Arkansas

Scent Search: Rose & Cuir

Since March, I have been on a scent search. I have no idea what sparked it. My old cologne from L’Occitane seemed to have turned. It was time for a change, anyway. I have been searching high and low. I’ve sampled scents from Creed, CK, 4711, Parfums de Marly, Acqua di Parma and more. It’s been quite the rollercoaster! The search has slid open a festooned door into an alternative New York: Shopping New York. Fragrances are sold in surprising places like drug stores and “spiritual” shops, and fragrance boutiques bloom in the most fashionable parts of Manhattan.

On Greenwich Avenue, there is a hidden gem of a dive bar that I sometimes visit for a beer or two. Until a week ago, I had no idea that next door, through a heavy door -a magical door- is a Frederic Malle Boutique. How can I describe the shop? Unlike a normal boutique, it’s dark and metallic, and there’s seating on a cushioned, curved bench which conceals you from window shoppers. There was an open curtain to “the back” which revealed a beautiful yard “for special events”. The shop feels like a waiting room in a fancy garage to bide time as your MacLaren is serviced.

Tess, the experienced saleswoman, was finishing up some business, a Midtown apartment delivery, which allowed me to soak in the place. I smelled some candles- Russian Nights stood out. The scents of  the candles were complex and interesting. Her task finished, I asked Tess to give me a sense of the house of Malle.  She insisted that we should smell no more than three perfumes at this visit, chosen from the island in the middle of the small space crowded with identical bottles. I’m thinking, “Lead the way, Tess!” Since the beginning of my search, giving myself over to the experience has been much of the fun.

Before sampling, Tess wrote the name of each scent in tidy cursive on the card-sized sampling paper. The first was a crowd pleaser: Musc Ravageur. A date night tour-de-force. Dark and spicy. Vetiver Extraordinaire was next to be sprayed on the heavy ivory colored card. This scent was more my style. Gentle, long lasting and grassy; here was a handsome scent. The next sample made me feel like perfume could be something more than perfume: Rose & Cuir. Tess explains that the House of Malle allows the perfume designer, the “nose”, freedom to create a scent of their choosing. A grand opportunity is given the creative noses to have the means to make… art? 

Salvador Dali has a painting that is simultaneously a portrait of his wife and a portrait of Lincoln. As you linger in front of the painting, there is Gala seen from behind, naked and peering into a dreamscape ocean through a cruciform window. Looking at the canvas from across the room, a portrait of Lincoln is revealed. Her head becomes his eye; the window his face. Lincoln is out-of-focus, but recognizable. Rose & Cuir contains no rose in the fragrance, and I could smell no leather (cuir). Yet, I was made to believe the perfume contained rose. Up close Rose & Cuir is sour. From away it smells like a rose. Dali would be impressed. When I first smelled it, it reminded me of what? It was there… a memory from any hot Arkansas summertime afternoon of my childhood… a surprise- it smelled like old garden hose. As a kid, play time was uninterrupted by drinking water from the outside spigot. Sipping water from the hose, my nose was close to the source: water and sour brass and rubber. Rose & Cuir. I have smelled nothing like it in a perfume.

Tess very kindly gave me some samples of the three scents we had tried. When I sprayed Rose and Cuir on my skin it was sour. Nothing but sour. Frederic Malle makes long-lasting, luxurious scents. Over the day, the sour note never waned. The scent changed as the day wore on, but the brassiness dominated. I don’t like it at all, but I love it. It made me aware of the world in a whole new way. After smelling this artwork, this masterpiece, my perspective has changed. I have read books that have made me think differently. Music has changed my life through performance. And now, a perfume I don’t like to wear has opened me up to the possibilities of another sensual world to be discovered on both sides of heavy, gilt doors.

Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle
94 Greenwich Ave
New York, NY 10011

The Magic of Kumar
Image © 2017 Gregory Briggler

Around the Christmas of 1996, I went to the Cosmic Cup in Dallas to see the local band Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks. It was an intimate concert in a place that had the feel and dimensions of a living room. Little Jack sang and played tenor banjo. On stage there was quite the menagerie of instruments: harmonium, tuba, cornet, drums, and saxophone. The crowd sat on cushions on the floor, and we were occasionally asked to sing Salvation Army arrangements of Christmas Carols. That was a crowd favorite except for a white-haired atheist who chose to try and ruin the fun for everyone else instead of voting with his feet. It was a benchmark concert of my five years in Texas.

Mixed in with the proto-hipster crowd were promed-up Indian teens who were there to support the Amazing Kumar. Short, white haired and wearing a sweater vest, he performed magic tricks, spun plates and entertained as part of the evening. I only discovered he was the owner of the place while researching this post.

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The next time I saw Kumar Pallana was in 1998 on the big screen.  I often drove from Denton to the Inwood Theater in Dallas to watch independent films. There was Kumar on screen in Rushmore, a film by Wes Anderson exploring the life of an overachieving, under-performing private school boy. Anderson is from Houston and so had a special place in the hearts of arty Texans. The film was witty and awkward and charming and silly. I felt like I was at the genesis of something great. And then, there was the Amazing Kumar on screen! I had before seen him in the flesh. He wasn’t just another film person, but a magician I had first seen in a tiny restaurant in Dallas. My adventure – the move from Arkansas to Texas, the seeking out of art and music and films – had brought me close to people who were making movies. Through slight of hand, Kumar connected my real life to the movie on screen- an Amazing trick!

Of course, I still watch Wes Anderson’s movies. He is one of the most interesting filmmakers, forgive me, of my generation. Everything on screen is polished and just-so. We haven’t met yet, but we will eventually. I want to share a Pimm’s Cup with him and talk about that Texas to New York shift he made. That we made. We’ll toast together someday and talk about music, the big D and the big Apple.

“Ode to Joy” Part 2

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Photo Credit: © Gregory Briggler

(This is the end of a two-part story. The beginning can be found by clicking here.)

The performance was over. I was in a daze afterward of heightened aesthetic awareness. I remember the shabby blue and green carpet in the house where musicians mixed with the crowd accepting compliments and making plans for the evening. The evening was cool as Laura and I walked arm and arm out of the well-worn concert hall. The patterns of the architecture outside the venue were revealed to me for the first time. Windows, identical and repeating, pulled my gaze up the office building wall across the street. I was so enraptured, as I drove along the interstate, my speed slowed to a crawl. I only came back to speed, apologizing with a smile, after Laura asked me if everything was alright.

The after-concert party was held in a lousy chain restaurant. And yet, as we walked inside, I was aware of the interior design, the deliberate choices made by that anonymous design team. The open walls with plants hanging just-so seemed to frame my friends as we walked in. The food was forgettable, yet the company pleasant. I remember my choir friends, including my quirky, long-time friend Rachel, chattering around the table relieved and excited after the concert.

I was changed by the performance, and now the evening was over. After dinner and goodbyes, I drove Laura through the dark countryside separating Little Rock and Conway, our university town about half an hour away. By the back door of the girl’s dorm, we talked quickly and kissed a passionate kiss. I watched her walk up the stairwell of the dorm to her bed. How I wanted to follow!

I walked back to my room a changed man. Music matured me; performing affected a change that was permanent and profound. And a brief, intense love affair was the catalyst.

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“Ode to Joy” Part 1

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Photo Credit: © Gregory Briggler

I was a boy of nineteen when I first sang in the chorus for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. We performed in Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, my home state. Each year select university choirs from around the state, including mine, joined forces with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Brahm’s Requiem was the showpiece the year before, and Verdi’s Requiem followed the next year. I was excited to sing again in this grand concert to the crowd sitting in darkness and hidden by the glare of the stage lights. The people who came to see me perform were my parents and my girlfriend Laura.

Laura was petite and very smart. She had sparkling honey colored eyes and wavy dark brown hair. I had met her in concert band; she played clarinet but she was studying chemistry. Many of the other boys were interested in her, but through luck and skill I was the only one who had managed to date her. The affair was new and precarious. The feelings I had for Laura that night were intensified by my experience singing beautiful, powerful music. And the performance was intensified by the affection.

For those of you unfamiliar with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, it begins like all previous symphonies, but something wonderful happens during the final movement. Through snippets of melodies, that movement itself seems to ask many questions, comes to dead ends, and then settles on the main theme which bursts to greater life in song. We had studied the piece through bleary eyes in early morning music theory for the entire spring semester. Inside and out, I knew it better than any music at that point in my life. The symphony is masterful – Fugues! A Turkish March! Soloists! Full Choir! The intimate connection between learning and performing was the highlight of my undergraduate education.

But something happened that night that went beyond study and performance. When the house lights came up, I was changed. It was as pure an aesthetic experience as I have ever had. That performance changed my inner life.

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