Red Moons, Patchouli Patches, Great Old Perfumistas, Goblin Sacks,Ghost Children, and the Other Mother's Right Hand.

[kebechet]

The Red Moon is rising over Black Phoenix!

 

RED MOON 2013

August is a month of reflection. It is the month of rest before the harvest, and it holds for us a time between toils, a brief period of relaxation before we take up the burden of our work again. It is the Time of the Phoenix, a season of celebrating health, vitality, warmth and joy, but it is also the time at which the Corn God dies for the sake of the land, his blood soaking the earth to ensure a bountiful harvest in the fall.

 

The Full Red Moon of August was named thus by some Native American tribes because as the moon rises, it dons a reddish veil, visible through the hot, sweltering summer evening haze. Our blend for this Moon mixes traditional lunar oils with the warmth of amber, tolu balsam, and heliotrope, the russet haze of dragon's blood resin, bittersweet red currant, and crushed orange peel, and a swirl of summertime herbs: chamomile, cilantro, rue, elder flower, yellow yarrow, and marigold.

 

 

The Red Moon tee is available now at Black Phoenix Trading Post!

 

Artwork by our much-beloved friend, Tanya Bjork!

 

 

In the Single Note Garden, another crop of patchouli is being harvested -

 

EAST AFRICAN BLACK PATCHOULI

Smokier and woodier than her Red cousin, East African Black Patchouli is rich, passionate, and earthy, possessing a unique, distinctive elegance.

 

And the second set of scents inspired by Neil Gaiman's Coraline are live! Thank you so much, Neil! We love you! -

 

THE GHOST CHILDREN

“What happened to you all?” asked Coraline. “How did you come here?”

 

“She left us here,” said one of the voices. “She stole our hearts, and she stole our souls, and she took our lives away, and she left us here, and she forgot about us in the dark.”

 

“You poor things,” said Coraline. “How long have you been here?”

 

“So very long a time,” said a voice.

 

“Aye. Time beyond reckoning,” said another voice.

 

“I walked through the scullery door,” said the voice of the one that thought it might be a boy, “and I found myself back in the parlor. But she was waiting for me. She told me she was my other mamma, but I never saw my true mamma again.”

 

“Flee!” said the very first of the voices—another girl, Coraline fancied. “Flee, while there’s still air in your lungs and blood in your veins and warmth in your heart. Flee while you still have your mind and your soul.”

 

“I’m not running away,” said Coraline. “She has my parents. I came to get them back.”

 

“Ah, but she’ll keep you here while the days turn to dust and the leaves fall and the years pass one after the next like the tick-tick-ticking of a clock.”

 

“No,” said Coraline. “She won’t.”

 

There was silence then in the room behind the mirror.

 

“Peradventure,” said a voice in the darkness, “if you could win your mamma and your papa back from the beldam, you could also win free our souls.” “Has she taken them?” asked Coraline, shocked.

 

“Aye. And hidden them.”

 

“That is why we could not leave here, when we died. She kept us, and she fed on us, until now we’ve nothing left of ourselves, only snakeskins and spider husks. Find our secret hearts, young mistress.”

 

“And what will happen to you if I do?” asked Coraline.

 

The voices said nothing.

 

“And what is she going to do to me?” she said.

 

The pale figures pulsed faintly; she could imagine that they were nothing more than afterimages, like the glow left by a bright light in your eyes, after the lights go out.

 

“It doth not hurt,” whispered one faint voice.

 

“She will take your life and all you are and all you care’st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She’ll take your joy. And one day you’ll awake and your heart and your soul will have gone. A husk you’ll be, a wisp you’ll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.”

 

“Hollow,” whispered the third voice. “Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow.”

 

I based the scent on a description of the characters that Neil sent to me in an email:

 

“Well, I like the idea that it would contain flowers and flame and fairy things... but from so long ago that they've almost forgotten who they are. So it would be a ghost perfume....”

 

In the perfume, I also tried to capture the blue-violet-white of an afterimage and the silence of a snuffed candle. The scent is dry with age, taut with loss, grief, and heartbreak, and sorrowful in the unspeakable desolation of simply being forgotten.

 

 

THE OTHER MISS FORCIBLE

~and~

THE OTHER MISS SPINK

 

…are distorted versions of their “real” perfumes: sticky sweet, cobwebby, and grotesque.

 

 

THE OTHER HOT CHOCOLATE

The other mother took the bacon from under the grill and put it on a plate. Then she slipped the cheese omelette from the pan onto the plate, flipping it as she did so, letting it fold itself into a perfect omelette shape.

 

She placed the breakfast plate in front of Coraline, along with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a mug of frothy hot chocolate.

 

“Yes,” she said. “I think I like this game. But what kind of game shall it be? A riddle game? A test of knowledge or of skill?

 

“An exploring game,” suggested Coraline. “A finding-things game.”

 

“And what is it you think you should be finding in this hide-and-go-seek game, Coraline Jones?”

 

Coraline hesitated. Then, “My parents,” said Coraline. “And the souls of the children behind the mirror.”

 

The other mother smiled at this, triumphantly, and Coraline wondered if she had made the right choice. Still, it was too late to change her mind now.

 

“A deal,” said the other mother. “Now eat up your breakfast, my sweet. Don’t worry—it won’t hurt you.”

 

Coraline stared at the breakfast, hating herself for giving in so easily, but she was starving.

 

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” asked Coraline.

 

“I swear it,” said the other mother. “I swear it on my own mother’s grave.”

 

“Does she have a grave?” asked Coraline.

 

“Oh yes,” said the other mother. “I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.”

 

“Swear on something else. So I can trust you to keep your word.”

 

“My right hand,” said the other mother, holding it up. She waggled the long fingers slowly, displaying the clawlike nails. “I swear on that.”

 

Coraline shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.” She ate the breakfast, trying not to wolf it down. She was hungrier than she had thought.

 

As she ate, her other mother stared at her. It was hard to read expressions into those black button eyes, but Coraline thought that her other mother looked hungry, too.

 

She drank the orange juice, but even though she knew she would like it she could not bring herself to taste the hot chocolate.

 

 

THE OTHER MOTHER’S RIGHT HAND

Coraline opened the front door and looked at the gray sky. She wondered how long it would be until the sun came up, wondered whether her dream had been a true thing while knowing in her heart that it had been. Something she had taken to be part of the shadows under the hall couch detached itself from beneath the couch and made a mad, scrabbling rush on its long white legs, heading for the front door.

 

Coraline’s mouth dropped open in horror and she stepped out of the way as the thing clicked and scuttled past her and out of the house, running crablike on its too-many tapping, clicking, scurrying feet.

 

She knew what it was, and she knew what it was after. She had seen it too many times in the last few days, reaching and clutching and snatching and popping blackbeetles obediently into the other mother’s mouth. Five-footed, crimson-nailed, the color of bone.

 

It was the other mother’s right hand.

 

It wanted the black key.

 

A scrabbling, skittering, clacking scent: white as bone, black as a beetle, and red as blood - orris root, vetiver, and daemonorops.

 

 

THE SNOW GLOBE

She looked around the room. It was so familiar—that was what made it feel so truly strange. Everything was exactly the same as she remembered: there was all her grandmother’s strange-smelling furniture, there was the painting of the bowl of fruit (a bunch of grapes, two plums, a peach and an apple) hanging on the wall, there was the low wooden table with the lion’s feet, and the empty fireplace which seemed to suck heat from the room.

 

But there was something else, something she did not remember seeing before. A ball of glass, up on the mantelpiece.

 

She went over to the fireplace, went up on tiptoes, and lifted it down. It was a snow globe, with two little people in it. Coraline shook it and set the snow flying, white snow that glittered as it tumbled through the water.

 

Then she put the snow globe back on the mantelpiece, and carried on looking for her true parents and for a way out.

 

Cold leaded glass, bone chip snow, and glycerin.

 

 

THE SILVER STREAM

The boy with the dirty face stood up and hugged Coraline tightly. “Take comfort in this,” he whispered. “Th’art alive. Thou livest.”

 

And in her dream Coraline saw that the sun had set and the stars were twinkling in the darkening sky.

 

Coraline stood in the meadow, and she watched as the three children (two of them walking, one flying) went away from her across the grass, silver in the light of the huge moon.

 

The three of them came to a small wooden bridge over a stream. They stopped there and turned and waved, and Coraline waved back.

 

And what came after was darkness.

 

Bittersweet: the scent of forgetfulness, peace, and oblivion. Like asphodel petals on moonlit water.

 

 

 

 

And over at the Post...

 

++ THE SLIPPING INTO MADNESS CTHULHU PLAQUE

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu lw'nafh freff’gtdh 'fhalma hupadgh N'ghft Osoph’guax Crax’axxaha Shag-Ron wgah'nagl fhtagn z’zxo.

 

Translation:

In his palace at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits for the Mother Born of the Black Phoenix to finish the goddamn Carnaval Diabolique update.

 

This plaque, an homage to Great Cthulhu’s artisanal fragrance obsession, was sculpted by Jake Johnson-Alhazred, great-great-great-great-great grandson of Abdul Alhazred and Arkham High School’s favorite art teacher, and crafted by hand by blind, mute cultists in a subterranean workshop located miles beneath the frozen wastes of Nunavut.

 

The scent, Slipping Into Madness, was created by Elizabeth Barrial to be partnered with this plaque in an effort to placate the Sleeping God. His bottles of Madame Moriarty and Midnight on the Midway are empty, y’see.

 

 

++ SLIPPING INTO MADNESS

A slow, murky sojourn into bedlam: slick, black Arabian musk, aged red patchouli, tobacco absolute, wild salvia, and a sliver of screeching, high-pitched zdravetz.

 

(Ok, fine. Our Cthulhu plaque was /actually/ designed by Jake Johnson exclusively for Black Phoenix Trading Post, and manufactured - by hand in Canada! - by our friends at GreatBeard!)

 

 

Dread Cthulhu’s plaque has a spot that fits one BPAL bottle in his writhing tentacles.

 

(Please note: the plaque doesn’t really writhe. I don’t want anyone to be disappointed in the lack of actual, literal writhing. This plaque isn’t actually alive, and it isn’t the least bit animated. Unless you’re hallucinating, in which case all bets are off.)

 

 

The deets:

The plaques are 9 inches tall x 6 ¾ wide, and weigh a solid 2lbs.

 

They are composed of cold cast bronze. This includes a finished cold cast bronze plaque, with an antique black patina, and 2 coats of crystal clear acrylic coat for protection. The entire plaque isn't bronze: the exterior of it is real bronze powder and it is back filled with resin in an effort to lighten the piece.

 

Each plaque is slightly different, as each and every one was hand-crafted by real human beings! Conceived of, designed, sculpted, and produced in North America!

 

 

 

++ GOBLIN SACK STATUE

Oh, those hardworking Black Phoenix Trading Post goblins. Without them, the Post would be complete and absolute chaos. Thanks to their noble efforts, orders are packed efficiently, shelves are dusted, the dungeon is tidy, coffee is made, our goats are milked, the liquor cabinet is emptied, and incoming phone calls are ignored.

 

They’re kinda like the shoemaker’s elves, except not at all.

 

This statue was sculpted from polymer clay by Jake Johnson exclusively for Black Phoenix Trading Post, and is manufactured in Canada by our friends at GreatBeard!

 

Each goblin statue can fit one BPAL bottle under his arm and another in its wee lil’ sack for a total of two - count ‘em, TWO - bottles!

 

 

A bottle of Goblin Sack will be makin' its way to you with each statue! –

 

GOBLIN SACK

Vanilla-laced leather with 3-year aged patchouli and a warm sack o’hazelnuts.

 

 

The Deets:

The goblin statues are 6 ¼ tall x 4 inches wide, and weigh 5oz. They are composed of poured resin.

 

Each statue is slightly different, as each and every one was hand-crafted by real human beings! Conceived of, designed, sculpted, hand-painted, and produced in North America!

 

 

These little fellas come in three colors…

Burlap Sack Brown

Hella Dark Burgundy Wine

Arterial Spray Red

 

All are patina’d black.

 

 

Our friends at GreatBeard will be happy to customize your goblin in any color you desire for an additional fee. Please contact Teddy, Goblin Taskmaster, at tradingpost@papow.net if this tickles your fancy.

 

The Goblin Statue and Goblin Sack come as a set and cannot be separated. You wouldn’t separate a goblin from his sack, wouldja?