Roadside Attractions

[zankoku_zen]

"So what is this place?" asked Shadow, as they walked through the parking lot toward a low, unimpressive wooden building.

"This is a roadside attraction," said Wednesday. "One of the finest. Which means it is a place of power."

"Come again?"

"It's perfectly simple," said Wednesday. "In other countries, over the years, people recognized the places of power. Sometimes it would be a natural formation, sometimes it would just be a place that was, somehow, special. They knew that something important was happening there, that there was some focusing point, some channel, some window to the Immanent. And so they would build temples or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, or . . . well, you get the idea."

"There are churches all across the States, though," said Shadow.

"In every town. Sometimes on every block. And about as significant, in this context, as dentists' offices. No, in the USA, people still get the call, or some of them, and they feel themselves being called to from the transcendent void, and they respond to it by building a model out of beer bottles of somewhere they've never visited, or by erecting a gigantic bat house in some part of the country that bats have traditionally declined to visit. Roadside attractions: people feel themselves being pulled to places where, in other parts of the world, they would recognize that part of themselves that is truly transcendent, and buy a hot dog and walk around, feeling satisfied on a level they cannot truly describe, and profoundly dissatisfied on a level beneath that."

Plaster, paint, glass, and plastic surrounding a thrumming core of sacred frankincense.

Plaster-note like from Clive Barker's the Day Burned White, which if anyone reads my reviews creeped me out. Which already has that going for it. Plaster, plastic and a touch of frankincense. This smells haunted, otherwordly but it's a warmer plaster scent than the Day Burned White. The creep factor, while there, isn't nearly as high. Medium throw and wear length.

[bookandbroom]

It genuinely makes me think of hotels, a cleanness that's overlaid with work and emptiness. Like shower curtains and shopping malls. There's something minty and fresh about the overall effect, even though it smells like ... like a person shouldn't. It's a scent for doing heartless work, delivering bad news, sending bills. I'm weirdly glad I tried it, though I don't think I'd ever wear it. It makes me feel like someone else.

[Blood onmy hands]

Nope. This is sickly-sweet and powdery on me. I like a few of the lab's paint and plastic scents, but this is like sweet, maybe lime scented, carpet powder, a hint of cucumber-y freshness, and wet paint. It's cloying, but also weirdly sour and dirty. It smells like someone used scented carpet powder to try to cover up a cat pee smell after a while. Dirty, dusty, horrible carpets and cloying powder...