The Black Narcissus

ON PERSONALITY, VERSATILITY, AND HERMES EAU DE NARCISSE BLEU (2013)

Strolling down a road I have never been down before (how can it have taken me so long to go in the opposite direction?) I not only discovered a – today closed but – very beckoning, curious looking recycle shop, but also an entire temple complex – complete with miniature ukiyo-o-e museum, to which I will inevitably return.

Sometimes on these extended lunch breaks I feel lonely. Not so today : in the blissfully warm, autumnal sunshine I sat on a stone ledge beneath a tall cypress tree and just felt the air.

In front of this wooden sliding screen window, before a house in the grounds, was a beautiful yuzu tree; with thick, crinkly skin; just a graze of its tight, crenellated surface enough to release some of its scent; the sacrosanct atmosphere forbidding all theft ( I am terrible when it comes to citrus ).

Even the cold pressed yuzu oil somehow doesn’t render the unique beauty of this long prized natural essence. The Muji essential oil I bought recently worked nicely in an iyokan, grapefruit lip balm/ vaseline hand cream I have given to some students ( for optimism and positivity ), some friends and myself called The Magic Orange, but it was more likely the iyokan-bright eye opener that starred there; the yuzu more a cameo background.

A drop on my toothpaste in the afternoon was quite enjoyable (deliciously cleansing and gum-clean), but still, I have never really found anything yuzu inspired that comes close to the natural peel. There are countless Japanese made solid perfumes, hand creams, body sprays that feature yuzu; some quite nice but usually with that synthetic unwanted undertow that you always hone in on.

In perfume the yuzu it is often too sweet (Oyedo by Diptyque; a real toothacher); brash ( Heeley Note De Yuzu; nice but a bit too late 90’s gay club); odd (Parfumerie Generale’s minty Yuzu Ab Irato); flouncy yet drab (Yuzu by J-Scent, Yuzu Fou) or even non-existent (Caron’s rubbish Yuzu Homme, which seems not to contain even a single drop).

No. It is best in the fruit.

Just picked from the branch with its prickled twig; rubbed on the skin..

Just been to an interesting Man Ray exhibition at the beautiful Hayama Museum Of Modern Art just down the coast from Kamakura.

If it weren’t for the fearful, almost hostile women patrolling the gallery

I would have taken and put up a picture of the beautiful Sleeping by Schiaparelli- a parfum bottle of which was standing next to some exquisite Lucien Lelong and Guerlain Lius and Shalimars for aesthetic and historical context ( he also photographed Chanel )

I felt such a fierce longing to smell the liquid in that housed off, security alarmed bottle ; three quarters full, I wonder what it is like ? What a great antidote / riposte to Shocking : ‘Sleeping’: fitting so well with the portraits of Dali, Cocteau, Juliette Greco – a lovely photograph of Catherine Deneuve, many of Kiki de Montparnasse

Immersed in the artist’s Dadaist/ surrealist creative fertility, leaving the space for the sea air I feel stimulated, energized : awake

A pleasantly warm, mid-registered, and very berryish confection by Miller Harris, Myrica Muse, the latest release from the popular British house, is a lightly spiced, woody musk-vanilla with fresh notes of tangerine, pink pepper, bayberry and a very vivid strawberry that cedes gently to a base accord of amber, benzoin, and rum.

Created by perfumer Emilie Bouge, and described by the brand as being

” A stolen pause, enjoyed alone, quiet, elegant and in reflection for the joy to come..“

Myrica Muse is one of those easygoing, medium-heat perfumes (in the mode of, say, Dior’s Eau De Dolce Vita) that work well at this time of year as we go into winter; a little tingling, perhaps, but not too spicy; present, but not overpowering (and thus perfect for the workplace); a little flirty and fruity, but not juvenile. Although I sometimes wonder who Miller Harris’ intended current audience is – the brand’s previous incarnation, under Lyn Harris, created perfumes that were far edgier, actively different and strange (both dark and transparent – think Terre De Bois), whereas the Miller Harris releases of recent years have been much sweeter and more commercial, in thicker, more vanillic and powdery releases such as Violet Ida, Blousy and Brighton Rock,; yetthe brand still has an intrinsic appeal. ( I fell in love, eventually, with the tulip-inked saffron and cinnamon Bertrand Duchaufour oddness that is Tender. )

I can see Myrica Muse doing well here in Japan (the genus myrica refers to a variety of medicinally used berries such as myrtle and bay as is quite an appealing concept), in a place where perfumes with a woodier, but not oud-threatening, vibe, are quite popular. As a bay lover myself (coincidentally, the neighbours across the road recently felled the beautiful bay tree out on the street that I have been surreptitously pinching leaves from at night for years to put in chicken and vegetable stews – I was actually planning to do a piece called Levelling The Laurel ; the other night, seeing that the precious leaves would just go to waste and be discarded in Wednesday’s biotrash, I quietly carted off whole bayleaf branches that are now drying nicely in our kitchen).

I would have liked a little more herbal depth; more contrast with the fruit and flowers, and definitely a more pronounced note of bay, which provides a fuzzy backdrop in the perfume here, but is not directly tangible.

Then again, it’s often difficult to satisfy the more demanding perfumistas such as myself in tandem with the casually browsing man or woman on the street : our wants and needs are probably slightly different. I must say though that the overall ‘kind and positive aura’ this scent gives off – an unseamed, general sweetness that I was quite pleased to walk back into the room for – worked rather well on the D, who has taken to wearing many different kinds of perfumes recently that stray slightly outside his comfort zone (he is quite adventurous in this regard and was open to this one immediately). As the current balmy Autumn weather falls to a late Autumn chill, I can easily imagine Myrica Muse – worn lightly on a scarf or under a sweater – as the breath becomes gradually more visible in the city night air and you cup your hands to your face at the chosen meeting spot, being an optimistic, heartlifting buffer to the cold.

Forget Krueger, Jason, Michael Myers. True horror lies in the smell of the durian. Also known as the ‘stink fruit’ or ‘vomit fruit’, this juiceless, horned, peel-fleshy nightmare has been variously described as smelling like rotting onions, and over-filled diaper, or, by the late gourmand Anthony Bourdain, as being like ‘French kissing your dead grandmother’. To me, it smells like industrialized, concentrated garlic dipped in acid and vats of overripe parsnips, with echoes of mango, papaya and other flagrant tropical fruit (I remember driving through Indonesian villages in Java and the pungent aroma of the much prized delicacies, stacked up on village corners, being so overpowering you had to immediately close the window; and yet, I think I got it : part of me can definitely understand the attraction to the fruit’s \ bouquet, riven with its very sensual, hard-hitting fecundity; but only from a distance. Up close, it makes me almost heave). Though I have eaten durian desserts at a Chinese restaurant in Ginza – when tempered, messed with and toned down by a good chef, the rather acrid, masculine belch of this fruit can be rendered much more pleasing – ; by itself, at least for one not used to it, this fruit is unutterably vile.

It should obviously go without saying that your reaction to the durian will completely depend on your cultural background. There are hundreds of millions of people who adore and deeply value this addictive and expensive fruit (imported durians go in Shinjuku for $50 to $100 dollars – I have sniffed them on several occasions at the station fruit stall, where I often buy cut pineapple on a stick, and not just once; there is something that makes you go back to the durian, to keep smelling it and reconfirm. The perfume is deep, it goes down to the pit of your stomach). All across China and South East Asia the fruits are in constant demand, so whether the smell makes your mouth water, or alternatively makes you want to puke, will depend on what country you were born in and just what you were used to eating and smelling as a young child.

Cultural accustomization accounts for a great deal of what we consider delicious or repulsive. Japanese people visiting Britain, for example (infamous here as being a country with terrible food), are often shocked by the profound revoltingness of baked beans, Marmite, and especially licorice (unfathomable – one boy I met was deeply traumatized by just one piece of black bitterness, whose taste never totally left the mental vestiges of his mouth); all foodstuffs I happen to enjoy. Black pudding (sausage-like entities made of fried pig’s blood) is understandably considered beyond repellent; Bovril, warm ‘beef extract’ served in a plastic cup at a football match is still one of the lowpoints of my childhood, – god knows how people from other places would respond to its misery – while the mass appeal of fish and chips is also largely baffling to the majority of Japanese people – tasteless, huge, swimming in grease, about 10,000- calories – (you might find the odd afficionado who takes to a pile of newspaper filled with deep fat fried chopped potatoes covered in salt and vinegar) , but on the whole, the ‘national dish’ is found to be a very deep, ‘I told-you-so’ disappointment when it is finally sampled (for me, conversely, chips are heaven – I was so happy being back in the summer and being able to indulge in such a cheap delectation), but then again I grew up on them —- what could be more natural to a Brit than a bag of chips? ‘Objectively’, though, if such a thing were possible, would this rather slovenly dish stand up to to international consensus?

While overall, I definitely worship the level of food culture in Japan (it would be impossible not to), there are still plenty of things on the menu here that I cannot stomach; offal stew, for instance; the majority of meat and fish (fatty and undercooked); the absolute, body deep repugnance I feel for most varieties of seaweed, in particular, tororokonbu, strips of rubbery, algaed sea hair that make me want to die even in almost undetectable proportions – I would gorge on the durian any day of the week rather than be forced to eat a kaisendon, for example – the absolute epitome of deliciousness for many epicureans in Japan:

Taste is greatly subjective, culturally pre-decided; a lot of Japanese schoolkids, like vegetable-loathing children worldwide – truly abhor avocado, tomato, celery and green peppers, for example – all things I consume eagerly on a regular basis, but are horrified to learn that I myself can’t touch raw squid

(ugh!! :: : H O W ?!! I would run from the restaurant screaming, particularly when it is served live, in a bowl of ‘dancing squid’ but that’s just me )

….. ……………. ….. But back to the durian.

What is unique about the durian is that even in the countries where the fruit is deeply appreciated, in the hospitality industry no one pretends that it doesn’t, in fact, stink to high heaven and can be smelled a mile off, floating through walls and under doors, precisely the reason why it is banned in hotels and business spaces across Asia, on trains in Singapore; It makes little kids cry ; it is very love/hate divisive

and is cross-culturally found challenging by a very large number of people.

Durians.

You might be wondering why I have seemingly decided at random to discuss, even pillorize, durians – which, in truth, don’t play a large role in my life – at Halloween, fearing I have finally, actually lost my marbles.

The reason is this:

Yesterday afternoon, after airing the house intently, and then having lit various new kinds of beautiful Japanese incense in different rooms, I cycled out to the shops in the flittering Autumn sunlight expecting to come back home and sigh an ahhh of olfactory delight.

Instead, as I re-entered the house thirty or so minutes later, I was totally bewildered by the thick miasma that was all round me and felt dismayed.

‘Is this what our house smells like when people come round even after lighting expensive high quality incense?” was one thought

that occurred to me as my mind tried to grapple with the sulphurous, asafoetida-like haze that hung in the air, like putrid mangoes that have rotted to grey dust and shatter like skeletons in a bad mummy movie.

The mystery was eventually resolved when D came down from upstairs ,where he had been hanging washing on the line, unaware of my confused, quasi-retching in the kitchen.

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When we were coming back to Tokyo in August from Kuala Lumpur, we had (very foolishly) spent all of our money on souvenirs in the airport gift shops, unaware that our Japanese credit cards were no longer working and that we in fact had zero money; instead, we had bags of colourful edible keepsakes (very nice passion fruit and mandarin Earl Grey tea, and I quite liked the mango chocolates, though the filling was rather intense). The durian pralines though – mon dieu! D had taken a box of them to work, where colleagues, both Japanese and foreign, had politely tried them and then rushed urgently to the toilet to spit them out; I had then insisted he bring that box home as I just had to know. And indeed, although at first the fleshed pungency of the durian innard was mitigated slightly by the chocolate shell, once you got into the serious, hardcore fruit filling, the effect was mind-bendingly horrible, shocking; I would go so far as to say upsetting. Because once you had tried one (obviously you would never try two), the deep cavernous garlic of the durio zibethinus paste was so searing, so shuddering, for me and D at least, that it penetrated to the very centre of your being.

The instant white durian dried coffee was apparently even worse. No one had got past half a sip at his workplace, before spontaneous ejection from the lips. Knowing that we would never in a million years ever drink this (we had tried to keep an open mind in trying it at least…though I never got to), he had ripped up the packets yesterday in order to be environmentally friendly, disposing of the the durian dust first and throwing the containers away in the appropriate plastic garbage , unconscious of the effect it would have on my smell brain when I walked back into the house. Later in the evening, if the cupboard door where the olfactory biohazard was being stored was opened even an iota at any point I would start with a smell-traumatized spasm; shouting out (a physical reaction); the smell so strong that even when it was closed, it permeated and pervaded the entire house.

I am definitely not a fan.

As I always say, Japanese incense is unparalleled. And I sometimes like to venture beyond my daily, inexpensive incenses into pricier zones – particularly in Autumn and Winter when the smoke has more meaning.

In the mood for a more intense, severe smelling jinko (second grade agarwood), I went to my favourite incenserie in Fujisawa the other day and ended up choosing Yomei – described on the brand’s website as a ‘straightforward agarwood’. While appreciating its quality and concentration ( though I do like the afterlinger), in fact I am finding its almost sour austerity a little too stark.However, in tandem with the lovely, rose violet powdered oudh dreaminess that is Seicyo Kojurin (recommended), i feel quite contented.

The staff in the Buddhist altar shop are always welcoming, keeping a dignified distance – but very happy to ply me with samples (I think they are delighted to see a foreigner taking such an avid interest in one of the more arcane aspects of Japanese culture)- and some of thr free sample boxes that they casually popped in the bag are of quite a decent size : this Jinko Kojurin – a sandalwood/agarwood spiced delight that comes across almost like coffee and butterscotch – is another expertly blended incense I have bought in the past, and it is very pleasing to be using it again – this one is warming and soothing; full, and, bizarrely, according to the Gyokushodu website (worth taking a look at), is good for ‘those who like the occasional drink’.

Also among the exquisite freebies handed out by the incense people was an indescribable, almost pistachio like aromatic (in the light yellow box) that I can’t quite work out my reactions to, as well as a GORGEOUS floral balsamic musk – in the light blue box – just three sticks, that is described as being ‘elegant and fresh’, which I most certainly can- I will be definitely going back for this one as it is enigmatically erotic, as well as ( the owner went out to the back of the shop to look for this one) : a delightful sampler of incense by another kohmaker Kunjudo, whose strange Karin I use on a regular basis: with its beautiful presentation – a collection that reminds me of a brand new collection of coloured pencils, from childhood, when you went back to your school nervously after the summer holidays, there are two examples of each type, so that you can note to yourself which ones are your preferences and come back for more later.

While certainly luxurious, these purchases don’t break the bank, and just lighting a stick of esoterically uplifting incense and ‘listening’ to its unravelling story in the stillness of the afternoon is most definitely good for the soul – to just slow. With the obvious craftsmanship, artisanal excellence and centuries of tradition that are bound up in the aesthetic reactions intrinsic to each one of these products, the beauty of Japanese incense really speaks for itself.

What pleasure.

The fact that a friend of mine once bought a giant 500ml bottle of vintage Jicky along with a boxed, display case edition of Caron’s extrait of N’Aimez Que Moi for under fifty dollars (the Caron now goes for approximately $1,500) at a Tokyo discounters

shows just how much the times have changed.

We went there again recently, after a hiatus of two or three pandemic years, to check out whether there was still bounty. But not only had one of the two shops at that station closed down. all that was left in the locked, glass cabinet of the remaining store (whereas before there had been rummageable, overflowing boxes of cast away fragrances positioned outside the front of the shop in the indoor arcade) were a handful of old perfumes – admittedly including a vintage Chanel No 19 extrait – but a quite startling, Mother Hubbard’s contrast to what there once had been.

The Jicky in question – perhaps three quarters full – had lost all of its top notes, but the swill of the ambrous, quietly herbaceous, base was still sensuous and intact. Having used up my original parfum a long time before, I begged for a refill, and was obliged. I added a lot of bergamot essential oil – two-four years ago? I can’t quite remember – to freshen it all up, but yesterday, on an impulse after buying a small bottle of very nice smelling French lavender essential oil, I suddenly decided to make my own personal Jicky flanker.

The judgement ? Simply holding the two next to each other, and knowing. The lavender smelled perfect next to the already adulterated Guerlain – after all, this is the fundament of Jicky’s essence – so I just spontaneously poured the lot in (about 5ml of essential oil in a 30ml perfume).The result ? It probably wouldn’t hold up in court. But I am rather liking this alternative take in any case: once the lavender field brightness of the new essential oil fades, you are left with the same, familiar sandalwood Franco-animalia : sensual- discreet; placatory. Rather than letting the fatigued juice just sit abandoned and never worn in its gold decorated green felt box, as I definitely would have done, my new, Lavender Jicky can now be actually worn : a placed-on-the-dresser-next-to-the-futon, private night scent.

– a message from A