or three lower on the service uptight-ometer; everything more relaxed in general, so I felt fine just doing a quick hand-sanitize and sauntering in for a mooch of the perfumes; and also because I have seen so many of the Léa Seydoux posters for Spell On You that I thought I should actually finally sniff it.

What’s it like?

Very pretty; a fine quality iris and violet with citrus and acacia that Ms Prim And Proper Of Paris Or Tokyo will probably adore. To me it is a modernized mash up ( but quite seamless in blending ) of Après- L’Ondee, with some Miracle by Lancôme, and perhaps a touch of Trésor in the mix as well ( that would be all the rose and the peach ). Fantastically assembled with its crisp powder; Orthodontically pristine, behind her enameled veneer – when she laughs, you marvel, enviously, at her sparkling teeth and eyes : lower your gaze, slowly to the pleats of her coat, the bag at her side ; and the immaculately selected shoes. Getting closer to the faultless throb of her perfume , you begin to feel ill : and peony nauseous.

Of similar ilk in terms of immediate mainstream acceptability is the fresh, red-floral shampoo- sheened berried camellia cosmetic spray mist that is the new citric floral Chanel No1. Pleasant, if highly familiar to anyone used to the tropes that are common in Japanese popular perfumery ( I can imagine No1 really going down a storm here) this is a very clean, uplifting, astringent, sparkling, quotidian fashion spritz : brisk, easy – an inoffensive daily contender like Clarins Eau Dynamisante.

But I have more interesting things to think about right now. The bus has just arrived at the station on the hill with an EXTRAORDINARY vista of Mt Fuji in front of cherry blossom. I am about to go on a cable car ( vertigo ? ‘what vertigo’) and sail right past it down to a National Treasure shrine that stands overlooking.

Catch you later

There is a lot of misunderstanding among those not in the know about perfume how long it actually lasts. Yes, some perfumes do ‘turn’. But many do actually in fact last in perfect – or near perfect – condition for decades, particularly if boxed. You can get an old Guerlain from the fifties or sixties and sit in utter amazement as you lift up the unstoppered flacon and inhale the incredibly unsullied beauty. Rochas lasts very well, as does Hermès. Caron extraits can remain immaculate for half a century, or even longer – no problem, their unctuous oils untroubled by time. Quality perfume is often a lot more resilient than you might think.

But what about the other products that are often sold together with liquid fragrance? Are they as durable? Soap, body lotion, shower gels? Not really. Obviously it depends; and I know nothing about chemistry so cannot comment on how different compounds deteriorate over the years in the scientific sense, but from my personal experience, these auxiliary extra indulgences do lose their scent much more quickly. Sometimes if you buy what was once a luxurious soap, deeply infused with your fragrance, it is now, with the passing of time, nothing much more than a mournful faint remembrance of its former self. If it is a cheap bargain bin mystery I don’t mind it his, and enjoy using it anyway, but if I pay more than I should for these elegant toiletries I can’t deny that there is sometimes a slight feeling of deception (look, though! a pristine rectangular stiff white paper box of Chanel Nº19 soap! How could I not? And the glorious ridiculousness of a Rive Gauche soap that comes in its own YSL plastic container and that inimitable silver, blue and black iconic packaging that I have always hugely enjoyed looking at (and which I might therefore take to work when it is used up and then fill it with paperclips…..) Being me, it is often impossible for me to resist such an item, because if it does pay dividends in the bath or shower, I will be set up for the rest of the day. I love how a well-scented hard soap lasts and imparts a more abstract groundwork for the rest of the fragrance, the same DNA, just a different branch of the family – a different perspective – which will then meldeven better right from the start when you apply the actual perfume, like a sword lowered into a chamois leather sheath.

Unfortunately, the soaps you see pictured above were quite disappointing. At least initially. Very underwhelming. Not very perfumed. I think what happens is that while the core of the product often stays scented, the outer layers get exposed to the air or the light over the years and gradually become much more attenuated. And so I was bored and a bit miffed with the generic old lather these were generating: not sufficiently scented, even, to accurately resemble the perfumes in question.

But now that the soaps are half used, a few baths and showers down the line, I am excited to report that they are really starting to come into their own. And both are divine. I have had better Nº19 savons de toilette in the past – some of the most pristine vintage versions of these soaps are utterly incredible in the iris and dark vetiver leather aura they produce as you are using them (current soaps in the line bear no resemblance whatsoever to this scent – I consider the modern version an entirely different perfume, ; quite a nice fresh green muguet/iris/modern sandalwood, but nothing like the original); but I used this original edition yesterday and was in love, seduced into a kind of hot water zen state until the time I started saying to myself “No : : : don’t use all of it now”. Likewise, the extraordinarily pleasant Rive Gauche savon, which, as a classic floral woody aldehydic template I use as a pre-base for wearing Calandre or Farouche (both by the same perfumer, Michael Hy), feels quite different from using a standard modern soap or shower gel, which I often do like by themselves in a different context, but not the way that they, and many shampoos and fabric conditioners, contaminate the scent profile you have carefully been preparing for that day, which then puts me in a state of permanent olfactory irritation. This is the beauty of a great soap like these when you find them – they give you harmony (which is is making me wonder, now, about a whole cache of vintage soaps I spotted the other day at a shop in Ofuna – Calèche, Eau D’Orange Vert, and intriguingly, Equipage, which I would really like to try in order to whip myself up into a more masculine lather – but they are not cheap, I think they were asking for 1400 yen each for the larger size and you never know which way they are going to go – nicely perfumed, or sud duds -until you use them. Mmm. I am tempted, but am currently trying to economize).

With its ergonomic container though (more soaps should come with a hermetically sealable dish like this!), I am going to take the Rive Gauche with me today in my travel bag on our trip to Shizuoka. We are travelling down and staying a couple of days to see the cherry blossom and do a mini hanami (flower viewing party) with some friends, go to a strange open air art museum with bizarre sculptures in the middle of nowhere and perhaps do some filming ; just catch up, generally, and take in the natural scenery of the prefecture famed for its fields of green tea and proximity to Moun Fuji- undoubtedly we will come home ladened down with matcha-themed souvenirs. On the way back from Mishima, we will also go to the cinema to see the only film I am willing to travel so far to experience – the newly released here Memoria, by one of my favourite ever directors, the visionary Apichatpong Weerasthukul, starring Tilda Swinton. I can’t wait to sit in an art cinema in a new city; scented correctly; lose myself; and bliss out into dreams.

I have the same Monday every year, frantically trying to watch the Oscars live via streaming services and failing every time. When I was a teenager, I would sometimes stay up very late in the evening to see it all live on TV in the UK and watch it until dawn : here in Japan, it is always a much more manageable time of around 9:30am, but even so, being the useless technofool that I am, all the scrambling leads to zilch, and I end up just trolling the red carpet photos and getting the news as it comes in via twitterfeeds and bleeped out press nuggets almost as they happen.

While doing this yesterday, though certainly no fashionista, I had presciently singled out Timothée Chalamet in his bare-chested girl’s tuxedo, Nicole Kidman in her lovely blue grey Armani Privé, David Oyelowo in his yellow and black suit ; and Jada Pinkett-Smith in her amazing green Jean Paul Gaultier crumpled gown (I hadn’t noticed the hair, just thought it was part of the look) as standout successes in the usual, overly tasteful sea of manicured mermaids. I am not into the sculptured goddess look as a whole, but Megan Thee Stallion looked luscious; Billie Eilish is always slightly ridiculous, but I somehow love her, and that song (when I did finally go to the cinema to see No Time To Die, a few months ago, the only time I have been in two years, my hairs stood on end when the theme song blasted out of the speakers, so great was my cinematic rapture at being back in the seat after so long. I am glad that she and her brother won).

I adore cinema, and I adore the Oscars, even if I am ‘hate-watching’ such programmes a lot of the time, in a slightly sardonic perversity I don’t even truly understand myself. Artistically, for me there is no doubt that this doesn’t even vaguely compare to Cannes in terms of merit – I am way more a Palme D’Or guy than an Academy Award Best Film winner sucko, the vast majority of which in all honesty I haven’t liked – Green Book, The Shape Of Water, Crash, Beautiful Mind, Birdman, No Country For Old Men, The King’s Speech, Moonlight, Million Dollar Baby, The Hurt Locker – for me they are nothing but meh : I sit watching them dutifully with a slightly bored film over my eyes- all fine productions in their way, and with worthy themes, but at the heart, gut and aesthetic level they don’t do anything for me. They are literally built for The Oscars. Parasite was kind of exciting; I haven’t seen Nomadland yet, nor CODA, but one of the reasons I was so eager to see the ceremony yesterday was because I really wanted Jane Campion to get Best Director, having loved her films since the first time I saw Sweetie back in the nineties as a student at an art cinema in Cambridge; An Angel At My Table, the astonishing The Piano which left me reeling in the car park it was so intoxicating, A Portrait Of A Lady, and the wonderfully erotic and langourously violent In The Cut – I am a huge fan, even if I didn’t like The Power Of The Dog at all and didn’t want it to win Best Picture. It was this news, though, that I was waiting for as I checked my phone every few minutes to find out who had won exactly what.

(I haven’t seen The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, by the way, much as I would like to, as I quite like Jessica Chastain and think she has been lying under the radar for slightly too long: I watched her in a violent action movie the other day, AVA, and thought she was perfect in it)

Before we get onto the ins and outs and the nitty gritty of – gasp in horror! – Best Actor…. in the Actress category, I love or admire all of those nominated and so was quite happy for any of them to win. I watched the underrated fashion art horror film, ‘Personal Shopper’, by Olivier Assayas again the other night in a state of quasi hypnosis, totally under the spell of the sheer beauty of Kristen Stewart, whose nervous tics and mannerisms can get a bit samey at times but who I am still stoked to see in Spencer (can she really get the essence of Princess Diana?!). Had she won the statuette, it would have been cool; also just to see an actress go up to the podium in Chanel shorts – which I thought looked kind of fresh.

Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz would have been great selections too, though they already have both already won one, just like Olivia Coleman, whose The Lost Daughter I quite liked in a way, although I am more likely to be head over heels in love with Madres Paralleles, which I have heard is fantastic and quite transporting- being a lifelong Pedro Almovodar devotee, I truly can’t wait to see this! )

In the Best Actor category, I actually wanted Will Smith to win. I don’t know why exactly, as I am not a fan as such, and find him quite annoying and smug at times : his jug-eared Hollywood ‘everyman’ schtick – Mr Popular, at least until yesterday – can grate, especially in dreadful films I have seen him in such as Independence Day, Men In Black, I am Legend, and the truly abominable Aladdin (watching it at the students’ requests, last year I felt a little guilty at how erotic I was finding his blue genie, though – the same thing happened with Sam Worthington in Avatar – why are naked male blue non-humans so damn arousing?). If I do find him personally visually appealing to a certain extent, on another level, I am also always quite interested in actors who manage to slough off their limiting albatross (in his case, light-hearted blockbuster action comedies), and transcend their own cliché. There is something inspiring for me in this, because I really do think that being pigeon-holed and typecast in the eyes of others is a kind of prison. I know that Will Smith has acted in serious films before such as Ali, but I have a really hard time watching bio-pics in general as I find them to be one of the worst genres of film-making and so have never seen him in any of them (the Chilean director of Spencer, Pablo Larrain, in contrast, takes artistic risks: his Natalie Portman take on Jackie O, ‘Jackie’, was flawed, but quite visually mesmerizing in a Kubrickian kind of way; taking the essence of a historical figure and then kaleidoscoping it through his own prism; getting to the character in deeper levels; not as literal (but superficial) as many of these performances that are worshipped by the ‘Academy’).

Also, in truth I don’t particularly like any of the other actors who were contenders for the trophy. Javier Bardem was perfect in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, probably the best romantic comedy I have ever seen, alongside Cruz, Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johannson – all resplendent – as a grand, but very human, (and very attractive) seducer, as well as in earlier Spanish movies such as Live Flesh, but since that time I have found him overdone and absurd, for example, as Bond Villains or psychopaths, even if I am open to whatever he got up to acting wise in Being the Ricardos (Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball is a stretch, no? It sounds like essential viewing). As for the other actors, I was almost angered by the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch got so much praise of Power Of The Dog, as I personally found his one-note repressed homo stare unconvincing and tedious. I also have some kind of hang up about Andrew Garfield, and cannot watch him (which means I will, as I always confront my own prejudices in this regard); I don’t especially like Denzel Washington either as I find him too self-righteous and ‘portentous’ in everything I have seen him in (guilty pleasures like The Equalizer: I will also definitely watch him in The Tragedy Of Macbeth as I am intrigued as how he will work with Frances McDormand). Good, though, that he had the sense to take his fellow nominee immediately aside after The Incident and calm him down before his predicted acceptance speech – things might have got really out of hand otherwise.

Which, obviously, finally all brings us to The Moment, guaranteed to become one of the most notorious in Hollywood History and viral Internet history, and which I missed seeing live by just a couple of minutes – refreshing my screen as we lay like lumpards in a pile of blankets and pillows – I almost felt like I was experiencing ghost symptoms of whatever D was having; suddenly woken up with a start, though, by the ‘OMFG’ moment of ‘what just happened?’ just after it happened- (though a large part of me was already paralyzingly, exhaustingly bored the second I saw it : as I could see, as if in ffwd, the sheer amount of gushing and opinionizing and the agonizing volume of words that will be numbingly churned out over this incident, the ones you are reading now included – the very real feeling of why do we care about this bullshit so much?! – but concurrently, very aware of its ‘cultural importance’; or at the very least, the astonishing fact of, as the New York Times so hilariously summed it up today, the world was able to witness a megastar attack someone on the same stage that he will a few minutes later receive the first, and undoubtedly last, Oscar of his life –

“DRAMA AT THE OSCARS: WILL SMITH DELIVERS A HIT, THEN LANDS A WIN”.

Yes, this was definitely a ‘wait, what?‘ thing. I quickly hit the non-censored snippet of Smith striding up to the stage like a raging bull and hitting Chris Rock in the face and then coming back into the audience, still apoplectic and shouting back threateningly, and felt my heart racing – there is enough aggression in my own personal history to make this what is called a ‘triggering’ event I suppose : the flight or fight response (god knows how Rock regained his composure): it was unbelievable. The dramaqueen paparazzo in me (Burning Bush) immediately had me cackling though and handing the phone over urgently to a still temperature-ridden and dazed Duncan as he looked at it in confusion before giving it back to me again so I could rewatch and make sure that I was actually seeing what I was seeing.

THE SHEER DRAMA! AT THE OSCARS! What a mindblowingly (self)destructive moment for Will Smith (I am imagining the whole family, including the incredibly cool fashion icon children Jaden and Willow, standing with mugs of coffee around the kitchen table still going over it together; how the actor’s moment, which everything his life had presumably been leading to, was ruined and completely overshadowed (not to mention Jessica Chastain’s, as there was a pall over everything from that moment on, including for the Best Picture). Trying to digest it all, and work out what he could next. To question his actions.

That he could lose his rag so quickly and resort to physical violence in the blink of an eye. And commit what is actually a crime: a physical assault, which logically could lead to charges by the police. And this should not be sanctioned : it should be treated seriously. But despite his huge popularity, there obviously will be consequences for Smith – I heard that there were discussions even about having to return the Oscar: there will be attorneys and laywers and interviews and contrition and all the rest of it, not to mention jokes and memes for years and years to come. He will literally never live it down. And neither will Chris Rock.

Onto the inevitable subject of whom, I am really not a fan. One reason being that his voice is harsh and high pitched and strident and irritating, and another simply that I personally can’t stand that kind of stand up comedy – because I hate comedy itself. Because I have no sense of humour. I am humourless. No, it presumably isn’t that, as I know that the odd sentence or two has ‘raised a chuckle’ among you on here over the years. But if not that then, what is it? I do think that laughter is, as the saying goes, the very best medicine. I love spontaneous humour, wit in the moment, repartee – although I also do have to say that I find the pressure to have people clutching their bellies with mirth in social situations all the time indescribably tiring (it’s very much of a male thing: in the absence of ability to discuss real emotion, we/they resort to jokes; and ‘ribbing’ and ‘joshing’ and ‘taking the piss’ and often being very cruel at the expense of other people, which is why I entirely avoid that kind of environment as much as is humanly possible). I do have one comedian friend; the US, but London-based stand-up comedienne Spring Day, who said to me that when I saw her live in Tokyo at some little comedy club tucked under a bypass somewhere in the deep womb of the city a few years ago, she immediately recognized me as the ‘asshole who was going to give me a hard time’, misunderstanding my facial expression of discomfiture as someone deliberately opposed to her or determined not to laugh. In fact the opposite was true: I was desperate to laugh, as I find the pressure to do so intensely unpleasant (when I was dragged into seeing Harry Enfield live in London once, I was dying from start to end and just praying to be let out of there I found it all so uncomfortable). In Spring’s case, she genuinely is hilarious in her self-deprecating, fiercely observant, New York kind of way, and fortunately I was eventually laughing and drinking and relaxing a bit: relieved on her behalf: otherwise, you will never seen me at a comedy night out of choice. I just find it mortifying. 

Is it also possible that I have just ‘been in Japan too long’, and have become accustomed to a more heightened level of civility? (well done to Ryusuke Hamaguchi by the way for Best International Feature with Drive My Car- a good friend of mine here with quite similar cinematic tastes said that this film is an absolute masterpiece and a must see but I need a version with English subtitles). Not being anywhere near Japanese-fluent enough (and I never will be), I am completely unable to understand the finer intricacies of the comedy here nor understand rapid-fire humorous anecdotes around me (my fault entirely): but one thing I do know is that there is a definitely a time and a place for humour; perhaps too strictly defined and compartmentalized, like a lot of this society; but while in stand-up situations in a club, or in jokes among friends almost anything goes, when it comes to ceremonies and big media events or even wedding speeches, the humour here is much lighter, less personal, less targeted and nasty; there doesn’t seem to be the same spirit of lampooning and mercilessly mocking individuals for the sake of it, probably because humiliation itself here is one of the worst things that most people can imagine. As a result, most people don’t want to publicly inflict it on others either. 

I am a person with very thin skin. Very. Put simply, I am hypersensitive. In a variety of ways, most of which I feel blessed to have been born with in the creative sense because it makes me who I am, but in terms of being insulted, I am almost psychotically reactive, particularly when it comes to being deliberately offended due to physical appearance. You can criticize my character – fine, I deserve it probably; I am so over the top and volatile and emotional, I know that – but an intentionally hurtful comment about how I look will really not go down well. Partly this is just sheer vanity and insecurity, I realize, but people do also have a sadistic tendency to go after former pretty boys who looked like Timothee Chalamet in their youth, and really make them know how dreadful they look now in fat, old comparison. This is 100% not a cry for flattery {“You look great!” etc}: I personally think I look fine for my age and that is not the point. It is other people, with their unkind and mean impulses (vile comedians like Ricky Gervais, who I detest) who are the insecure themselves villains here, but also quite often those who you encounter in daily life, people who choose to bring you down by pinpointing your weakpoints for the entertainment and grim satisfaction of others (Incidentally, I once referred to actually being bullied in this way in a piece on The Black Narcissus called Blindness; if you want an extra dose of cruelty gossip after this one please look it up and give it a click – it is about a bitter old bastard I was working with for many years who literally made a colleague of mine temporarily go blind because of the stress he caused her with his daily assaults on her self-confidence as well as giving another one stomach also ; I myself was also not immune to his sadism and was really quite emotionally and physically affected). In essence, to not look at fifty how you did at twenty is a crime in some people’s eyes. To not have the perfect face or hair. To not having long, flowing locks. To me, of course, this way of thinking is profoundly unphilosophical, immature, and moronic, not to mention horrible, and a total waste of time. Go and find something better to do instead! But for some people, finding fault with those they encounter and making them feel shit about themselves is a favourite pastime.

Which I suppose is all a very round about way of saying that although Will Smith has certainly set a dangerous precedent for free speech by hitting someone in the face whose ‘joke’ didn’t sit well with him (this is actually quite scary, when you think about it, as it means that any performer on stage has to censor themselves for fear not only of offence, which ties into the often oppressive cancel culture as a whole, but also physical violence: you say the wrong thing in the heat of the moment and get punched or worse), and can easily be described as a symptom of ‘toxic masculinity’ in general – testosterone rising quickly to the surface and resulting in a physical outburst with dire repercussions. As a volatile man myself, though, who isn’t immune to zero-to-sixty loss of temper, it almost hurts me to admit that I can completely understand why he acted the way he did. After all, this was a heat of the moment thing. None of it was planned. Probably not even Chris Rock’s line about Jade Pinkett’s hair either: he saw the couple laughing in the audience, and in the intensely spotlit, adrenaline-drenched performative anxiety of having tens or hundreds of millions of people around the world looking at you waiting to make them laugh out loud and therefore desperately using whatever available material feeds into your neurons at that given moment, Rock saw the opportunity for a cheap laugh sitting in the audience (and saying “When are you going to do GI Jane II?” is surely not the most terrible thing a person could have said: it is quite ‘light’ compared many of the jibes and barbs stand ups make in order to purposely make the audience members cringe); but then again, in that split second of using someone’s physical appearance to have a laugh at their expense, he is also not taking into account at all the feelings nor the background of the person being publicly embarrassed, harassed; someone seen to be a ‘fair target’ but who has also been through a very difficult time and is undoubtedly intensely self-conscious of their appearance; quite desperate not to have a poison-tipped arrow shot into their Achilles heel (hair loss is traumatic, and I know people that have had alopecia and the effect it has had on them: what’s next? Pointing and guffawing at people going through chemo? ). Will Smith himself, also ultra-adrenalized from the proceedings, of living inside the tension of the potential culmination of an entire life’s work and potentially winning his chosen industry’s ultimate prize, and probably also a little extra volatile from a few pre-event drinks I imagine – the bubbly always seems to be flowing on the red carpet – then heard his wife being publicly singled out for cruelty; and in that spur of the moment, he lost control.

If it was D, I can’t guarantee 100% that I wouldn’t do the same. When you love someone, you want to protect them. If you feel someone’s pain that intensely, you might react. Even physically. I am not condoning the lack of self-control, but I do understand it, as it is not necessarily my own strong point either. When riled up to the point of no return, sometimes you cross a red line, and when anger takes over your brain, sometimes a different impulse takes over and there is no turning back. This happened to me several times during the pandemic, when I was so outraged at certain things that were, or rather weren’t, in terms of safety, happening at the office, that the magma that burned through my veins until the point that I boiled over caused me to shout at loud volumes and let out tirades that really shocked people around me: once I started, there was no going back until I had let it all out. I still think that what I was furious about was 100% logical and rational – and it is all on here so I am not going to rehash it as I am managing now to put all that behind me – but the psychological mechanisms of not being able to resist the floodgates were not. It is a psychological vulnerability. Having a ‘short fuse’: I was reading an extended article recently on Will Smith about King Richard, his life, and how we was continuing battling his personal demons (as we all are), and in all honesty, I could sympathize with what he was saying. I think we expect our celebrities or role models not to be prey to the same fallibilities as regular human beings, that the price they pay for all the wealth and fame and accolades they receive is an expectation that they will behave and show the greatest mental resilience; but we are also in a moment where human beings all over the globe are bursting out of repressed boxes in all spheres of life and refusing to do what they are ‘supposed to’. Things are changing. Athletes like Naomi Osaka are admitting to mental health issues and the strains of public attention and are refusing to conform to the strictures of the media that damage them ; Simone Biles and a score of other gymnasts have come forward and talked of the deeply traumatizing effects of sexual abuse at USA Gymnastics, resulting in an inability to perform competitively at the Tokyo Olympics. Of course, there is (perhaps understandably), backlash against this ‘mollycoddling’ of the rich and famous, and insistence that they should just get on with the job that they have been paid a lot of money to do and stop whining, but the internet and social media have truly pierced the precious membrane of fame: we no longer see even the most successful personalities as static wax figurines from Madame Tussauds; or the old Hollywood stars of yore who seemed almost mythical and imaginary smiling into the flashbulbs; now, they are real life flesh and blood human beings like the rest of us, far more vulnerable than before now that so much information is constantly available to anyone with just the touch of a key. The distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’, has, to a large extent, collapsed.

So, how serious and important was this shocking infraction on the norms of an annual Hollywood celebration? In many ways, I don’t give a damn about any of it (totally contradicting the fact that I have spent a whole day writing this), because, obviously, there are much more serious things in the world to think about right now and it is all, ultimately, just spoiled, rich, celebrity culture rubbish. Nonsense, and a storm in a tea cup. It will, at some point soon, all just get swept underneath the tiger skin rug and (somewhat) forgotten. But, on a deeper level, it is also possible that what happened yesterday is all indicative of wider things that are happening in the culture, the sense that we are all exploding. That this represents something significant (in terms of aggressor and defender, for example, who is Russia and who is Ukraine in this equation, Will Smith or Chris Rock?). Smith is the one who had the childish inability to limit his own emotions and physical movements enough to avoid the ensuing ‘disaster’ that overcame him; but his wife was the one who was also being pitilessly lampooned and attacked in front of so many people by Rock (and because of something she herself had absolutely no control over; it really was a kind of punching below the belt), so can we say that her husband’s wounded and ‘valiant’ response in was any way justified? Not legally, it goes without saying, nor in terms of what should be considered acceptable as public behaviour, especially at such a prestigious event. But emotionally, I have to say to some extent it probably is. But he will pay the price for it: his reputation will never be the same again, he himself will become a joke; the extent to which his portrayal of the violent and aggressive nature of the character he played in the role that won him the Oscar – the controlling father of Venus and Serena Williams – was actually acting, or just him playing his ‘natural, bullying’ self, will also be called into question; as will what this behaviour will do in terms of racial stereotyping : a lot of people from the community that he represents as well as those outside it are understandably up in arms. It was a serious error of judgement. He will not be able to escape it. And the stink of it all – the stench of the id rising up unexpurgated into the ether – is probably, I would imagine, going to follow him around; hang around his person, for an extremely long time.

We were tidying up the kitchen the other day when we found a full unused bottle of current Nº5 eau de parfum I had been sent by Vogue and which had rolled under the sofa. I knew it was around somewhere and was itching to find it and try it on – just for a reappraisal.

Wearing a couple of sprays on the back of my right hand as we headed into Yokohama for Ricci Farouche retrieval – more on that in another post – I was first of all amazed by how familiar and comforting it smelled. Duh, you may cry in unison – this is Chanel Nº5 we are talking about: of course it smells familiar: it is the most famous perfume in the world.

But I mean familiar and comforting, in a much more lived in, intimate way : I know this smell. And then I realized – it is my mum. And my parents’ room upstairs back home. She has always had several bottles of Nº5 – mainly the contemporary eau de parfum or toilette bought as presents by my dad when off abroad on aircraft trips, as well perhaps a vintage extrait or two I have brought back home from the fleamarkets here (but you know, this is one of the only perfumes where I stray from the solemn vintage niche-istas to admit that I actually do prefer the current versions, despite my understanding of the gorgeousness of the flower extracts and civet in the original parfum, and the warmer poeticisms, more balsamic and dreamy, in some of the old colognes and edts.I personally like the uncluttered freshness of this version, unlaced with animalics.)

Sprayed newly : it just smells so…………..rounded and lovely and easy and casual and bathroby : of soaps and towels and safety and a nuzzling quality of happiness and comfort in one’s skin; so …happy and relaxing. I know that Nº5 is usually advertised as the great occasion scent – galas, formal dinners in pearls and your best diamonds; all Kidman neck, Deneuve demure grandeur – and it can be that – but for me, overall this perfume is just too satiny and friendly – more pillow underslip simplicity than fabulous gown.

Given the almost mythical, curvaceous womanliness of this Chanel flagship scent – surely one of the most brilliant and brilliantly marketed products ever created, a bottle ‘sold every minute’, or whatever the legend is in France – it might seem strange that I, not very womanly in fact, should smell so good in Nº5. But I realized the other day that the contemporary edp really does kind of suit me (Just like Brad Pitt!). Yes, the initial flourish of overdone aldehydes is rather feminine to say the least, especially when coupled with the fabulous ylang ylang in the head – surely this is the ylang ylang scent of all time? Catherine? What do you say? The essential oil of cananga odorata truly SINGS in this composition – more important by far than the Grasse jasmine, roses and iris – it is definitely the ylang that forms the essential intoxication, and I love it. On me, while the iridescence of all the other notes : neroli, muguet, bergamot, (violet)?) gradually subsides into something more gentle; the softly vanillic sandalwood of Bois Des Isles then comes into play (I was stunned when D said he really liked it on me as we sat down to lunch ‘Is it sandalwood?’) There is a muskiness, for sure, never my favourite facet in any scent, but in the current version this is not like the nitro musks of the vintage which I can’t personally abide. The whole here is more like a luxuriant bubblebath; a whoosh of protectant light-pink euphoria that lasted for twelve hours at least on my skin, leaving just a warm trace that I liked having there. I know that Marilyn Monroe would have worn it better, but it doesn’t stop me from having a go myself.

Later in the evening, after an amazing day out, I then had a few more abundant sprays before going to bed; and when I brought the coffee up in the morning, was delighted by how the whole room smelled the next day – just……………..ideal. Homely. It made me feel almost homesick actually, and although I don’t overtly associate this with my mum – that would be Van Cleef’s First or Nº22, which she has worn more of late – I know that this scent has woven its way into my consciousness over successive visits as the smell of the upstairs of my parent’s house (on the subject of which, when we were talking about this scent the other day, D told me that as a young child he had climbed into his mother’s closet one day, and selecting this as his prey, then unthinkingly just unstoppered a full bottle of Nº5; and poured it all out straight onto the carpet – must have been pretty fragrant……………………..)

All of the legendariness and anecdotal power above might make it all sound as if Chanel Nº5 really is the perfume to suit all of humanity as often advertised, but, you know, it really isn’t (one of the ridiculous old taglines in the ads was : “Every woman alive, loves Chanel Nº5” – which is clearly absolute claptrap – I know plenty of people who absolutely hate it.) Just the other day a friend, in fact, unprovoked, mentioned the musk in the base and illustrated it with a vomit emoji; another told me that her father often buys her mother the parfum for birthdays and Christmases even though she doesn’t even like it, and never has – come to think of it, I have heard this several times; this is a real mistake on some men’s part, as clever commercials aside, no fragrance will please ever everybody, because that is simply not what fragranceing is all about. On some, the aldehydes sit like spare dinners on the skin, unwanted – just……wrong; outdated, fleshily artificial.

On others, conversely, Nº5 can be divine. I remember in particular one occasion when I first came to Japan and was lacking in real friendships for a time and quite lonely. One day, we had a new teacher from Scotland by way of Australia who at first seemed very stern of eye and unfriendly – ‘Oh god, who is this?‘ I thought to myself at the time : ‘And what kind of accent does she call thar ?”I was initially quite judgemental and unimpressed. Going home together on the train that evening, though, during a lull in the slightly forced conversation, a strange thing started to happen. It was as though her perfume were doing the talk for her; filling in all the gaps and ellipses – her silence, her body even, was speaking to me (in)directly and building an entirely different connection to the superficial words we were exchanging, and I found this alchemical effect extraordinarily unloosening; as I shifted closer in my seat I began to warm to her; looked at her more intently (we later became great friends). Naturally, the perfume was Nº5, and she wore it to perfection, as of course does my mum, without even realizing it, and who I consider to be the ultimate Queen Of Aldehydes.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

XXXXX

Unfortunately, Farouche has become a necessity. ‘Unfortunately’ : because it was long discontinued and is something of a rarity, and because now I need a stable and regular supply.

It is so beautiful. Of all the woody aldehydes , it is possibly the most understated, subtle, elegant, ‘difficult’; moody. The most androgynous. And possibly the most poetic.

It has been a slow burner. And it is certainly not sexy on me. But I find it immensely calming and dignifying; and the bottle you see above is now down to a low third.

We are going out to Yokohama tomorrow, where in one particular shop, locked away in a glass cabinet in a basement antique place near the sea, I know for sure that there is a long untouched vintage parfum.

N: One of the things I like about you is that when you go out of a day or an evening, you are not afraid to just browse the collection and try something new that takes your fancy. You are quite adventurous. I plan these things in advance as a whole, because if I get it wrong, the whole night might be ruined.

D: Thank you – though sometimes that adventurousness comes just from not being able to find what I had in mind – and being in a rush!!

N: You were out in Kawasaki the other day with Yukiro and when he complimented you on the scent you were wearing and you told him it was called ‘Inclusive Disco’, he burst out laughing. Why do you think this is? Is the name one step of PC-packaged nonsense too far?

D: I like that a perfume is called ‘Inclusive Disco’. There is something a little comical in it because it is so earnestly well-meaning – this is apparently what the brand is all about – diversity, peace, positivity etc.. It is also rather over-ambitious! I mean, how would you render the scent of an ‘inclusive disco’ in reality? It certainly wouldn’t smell like this. It would be way more chaotic and motley when you think of inclusive discos we’ve been to in Berlin or LA back in the day… That said, I like the title and I liked Yukiro’s response. I think he was surprised by the name and then his mind was grappling with how it might be ‘inclusive’ and he said, “Is it because you are including everyone in this restaurant?” which is a kind of private joke between us: I overdid Sancti (by Les Liquides Imaginaires) at Ken’s opera performance recently and the person next to me had to move!!! Oops!

N: Do we like this scent? It is described as being a leather incense and oriental floral; to me it is more about synthetic fruitiness, but I kind of enjoy the overall vibe in a way. If you were praised for how good it smells there must be something alright going on.

D: On first sniff, I was underwhelmed, but after wearing it the other day I am duly converted. It has good staying power and a cheery modern vibe, not unlike COMME des GARÇONS Concrete. I like these musk-melded modern incenses on myself. But whereas Concrete plays out in sandalwood, this tapers off in peace-loving musk.

N: The message I get from the visual presentation of this perfume is that this is an inclusive disco for those of any race and gender, as long as you are tall, lanky, skinny, under 25, and could be a model in a campaign for Gucci or Burberry. Otherwise, get the fuck outta-hayrrr. This is surely a very exclusive disco, like Studio 54, with a faschion-fascist door policy.

D: Well yes I agree. Like I said, an inclusive disco worthy of the name would neither smell like this scent or look like that. But that doesn’t stop me liking the scent – it suits me and is definitely chirpy. I would wear it to an inclusive disco gladly – but it would only be one tincture in the mix!

N: A real inclusive disco would be like that place we went to in Kreuzberg, which really wowed us because it was like nothing we had ever seen before. Literally all kinds of people; older straight couples, young technoheads, bearded men covered in piercings and nose rings and tattoos snogging each other on sofas and it all feeling very natural – it was one of the reasons we were so drawn to that city as it felt different to anywhere else we had ever been before. Gay places can be extremely excluding – in Tokyo there are strictly under this age or that age policies – men or women aren’t allowed in etc: Berlin felt more open.

D: I know. It’s so affirming to have those spaces. Ah Berlin! How I miss it.

N: I like the Ukraine cushion you made yesterday. I can’t remember where you got the material from.

D: From a little shop in Kamakura that does all these brightly-coloured felty things at quite reasonable prices. I think they are made in Thailand.

N: My favourite is the divine Japanese green Ziggy Stardust one you did recently from an old kimono obi I picked up from a junk shop for your birthday last year. I love it.

D: Thanks. I love gold with green. Opulent but also eccentric somehow.

N: We are going out to meet Joan down the hill and go round some temples and discuss the world, life, death and what comes after. I think I am sticking with the vestiges of vetiver oil + vintage Nina Ricci Farouche parfum de toilette I have been wearing as it is keeping me on a distancingly even keel. How about you?

D: Kind of in a Jicky mood today.

N: Right. We’d better start our ablutions and get ready to go out.

D: Just about to hop in the shower!

The camellias and magnolias are all out.

Traditionally in Japan, camellias and magnolia are said to stand for perseverance : the red camellia the flower of the warrior – it represents a noble death.

As I stood underneath this magnificent tree in a local park, with its lulling medicinality , I thought about the situation in Ukraine and how harrowing it must be there.

I was surprised, also, to see an anti-war sign put up outside someone’s house – a very rare sight here, though it is true that I have seen protestors at stations carrying placards and people wearing face masks in yellow and blue in support : the revulsion and rejection of so much of the world very deeply palpable. Despite the ongoing atrocities, it gives me a vague sense of optimism.

May this conflict be resolved as soon as humanly possible.