The Matthew Effect
Let’s workshop this poem about the human compulsion to heap further decoration upon those already decorated.
SCENT OF THE DAY: Overture Man, by Amouage
Overture Man (2019, Karin Vinchon-Spehner—a spicy-boozy leather forever in my top ten (however much it, like those first strange rectal-mucus-filled sexual experiences as a tween, once made me queasy and on edge, something I wish it still did) for the erotic way it blends herbal-citrus incense and musty-earthy woods with smoky-animalic leather and spicy-boozy amber—
opens its long-lived ceremonial gravitas with a raisin-plum cognac that—in part because of the suedey saffron echoing the chocolatey patchouli and sweet resins (musty myrrh, vanilla-almond benzoin, molten labdanum, animalic beeswax)—
would be a torpid syrup of civetone-tinged funk (a syrup drizzled like Diddy baby oil between labia and collected in a snifter pressed into perineum ripe with pubescent funk) were it not enlivened into a Mike Tyson paradox (heavyweight mass and power but with featherweight speed and agility)
by (1) citrusy brightness (tart grapefruit peel, woody ginger root) and (2) warm spices (armpit cumin, lemony cardamom, earthy nutmeg, spice-rack cinnamon bark) and (3) aromatic greenery (turpentine-like mastic resin, lemon-mint geranium, tea-leaf clary sage, burnt salted-butter sandalwood, coniferous frankincense),
the heady combination—pine-tarred rope charred long ago by flame, meets antique-musty Bortnikoff wood sticky with brown liquor spilled long ago (or perhaps even oak from a barrel that long ago held cognac), meets sweated-through skin flaps misted long ago with a perfume of soft florals—
giving the impression of a Cohiba dipped in pissy pussy (Monica Lewinsky easily comes to mind) and then in cognac-heavy grapefruit sidecar (Rémy Martin 1738 Accord Royal, pamplemousse liqueur, splash of grapefruit juice, cumin-cinnamon-nutmeg rim)
and then (after drying) smoked inside a study (I picture one with a chair of cracked oxblood leather) small enough to preserve at least the ghost of all the fruity and licoricey and fungal elements released into the air—
the overall result being a spicy-animalic amber fragrance that splits the difference between Jubilation XXV’s fruity-mystical solemnity and Interlude Man’s smoky-operatic overload, but with its own oily brass section of leather, cognac, and cumin), which is one of the factors in it having climbed from low on my list to the number one position (although now, in part because its inclusion of the amberwoods-autotune chemicals I am developing an increasing distaste for, it has been knocked down a few pegs);
the overall result being, in other words, a spicy-animalic amber fragrance that seems like the more stoic and grave father of the more outspoken and jaunty Camel by Zoologist, the two close enough in aroma and texture (both capturing a setting of vibrant souks in Egypt or Oman or Morocco selling spices, carpets, antiques, leather goods) to warrant teasing apart if only through what amounts to hairsplitting:
(1) whereas Camel wraps its incense in a candied glaze of dried fruits (dates, figs, raisins) and lets its resins melt into a golden amber that tilts comparatively gourmand, Overture Man strips back the sticky sugar in favor of herbal-smoky resins (myrrh, mastic, frankincense) that give the amber base a darker color and a more imposing bitterness;
(2) whereas the jasmine-civetone combo of Camel’s boozy animalic funk pops more brightly against the fruitiness (a queasy contrast we also see in both versions of Zoologist Bat), the civetone in Overture Man (more sweat-drenched from the 3D rancid cumin) seems infused deep into the murky depths (baked into the molten core rather than floating above it) to create a more understated but more profound growl of hyraceum-leather ferality;
(3) whereas Camel uses honeyed florals (orange blossom, jasmine) to lift the sweetness and create an approachable sunniness, Overture Man leans into green-bitter herbs (geranium, clary sage) that add an almost camphoraceous sharpness and stiffen the leather (pushing the entire structure toward something more astringent and salty dry);
(4) whereas Camel does come with a leathery feel that might evoke images of saddles and satchels, Overture Man’s leather—boosted by saffron (and it almost seems hyraceum too)—is much more prominent (its leather-myrrh-spice combo much more similar to Bel Ami and Sawlaj than Camel is);
(5) whereas Camel keeps its smoke mellowed by ambergris-like musk and the ghost of dried dates left too long in the sun, Overture Man drives its smoke to the foreground for an altar-bound-incense finish that seems more ashen and somber.
The Matthew Effect
Face studded with rusted hooks
(the newest one popping through
just under her eye),
it was hard not to see the fish
as a war general,
and—medal-drunk creatures as we are,
exaggerators and carnival gawkers—
it was hard not to place
a few more before release.