At the Moment...

WEARING Chanel No. 22, for the third day in a row. Maybe I’ll get around to reviewing something new later this week, but for now I have this strong desire to wear the most beautiful, most classically French and perfume-y fragrance in my collection. I love the crisp, mineral-like aldehyde opening that is like the collar of a white shirt: structural and formal enough that it seems to command me to hold my head up straight. The whoosh of white florals beneath the aldehydes that speak in elegant tones of the privilege of being a woman; the touch of incense at its base that almost suggests this kind of beauty is sacred. Staring at these words, I find myself wondering how I have the audacity to think that such a sophisticated fragrance really suits me—and probably it doesn’t. But it always feels so personal and right when I wear it—and the way it reminds me to be present in the moment and take my life seriously…well, it blows me away with its conscientious approach, and I like to think of myself as being conscientious.

LISTENING to everything Marshall Crenshaw—I'm on a major MC bender right now—which is why my husband is happy that the electronics gods invented earphones. Getting the most play right now is his 1983 album Field Day, which some awesome guy recently uploaded to YouTube. With its ten, perfect, retro power-pop songs providing a snapshot of love in its various in-and-out stages, as well as its echoey-reverb ocean of sound, Field Day is a sonic jungle gym erected on the playground of romance. If you listen on YouTube, follow my lead and use earphones—not to keep your spouse happy, but because unless you have a computer with studio-quality speakers, you’ll miss half of what I’m talking about and these songs will just sound tinny. Here’s a link to Our Town, one of my faves from the album.

When I'm in the mood to crank it up a few notches, I find myself naturally segueing over to his Downtown album (1985) produced by T-Bone Burnett. If you're in the mood to cut a rug—and not just cut it, but shred and pulverize it right into the floor—you can't go wrong with Little Wild One No.5. I remember the first time I heard it I thought it would be the perfect song to have if you ever needed to drive your car over a cliff, à la Thelma and Louise. Not that you would ever have that need, of course, but it's nice to know such songs exist. Perfect for any proverbial cars you wanna crash.

SEARCHING for good new music. Do I live too much in the past? As evidenced by above items and most of the posts on my blog, I certainly do. Shoot me an email if you feel like turning me onto something new. In the meantime, I’ll try hitting The Hype Machine, which is a site that aggregates various MP3 music blogs from across the Internet and which I’ve been having some fun poking around in recently.

DOING a lot of jog-walks through the fields near my house. I’ve decided to join a running club this summer, or as soon as I can run the five miles that I usually walk each day in the fields near my house—and I’m already close to completing that goal. It will take a few more weeks until I can run the entire circuit and pick up my speed, but I can do three miles at a jogging pace now. Spanking new running shoes and pilates have been helpful in keeping me injury-free.

READING a lot of fabulous perfume blogs—the “smaller” blogs with the more intimate venues are the ones I enjoy the most. Because she’s quite new to the blogosphere, and because she puts me in the mood to travel (both inwardly and outwardly) with her quietly shimmering writing, I’d like to point out Axum’s blog, Scents of Place. I particularly like her post about the scent of tropical florals on a Friday night in Pakistan.

ALSO READING a couple of books too—juggling them, really, which makes for slow reading—but hopefully soon I’ll have completed Luca Turin’s The Secret of Scent (yes, I realize I’m the last person in the world to have read this book, gifted to me by a very thoughtful and intelligent friend) and Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler (which I thought I would love but find too herky-jerky in its narrative, though I realize that its manic style is intentional). I was hoping by the time I finished Barney’s Version, the movie would have found its way to my town, but looks not. If it doesn’t draw the college kids it doesn’t play here, it seems. :-)

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 3/23/2011.

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