With Love from the Link(wo)man!

Tomorrow is Valentine's, dear reader, and since I will be unavailable for most of the weekend due to out of town-ness, I bring you the following links of love and entertainment to keep you busy whilst I am away.

~ Any Valentine's Day perfume review round-up from around the netosphere would have to include this blog event from a group of lovely perfumers and bloggers who came together this week to offer the proverbial dozen roses for Valentine's Day by recommending rose-scented products to their readers. I could give you my list of roses, which would be long, but instead I'm going to give you my thoughts on their lists:

• I really like this list from Gaia at The Non-Blonde. I like the way she broke her list up, and I enjoyed the inclusion of "Vintage and goners" if only because they remind me to appreciate the perfumes I have; they won't always be available. The list is really good, too! Tauer Perfumes Une Rose Vermeille, Le Labo Rose 31, DSH Perfumes Rose Vert, and Aftelier Perfumes Wild Rose--oh my! I'm adding Providence Perfume Company Rose Boheme to my "To Try" list.

• Scent Hive has a great list, including one of my personal favorites, DSH Perfumes Dirty Rose.

• Ayala Moriel's SmellyBlog contribution includes a few familiar lovely delights--Rochas Tocade, Agent Provocateur--and a few items I am adding to my "To Try" list, in particular Jo Malone Rosewater & Vanilla and Velvet & Sweet Pea’s Purrfumery Kashmir Rose Whipped Body Butter.

• Perfume Shrine has the list that is probably the most similar to mine, and includes L'Artisan Parfumeur Voleur de Roses, Juliette Has a Gun Lady Vengeance, and L'Artisan Parfumeur Drôle de Rose, which I have full bottles of, and Tauer Perfumes Une Rose Chyprée, which I really should buy since I reviewed it glowingly twice.

• Ines of All I Am A Red Head, one of the loveliest reviewers I know, comes in with a list I am less familiar with, which makes me want to try them. I do like Worth Courtesan, though. It was one of my earliest rose loves.

• EauMG has an intriguing list that covers everything from perfume to tea to bubble bath to flavored syrup. I'll add yet another endorsement to Aftelier Perfumes Wild Roses which I can't believe I left out of my own Valentine's post, and Frédéric Malle Lipstick Rose.

• Katie Puckrik Smells also has a list with a lot of variety, including Jurlique Rose Hand Cream, which I love. Love, love, love. I need to order some more, in fact.

• Last but certainly not least, Roxana Villa of Roxana Illuminated Perfumes' contribution offers up a list one could only get from an all natural perfumer, and I love it:a list of her twelve favorite rose essences, as well as this curious link to a book entitled, How to Eat a Rose.

~ Also, because I myself have crashed my share of these organized events, I'm including The French Exit's list of rose scents for Valentine's Day. Thanks to Elisa for adding a few more "Must Trys" to my list!

~ In other perfume news, I f**king love this post from Angela at NST! about "Awful Perfume You Love." If you ever wanted to know my secret perfume shame, check the comments, dear reader. I confessed all.

In non-perfume related posting:

~ First up, I give you this hilarious (and yet somehow still creepy) video of Twin Peaks brought to you in the form of LEGOS! Yep. That's right, reader. Twin Peaks in Lego form. "Directed by Duplo Lynch and music by Angelo Brickalamenti." SPOILER ALERT if you have not seen the series.

 ~ In YA entertainment news, it appears Emma Roberts is set to play Lena in the Fox adaptation of Lauren Oliver's Delirium series.

I really like this series, both in concept and execution. I recall Emma Roberts was about as good in the Nancy Drew movie as she could have been given the material, so I'm hoping this pilot results in a pick-up for Fall.

~ Speaking of YA on the small screen, I saw that the CW's jettison pilot for Kiera Cass' The Selection is getting a reshoot. I haven't read the book yet (on my To Read list despite the epic GoodReads controversy/fiasco -- Google it if you're interested because I don't really want to link to/go into it), but I'm surprised it's getting a reshoot for a couple of reasons.

• First, CW's ratings for Vampire Diaries have been taking a beating lately. (I feel like I'm a Hobson's choice when it comes to ratings, live viewing, and Community vs. TVD scheduled head-to-head.) FN1. With Gossip Girl retired, The Carrie Diaries premiered to disappointing ratings, and the ratings for 90210 have also been weak. We all watched The Secret Circle crash and burn last season, and Life Unexpected ate itself as well 2010-2011. I'm wondering how much time and money the CW is willing to give teen-oriented material considering the success/failure rate.

• Second, Arrow has performed--for a CW show--better than expected and Beauty and the Beast is likely to be renewed based on its current ratings. Both of those shows tend to skew older than TVD and TCD. The backdoor pilot for TVD spin-off The Originals is already in the pike and I expect it to skew toward that same slightly older demo. If The Originals is a hit, I am doubly skeptical they'll be willing to sink money into a teen drama for Fall 2013.

• Thirdly, Cynthia Hand's Unearthly series was in development with the CW, but that project has since fizzled, and it is a wildly different series from The Selection. I get the vibe that CW wants to find another YA-novel-series-to-TV hit. I think they can't figure out what they're looking for, and they are kind of hitting all over the grid. If the real commitment is to trying to hit the moving target of 'of the moment' taste, that doesn't make for a high probability The Selection will make it, because I don't know how committed the developers of the series or the network execs are to making it work.

• Last, I also think the CW execs are critically underestimating that sometimes it isn't the source material that makes a show work; sometimes its the TV writing that makes the show work. (Cough! TVD! Cough, cough!) Just because Dystopian books are sohottrightnow doesn't mean making a dystopian-book-based series is going to work. It has to have good writing and a committed cast. You don't have to take my word for it; just look at the difference in performance between TVD in its target demo vs. Moonlight, both of which launched in the midst of Twilight-renewed vampire mania.

Wow. I did not know I had so many opinions about the CW programming at the moment. Moving on.

~Speaking of CW programming, my incredibly sweet friend Cara pointed me toward these virtual CW Valentine's cards featuring their male stars.  And while I'm all for upgrading my relationship with Ian SuperSmolder to "It's complicated," I'm a little peeved they didn't have cards featuring their female stars, too. Lovers of ladies don't deserve V-Day images? Does CW think it's only objectification if women are involved? Because new flash: you can definitely objectify men, and doing so does not mean we've reached 'gender equality.' As a lover of women as well as men, I'd have appreciated a Claire Holt option...or a Candice Accola option...or a Willa Holland option....

~ Did anyone see how #TellAFeministThankYou trended for basically an entire day on Twitter this week?  All trolling aside, it turned out pretty great.

~ In radio-oriented entertainment, I was introduced to the hilarious and hilariously named Irrational Public Radio. If you have any familiarity with NPR whatsoever, you are going to laugh so hard at this. They completely nailed both the tone as well as the voice acting.

~ In feminist things that delight me, let me direct your attention to The Hawkeye Initiative. What is THI? I'll let their explaination tell you all you need to know: "A blog with Clint 'Hawkeye' Barton being placed in the same provocative, female poses that are featured in superhero comics." Yeah. That is happening, and it is awesome.

~ Last, because it's Valentine's Day, I'll leave you with this animated short from Disney, Paperman. Paperman is a small romantic treat, like a satisfying piece of candy. Watch it and consider it my V-Day gift to you.

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FN1. As I wrote this, TVD, Arrow, and Supernatural all got renewed early. YAY for TVD fans everywhere. But seriously? Supernatural got another season? I, for one, am shocked. Not because of the ratings, but because I feel like they ran out of story about a season ago. I loved the early seasons, but at this point Sam and Dean's bickering over their trust issues feels like a character development fail. It would be nice to see them do something--anything--else.

Notes from the Plague Den, The Sequel - Now with extra plague!

A week of reviews: perfumes, bath salts, body oils, books, digital content, and more!

I am still sick, dear reader. I am in the middle of what I hope is my exile period. Middle Exile is a lot like Middle Earth - treacherous. So, to distract myself, let me continue this set of reviews!

First, my dear fumies, to the books! You know why? Because I love books. Seriously. I love them. I carried my nook with me, but I have a backlog of terrific paper books waiting to be read, so I dragged two of them along with me, and managed to finish one of each. Each was a great read, and waaaay better than anything I could get on TV. FN1.

First up: I want to recommend Melissa Marr's Carnival of Souls. This is the first book in the series, and it is a quick read. It is the first book I purchased full price for my Nook, and the first book I've finished on my shiny new digital device. FN2. FN3. It's also the first book I've read by Marr, despite having met her in person. And let me tell you this: Melissa Marr is unassailably cool. Seriously. She is intimidatingly cool. I've met a lot of smart, funny, charming authors, but Melissa Marr is one of those people who you meet and think, “Holy crap, I want to be you when I grow up.”

Meeting Marr was enough to push me toward her books, but following her on twitter and occasionally perusing her LJ sent her to the top of my list of AUTHORS TO READ, number one with a cold iron bullet. Why? You know how, sometimes, you don't need to meet someone in person to tell that they are good people, that you can just kind of tell, that the goodness flows out of them? Marr is like that. She's a good heart wrapped in black leather. That's the kind of person I want writing books teenage girls read; someone they can respect as being badass and who also sets a great example for a life well-lived.

Okay, enough fangirling. On to Marr's books! I have the first book in wildly successful Wicked Lovely series on my bookshelf, but I started Carnival of Souls because I knew if I loved the WL books, I wouldn't be able to stop until I read them all, and there are a lot of other books I already own that deserve my attention. So I started with Carnival of Souls:

In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures—if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.

All Mallory knows of The City is that her father—and every other witch there—fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls.

Carnival of Souls is fast paced and engaging, and I enjoy Marr's wordsmithery. The world is lush and real, detailed enough to keep your imagination engaged without overdoing it. One of the most interesting things, though, is the switching POV, which makes the book feel accessible to the part of me who will always be a stubborn, head-strong, heart-led fifteen year-old as well as the grown-up woman I am (and have simultaneously always been). I had to grow up fast, and as a grown-up, I remain there, teetering in that balance of fifteen-going-on-forty, with my better angels and better judgment winning now more than losing, but always feeling the tug toward the other side all the same. This book is told from the perspective of characters who reflect, in turn, that tension – innocent and inexperienced, world weary and heart-hardened, cynical and suspicious – and yet, all the same, loving. Each of them, so loving in their own way, loving and willful and doing their best for themselves and those they care for with the hands they've been dealt in life. I can't wait for the next book, and I highly recommend this one to any of you looking for a quick and intriguing read.

The ink-and-paper book that made my plaguey reading list was the final book in Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush series, the appropriately titled Finale. I have been following the adventures of Nora, Patch, Vee, and, yes, even Marcie, since they first hit the page, and I put off reading this book in part because it came out very close to the last book in my beloved Beautiful Creatures series from the talented duo of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and honestly? I wasn't willing to give up both of these wonderful worlds right on top of one another. FN4.

Also, when I am invested in a world the way I am invested in Fitzpatrick's Hush. Hush, I'm always a little nervous about being disappointed. I can't help it. As a reader and as a writer, I want them to all be as good as the first hit that drags me into a whole new world. Some truly great series that I leapt into take missteps here and there over the course of the books that can be hard to overlook. FN5. So when I tell you this series is tightly written from the first to the last, I mean it. Fast, interesting, more turns than a prima ballerina with something to prove, Finale holds up to the rest of the series, and then turns it up to eleven.

I also have to say, I admire Fitzpatrick's writing style. It is not easy to decide your love interest talks like a 30's noir detective/50's street tough a la “Rebel Without A Cause”/“The Maltese Falcon”/Keanu Reeves in Paula Abdul's James Dean homage video, and then stick with that style and make it work in a modern day teen romance. FN6. At first, even I'll admit it was a little, well, weird. But the longer I knew the characters, the more I loved it! Patch was everything James Hurley in Twin Peaks should have been, and wasn't. FN7. And it just...works! Then by the end (mild spoiler alert!), when Nora starts to talk a little like some dame who just walked into his office and will turn his whole world on its head? I cheered inside! Nora was changed by her experiences in the book, right down to picking up some of the lingo. When I finished the last page, I literally hugged the book, eyes full of tears. And those tears? They were made of awesome. If you've already devoured Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games or Beautiful Creatures or Ally Condie's Matched, or are living each day on pins and needles for the final book in Veronica Roth's Divergent series like I am, pick these up to fill the void. I really think you'll like them.

And for those of you still reading who are ready to shout, “get to the damned perfume already!,” I'm getting there.

Tomorrow.

For now, I'll will simply say this: there's nothing like a good bath, and if that bath smells delightful, so much the better. So before I'll get to the perfume, I'm going to talk a little about bath and body products.

My bath treat was courtesy of Velvet & Sweet Pea's Purrfumery, who sent me some bath salts when I ordered her delightful perfume Fir-Ever Young. I haven't used bath salts in ages, dear reader, not since before they became a weird code name for some street drug and my husband started insisting I call them something else. But I was stuck in a hotel room, feeling like gum scraped from a shoe, with a tub I did not have to clean myself, so I thought – yeah, this seems like a good time for bath salts.

The bath salts I used were the lovely Terrain, which is described as follows:

A rich blend, grounded in frankincense and sparkling with citrus and geranium, with therapeutic properties of relaxation, anti-anxiety, and stress relief. Perfect for a bath after work or before bed to ease you into sleep.

Relaxation? Anti-anxiety? Stress relief? Sounded right up my plague-ridden alley.

Huzzah for bath salts! It smelled so good up in there, yo! And yet, Terrain was not overwhelmingly scented, which was good because my nose was all sneezy when it wasn't stopped up. The scent was gentle and relaxing, the salts dissolved beautifully (I didn't give them enough time before I got in, but that one's on me), and the whole experience was soothing and decadent. The best part was it wasn't one of those bath product experiences that left me feeling like, “Okay, that was nice and all, but now I need a shower to actually get clean.” It was more like that feeling you have after a facial, where whatever is left on your skin feels like it is supposed to be there. You skin is happier and healthier for the experience, not covered in soap film. I give Terrain a sold two thumbs up. And for only $26 for 17 ounces, I think I might add them to my “makes an excellent gift” list.

And speaking of indulgences, you know what else I tried? Some deeply wonderful body and hair oil from Aftelier Perfumes. I swear, every time I try something Mandy Aftel has created, I feel like the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman, asking in a mixture of wonder and frustration: “Where does [s]he get all those wonderful toys?”

Because I am not going to lie. I saw the label on this one, and even though I picked it out, I had my doubts. I gave myself a bath and follow-up application of Pear, Fir, and Coffee, then settled into my plague bed to read. I dropped the book almost immediately.

Crisp fruit and Fall woods with an earthy back note. Our body oil & hair elixir is in a nourishing non-greasy base of moisturizing jojoba oil and fractionated coconut oil. This lightweight formula absorbs easily, immediately moisturizing, softening, and conditioning. Damp hair is the most vulnerable to frizz: our oil won't weigh hair down and seals the cuticle to prevents moisture from creating frizz. It leaves a veil of fragrance on your skin or in your hair that mixes beautifully with your own chemistry.

It was bliss, I tell you! Pure bliss. What crazy brain puts those three scents together and thinks, “Yes, that is exactly how someone will want to smell her hair to smell when it billows in the wind?” A mad genius, that's who. And a little bit goes a long way with this–because hey, it's an oil–but it was the best body oil experience I've had.

Also, because it's an oil, it keeps going! It lasts a long and lovely time, and makes a nice, subtle scent accent or alternative to a traditional perfume. The price point is great, too - 105ml for only $50! I will definitely be buying some more for myself, and I highly recommend it for any scent lover in your life. It was just...it was beautiful. There's no other word.

Beautiful.

So, thanks, Mandy. You deserve ever ounce of praise lovingly heaped at your feet.

And on that happy note, dear reader, I am going to bed now. Or perhaps I will take a bath first....eyes bathroom door longingly.... yes. Just a short one...before....I....

Tune in tomorrow when I tell you what pretty scents perfumed what has got to have been the sweetest smelling plague den in history.
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FN1. Keep in mind that I didn't have the CW. The hotel TV didn't carry it. For realsies. I almost wept. You know how many times I've been TWO WEEKS behind on The Vampires Diaries since it started airing? Let me tell you – NEVER. That's right. NEVER. I've basically had to avoid the entire internet to avoid spoilers, so the first thing I'm doing when I get home is locking myself in the bedroom with HuluPlus.

FN2. Oh, and did I mention I scoured the whole of the vast and treacherous series of tubes for the appropriate bling for my amazing book innovation? I didn't? Well, let me tell you – THERE WILL BE PHOTOS. Oh, yes. There will be photos. Just as soon as I get home to the pile of packages...waiting there....for me....

FN3. ...being locked in a hotel room with nothing but the same six movies on cable for company really lends itself to vast and deep online shopping. Seriously. That was probably the most dangerous part of the entire experience. No one to talk to. Too sick to really work or write or honestly, even read a lot of the time. My glazed eyes and illness-clouded mind were good for two things – hitting the “Last” button on the remote in a diligent effort to avoid commericals, and surfing the internet for things to buy. I think I did pretty well reigning myself in, all things considering. A little perfume...some shiny new tech-related toys...a whole crap load of stickers.... I could go on, but for the sake of my own pride, I won't.

FN4. You'll notice I waited until the Beautiful Creatures movie release was basically on top of me before I finally started Finale? Yep. Completely on purpose. Also, I am psyched for the movie. Do you hear me, dear reader? I am so in fangirlish love with Ethan Wate and Lena Duchannes and their world that I will probably see it twice in the first two weeks it is out. It has EVERTHING I LOVE – magick, love, betrayal, large family in-squabbling, secrets and intrigue, magick, southern accents, gothic architecture, Florence + the Machine on the soundtrack – and did I mention magick? *Heartsandsparklesexplosion*

And the best part? I will be in Seattle, with two of my best YA-loving friends, Becca and LillieMae, who have both read and loved BC, for the release weekend! I'm not going to lie to you – there may be costumes. Or t-shirts. Or hair dye. Or theme jewelry. Or alloftheabove. CASTER GIRLS WEEKEND FTW! <squeals with teenage delight>

Whew! Okay. I'm better now.

FN5. *Cough, Cough* Anita Blake books, Southern Vampire Diaries, *Cough*. As for YA, I'm looking at you, Lauren Kate. I love and still recommend the Fallen series, but now I always do so with the caveat that 1. the third book feels strangely off, and does not hold up to the rest of the series. (The first book is one of my all time favorite YA series kick-off books); 2. the antagonist, at the very end, comes across as a weird stand-in for someone in Kate's life she had drama with, and those issues would have been better resolved with a therapist than in the book; 3. I was so sure the story was going another direction, a dastardly and OMFG so clever direction, I was a little disappointed it didn't go down like I'd expected. (Typical writer – heavy with the critique.) All that said, the last few pages? One of my favorite series ends ever. Truly. So I still say unto you, dear reader – read those books. Even though they're uneven in the middle, the end is worth getting to. Made me want to start all over again from the beginning.

Wow, I am seriously digressive today. I'm blaming it all on the medication.

FN6. Anyone remember the name of the song in question? First one to comment with a link to a youtube video is going to get a pretty package...

FN7. Seriously, that story arc with the black widow? Are you kidding me? Weakest part of the entire Twin Peaks series. In my head, I always think of that arc as “That time David Lynch got bored and decided to try out the plot points for Lost Highway he was already noodling around with.”


In the interest of full disclosure, the bath salts and body oil samples above were provided by the respective perfumers.

Of Shoes, Bees, and Perfume

Hilarious!

I went out of town this past weekend to visit my friend Marni, author of the awesome Awkward and upcoming September release, Decked with Holly. I came home with four more pairs of shoes than I left with. I don't know what it is about shoes and vacations with me, but I think over half my shoes have been purchased on vacation. It's as if, upon arrival, I immediately deem all my thoughtfully packed footwear options loathsome, inappropriate, unworthy.

I often have some ridiculous excuse, too. "Oh, is it raining? I didn't realize it would be raining in the Olympic Peninsula!" "Oh, is there walking required? I appear to have only packed heels and dress shoes." It's not like these trips are a surprise to me; I'm the one planning them. I think I will have to chalk it up to some sort of weird subconscious need for a fun setting to buy shoes in. I was certainly happy dancing around in the store in a pair of peep-toe pumps on Saturday before I bought them.

By contrast, I rarely buy perfume on vacation. I've only done it once or twice. I don't know why that is. In theory, I like the idea of buying perfume on vacation. I like the idea of associating a beautiful scent with a particular place and time. But then, when the vacation arrives, I never find myself hankering for a perfume store.

I think it has to do with my impulse to tie scents to certain kinds of weather. Let's face it: what I think works in sunny L.A. in July is not going to be a "go to" scent for me nine to ten months a year in Portland. Based on that premise, I'm always hesitant to buy a whole bottle that will take me years to get through if I'm not sure it works in my ordinary life, and not just in my vacation life.

Speaking of vacations, seasons, and perfume, here's a fun thing that happened this sunny Spring weekend. I was covered in beeeeeeeees!

Spring flowers!
So pretty. So deadly...

Okay, that's not really accurate. I was neither covered, nor was it fun. I was in beautiful Ashland, Oregon, sitting on a bench, minding my own beeswax when I got stung. This is not a big deal for normal people, but I have an allergy to bees/wasps/yellowjackets/hornets that required a trip to the local ER even after I used my epipen Saturday evening.

The worst past of this scenario was that the bee, after stinging me, would not leave me alone. It flew into my hair and I had to get Marni to fish it out so I wouldn't get stung again. Then, on Sunday, I was basically chased into my car by a second bee. I've been trying to figure out what I did, because I was in and out of doors unmolested most of the time, then other moments were positively fraught with peril.

Marni kept blaming my shampoo (which admittedly includes a strong honey base), but I wasn't stung or chased immediately after I washed my hair. FN1. Upon further reflection, I realized both my sting on Saturday and my near miss on Sunday almost immediately followed the application of perfume. Yep. Saturday I sprayed on Hermés Un Jardin en Méditerranée right before I went outside and got stung. On Sunday, DSH Perfumes Spring Moss was the attractor. I put some on, then went to my car to look for my keys and ended up cowering inside the vehicle until the bee gave up and buzzed away. FN2.

Exciting ER times were had!

This is an exceptionally troubling realization for me, dear reader. My allergy has progressed to the point that I really can't risk things like camping or hiking in places where it would take more than 15 minutes for an ambulance to get to me or for me to reach an ER. And while death by bee sting is not exactly the way I'm hoping to go, I love my perfume too much to give it up.

This is complicated by the fact that bees seem weirdly attracted to me (I've been stung 8-10 times over the last 26 years, which is a ridiculously high amount) and the college has decided to install bee hives in the quad outside the building where I live. For serious.  They have attached two hives to the building, one by each entrance. while I've pointed out (loudly and repeatedly) that I feel this is a negligence suit waiting to happen, I take little comfort in the notion that David will be well-compensated when the college accidentally kills me with its urban bee population support efforts.

So what's a bee-allergy-ridden perfumista to do, dear reader? Give up my juice, at least until we move? Demand a plastic bubble for all future out of doors adventures? Become a vampire and hide indoors during daylight? FN3. I don't relish any of these ideas, but I like them more than dying. Also, I have to go to work which requires leaving my apartment, so I don't know what to do about the bees outside my building.

Maybe I need to research the kinds of scents that are repellent to, or at least do not attract, bees, and then try to find perfumes that strongly feature those notes? I don't know. This is going to take some creative perfumey thinking. However, I feel I am up to the challenge. If anyone has any suggestions, please comment below.

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FN1. Chased is an exaggeration. It feels like chasing. It's probably more like random bee meandering in my general direction, which makes my bee-related hypervigilance kick into high gear. I fear I have, at least temporarily, transferred said same hypervigilance to Marni.  Sorry, Marni.

FN2. The keys were later located in the trash, because all the medication from Saturday night still had me totally whacked out. 

FN3. This last option is particularly appealing to me for a number of reasons, but since I am already on a heavy daily dose of Vitamin D because of my lack of sunshine, it's probably not the best idea.

The Girl on Fire: Katniss Everdeen as Feminist Icon

Thoughts, Perfumey and not, on Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games, Pt. 1

For those of you living under a rock, the first film adaptation of Suzanne Collin's killer trilogy, The Hunger Games, released this past weekend, and brought in the third biggest U.S. box office opening in history. Though I will tread carefully to avoid film-related spoilers, I do want to talk a little about Katniss Everdeen as a role model for young women everywhere.

This post got so long, I'm splitting it into two parts.

Katniss as Feminist Role Model

To start let's talk about Katniss, the role model. I was listening to Jennifer Lawrence talking about why she took the part of Katniss on NPR last Friday morning and I feel like she summed it up nicely.

Q: What draws you to the character:

JL: She's not a hero. She's not a James Bond or Laura Croft that's done this a million of time and she has all the tools and knows how to do it and we're just going to watch her win. There's never really a point in the Games where she thinks she won't die. She's just trying to survive for her family and then becomes this Joan of Arc by starting to fight for her people.

Q: When you think about the young women who are going to be in these audiences, what do you want them to take from this character?

JL: I think the most important message that this movie has and what Katniss has is how powerful one person can be and the power that we have as the people because we're being manipulated by whatever we're being manipulated by -- reality television, the news, the president... And also, on a simpler note, she's just a girl whose standing up for what's right when something's wrong when it's hard and when it's scary.

Q:What were the doubts? If [your mom, who introduced JL to the books,] had said there could be a potential down side, what was it?

JL: I was just worried about, you know there's not a lot of decisions you are faced with that will change your life forever and it'll never go back. I was afraid nobody'd ever be able to lose themselves in another character I did. It would always be, you know, Katniss is doing a period drama, Katniss is doing .... But then I realized that if I was going to known for any character, this is the most incredible character that I could ever... you know, I would be honored.

JL on Katniss' costuming:
"I want to make sure I can run
and jump and climb.
[...] The dresses I don't care about.
Just put them on me.
 It's like Oscar season again."

FN1. "I would be honored."  Just reading that gives me a little lump in my throat.

Listening to Lawrence's interview, I found myself crying. I think what moved me about Lawrence's interview, in part, is that this film is coming out at a time when a lot of power structures are moving against women's rights to autonomy in this country. And whether you are talking about a presidential candidate or a religious leadership council or a state government, it is hard not to feel like your right to make choices about what happens to you physically isn't being increasingly restrained. Speaking out is punished. These decisions are being made for your own good. Dissent will be met swiftly, and with ugliness and, frankly, hatred.

When Lawrence describes Katniss as "just a girl," she's right. Katniss is only a girl struggling to survive. While her situation is far more dire than most first-world women, the principle that no government or religious organization has the right to restrict your autonomy, personal safety, or right to live remains the same.

I know I sound like a boring, broken record lately, and I apologize for that. Believe me when I tell you I want to write about something other than reproductive choice and politics. Hell, I want to think about something other than reproductive choice and politics. But I cannot stop, because I am inundated on a daily basis with the message that my choices are being constricted and my life is less valuable than someone else's and my judgement is suspect. And if I speak out, I will be cast in a negative light because we must never forget that it is wrong for women to enjoy or want physical intimacy and that if women become pregnant, it is always and exclusively, their responsibility, their fault. FN2

Activists protesting for
reproductive freedom in Virginia.

I went to a history lecture last week at my alma mater (yes, I'm one of those people). In it, one of my beloved professors, Dr. David Campion, spoke about feeling lost in your life. "Who am I? Where am I going? Am I making wise decisions? What will happen if I fail? What will happen to those who choose to follow me if I do?" Though he spoke of many extraordinary people -- Eisenhower and Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Tolstoy -- his point, over and over, was this: no one knows when or if they are destined for greatness. Eisenhower, before he was President or Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, was a man with an unremarkable military career headed for retirement. You just never know when life is going to suddenly expect you to be extraordinary. So the best plan is to make decisions based on what you think is right, consult the examples of those who have gone before for inspiration and guidance, and surround ourselves with people smart and trustworthy in case you are called on by force of circumstance or chance or choice to become something less than ordinary.

This is one of the things that makes Katniss an extraordinary example. She doesn't want to be a leader, she doesn't ask to be an icon. She becomes ones because she refuses to lie down and die when she's told to. She acts of love and bravery, not fear, even when it might come at the cost of her life, or the lives of those she loves. That is extraordinary, and I think it is part of what has resonated with a lot of the books' readership.

I'm also pleased the directors chose to include Katniss' aversion to having a family in the beginning of the film and her feeling of responsibility as stand-in parent for her sister. I think it is rare in this world that women who don't want children are portrayed as sensible or likable though given how awful the world, even the first world, can be, sometimes I wonder if these men and women aren't making the wiser choice. Mostly, I'm glad that the sheer work it takes to feed and cloth and house oneself and one's dependents is shown as a real and limiting factor for both Katniss and Gale in the first book, because it is an important aspect of the intersection of poverty and reproductive choice rarely explored in media.  While this was explored more full in the book, I am really glad the film included it.

Gale: "Maybe if I didn't live here."
Katniss: "Yeah,but you do live here."

I like that it is okay for Katniss to express that she does not want to have children and for us to like and understand her choice far more than Gale's reaction to it. I like that the one who seems irrational isn't the person who does not want children; too often, the social norm of 'wanting to have kids' is so overpowering that the idea that no children is a (possibly more) rational choice gets overlooked entirely. FN3.

The other thing I wanted to comment on is that I am thrilled the film reflects one of the things I noticed most in series' first book: if most of the men who make it to the final rounds do so on brute strength, the women survive due to their own cleverness. Rue, Foxface, Katniss -- each has moments of brilliance that keep them alive, and it is because they are smart and thoughtful and clever, not because they are the biggest, strongest, or most inclined to success in conflict. What a great message for young female readers! It isn't your looks or your physical prowess or your ability to be likable and feminine that is your most valuable asset: it is your intellect! FN4. FN5.

I wrote a piece a while back talking about my hope that a result of the current proliferation of women-written, female-character-centered young adult novels would be a generation of women inundated with a message that their voices matter and their strength matters and that they can change the world. Like Lawrence, I hope young women in film audiences will take the message from The Hunger Games that they don't have to be special to become special. They don't have to feel brave to be brave. That simply doing the right thing in the face of fear and difficulty can make all the difference in the world, be it this one or Panem.

It isn't easy, as any fan of Katniss knows. It can cost you plenty.

But in the end (and for those of you who haven't finished the series, you should), it can mean a much better life than any you could have imagined, one that contains -- if not comfort -- love and self-respect.

Stay tuned for Part Two, wherein I talk about perfumes and music I associate with the world of The Hunger Games, and do a give away that contains both, plus so much more [SPOILER ALERT - HG SWAG YOU CAN WIN!]!

May the odds be ever in your favor.

________________
FN1. You can hear the full interview with Lawrence and the director, Gary Ross, here.

FN2. This did not stop me, of course, from offering myself up for criticism as the only pro-choice female speaker an abortion discussion panel at a Catholic University. They could not locate a pro-choice female faculty or staff member willing to do the panel for professional reasons, so a former co-worker and professional associate reached out to me. went because (1) someone needs to; (2) I don't like intimidation used to silence speech; (3) I'm a glutton for punishment. The hate mail in the aftermath has been....challenging. To the credit of the university, it wasn't their community members who attacked me (they were all very respectful), but some audience members who seem unrelated to the school, and whom I suspect are attached to the anti-choice organization who was represented on the panel as well.

FN3. Bella Swan, Bella Swan, Bella Swan.  Sorry. Had to get that off my chest.

FN4. Okay, so yes, there's the underlying current that Katniss, much like Bella Swann of the Twilight franchise, are beautiful and have an effect on men they are unconscious of. (My husband pounced on this similarity before the credits had finished rolling.) Aren't they humble about their looks and isn't that amazing, that they are beautiful but only occasionally engage in using it as a tool and then feel really bad about their guile? I think the difference between them is that (a) Katniss has more to offer than her looks and almost never relies on them, or on anyone else, to solve her problems. In point of fact, trying to be a 'pretty girl' is something she can never grow comfortable with and is an aspect of her personality used more by others than by her.

FN5. Though it is obvious that Panem, as a society, does not value intellect the most, which is made equally clear in the book and the film. Katniss' intellect is a liability, it attracts negative attention, it saves and simultaneously endangers her because her ability to think for herself and to resist mass messaging makes her a target, figuratively and literally. Katniss is only safe when she sticks to scripts that serve traditional male dominance/appeal to the male gaze.

Haymatch: "He [Peeta] made you desirable!"

Because remember, Ladies, it's not your inherent beauty or strength, personal charm or intelligence that makes you attractive to others, it's that the male gaze values you. Peeta makes Katniss 'desirable' (i.e. an object of value within the confines of 'things men want to possess') and that makes her worth sponsoring, not her skill score or anything she does on her own. The only people who sponsor her for her own value are the people of District 11, and they honor one of the best things about Katniss during the games: her ability to maintain her humanity even at the worst times.

Favorite coupledoms in Movies/TV/Books

Dear reader,

Do you know what a 'shipper is? It's someone who gets super into relationships in pop culture and feels very strongly about the fates and futures of said relationships. I, dear reader, am a shipper. I'm not hardcore, per se. I don't write fanfiction to create alternate universes where my couples get together. I don't wear 'TEAM' t-shirts. But I do strongly identify with a fictional relationship occasionally and root for that relationship.

So in honor of it being Valentine's week, and because I am feeling especially sappy this year, here is a list of a few of my favorite 'ships from movies, books, and television, along with a (sometimes unconventional) song for them and a scent or two.

~~~

1. Debi Newberry & Martin Blank, Grosse Pointe Blank

You know the story. "Spring of '96. Two young lovers with frightening natural chemistry. A girl sits in a seven hundred dollar prom dress on the front steps of her house, waiting for the most romantic moment of her young life. Boy never shows up. Not until now." Debi and Martin are wonderful because they lead us to believe those that loved us once, and loved us best, might still love us again. Even in an ugly callous cynical and sarcastic world like the one of Grosse Pointe Blank, love conquers all -- in fully-automatic style.

Martin: "I'm sorry if I fucked up your life."
Debi: "It's not over yet."

Song: Peter Gabriel, "Let My Love Open the Door (To Your Heart);" Neko Case, "This Tornado Loves You"
Perfume: I always think of Debi (half) ironically wearing CK Obsession to the reunion. Is that weird? Martin does have obsessive recurring dreams about her... Martin doesn't wear anything. Someone might smell him coming.

~~~

2. Jane Eyre & Edward Fairfax Rochester, Jane Eyre

Now and forever, Jane and Edward will stand out in my mind as two sad and broken people who find each other and, despite great obstacles of circumstance and social convention, rebel against everything in defense of their love for one another. Is their relationship problematic? Sure. Could I forgive Edward if I were Jane? I don't know. I only know that when she hears his name on the wind, she goes to him, and I am glad she does.

Songs: Depeche Mode, "Somebody," The Decemberists, "Hazards of Love"
Perfume: For Jane, Guerlain Mitsouko; For Rochester, Guerlain Habit Rouge.

~~~

3. Nora Grey & Patch Cipriano, Hush, Hush series

I wasn't sure how I felt about Patch initially. He ran hot/cold and was often mean, way meaner than Daniel was to Luce in Fallen. It's hard to resist roguish, though. Is it wrong when I mentally picture Patch, he's basically Jess Mariano? But, you know, more of a '50s tough, and angelic. I like that Nora doesn't always trust him and isn't always willing to listen. I like that she makes her own decisions. Over the course of the series, Nora grows into one of the bravest female protagonists I've found in YA today. I'm excited to see how the series resolves.

Songs: Lou Reed, "This Magic Moment;" The Smiths "There is a Light That Never Goes Out"
Perfume: Patch is supposed to smell like "mint and earth," so I'm tossing CB I Hate Perfume Black March onto the list, but I admit I also associate Il Profumo Patchouli Noir with Patch and Nora.

~~~

4. Ethan Wate & Lena Duchannes, Beautiful Creatures

Ethan & Lena - you want to talk about two kids who will break your heart? Here they are. The most wonderful thing about this series is that the stories are told from Ethan's perspective, and he's the devoted and wounded one most of the time. Lena is confused, wild, willful, and non-conformist. And even when they're apart, their love is strong enough it could reconfigure time and space, even tear the world in two.

Songs: The Band Perry, "Walk Me Down the Middle;" Alison Brown, "Every Day I Write the Book;" The White Stripes, "Sugar Never Tasted So Good"
Perfume: Lena's scent, rosemary and lemons, which always makes me think of Miller Harris Fleurs de Bois, because it's meant to be a warm weather scent and it is always hot in Gatlin.

~~~

5. Bella Swan & Jacob Black, Twilight

Yeah, yeah, Edward is forever, he and Bella are both eternal sparkly diamond parents. Call me a heretic, but to me the more interesting relationship isn't the first person you love who screws you over, abandons you, and breaks your heart. It's the person who comes after them. The person that says "Yes, I see how broken and messed up you are. That's okay. I'll love you, anyway." That's the person who restores my faith in humanity, my hope for a better love tomorrow. You know that Garth Brook's song, "Unanswered Prayers"? I love that song. Because Charlie is right - sometimes you have to love what's good for you. Or at least, here in the non-sparkly world, you should.

Songs: Soltero, "The Moment You Said Yes;" Linda Ronstadt, "When Will I Be Loved;" Natasha Bedingfield, "Pocket Full of Sunshine"
Perfume: I always think Bella must smell like food since people want to eat her, but if we focus on the non-blood drinkable parts of Bella (Are there any?), then I want to give her and Jacob a warm, sunny scent reflective of their warmth and Bella's desert origins, like Tauer Perfumes L'Air du Desert Marocain or  Olympic Orchids Arizona. (Too on the nose?)

~~~

6. The Doctor & Rose Tyler, Doctor Who

They traveled through time and space, exploring both together and saving the world.  They literally bent (and sometimes broke) the laws of the universe to find one another even when it seemed. Their isn't just a love for the ages, it is a love for all ages, all times, all dimensions. He's her mad man in a blue box; she's his Bad Wolf. Enough said.

Songs: Lykke Li, "Unrequited Love;" David Bowie, "Modern Love;" Beatles, "Here, There, and Everywhere"
Perfume: I want to put Rose in something excellent like By Kilian Back to Black, but she's probably wearing Burberry Brit with those overalls. And I can't scent the Doctor, but I  know Esscentual Alchemy Natural Perfumes has taken a delightful stab with Time Lord, found here.

~~~

7. Elena Gilbert and Stefan Salvatore, The CW's The Vampire Diaries

I know, I know. Believe me. Damon and Elena means more Damon, and who couldn't use more of that?  Damon is so hot sometimes I think my eyeballs will literally melt out of my head. But when it comes to Elena, I'm going to have to say that she was a healthier, happier person with Stefan, and Stefan was a less Ripper/slightly more broody version of himself. They love each other and they're better for and with each other. We're all going to have to deal with that.

(Which leaves Damon conveniently available....right?)

Songs: Fiona Apple, "Slow Like Honey;"  Feist, "1-2-3-4;" Iron & Wine, "Such Great Heights"
Perfume: Elena is so innocent, but I can't help but imagine her running around Mystic Falls in Agent Provocateur. Okay, maybe she only wears that only when she starts running around in one of those ridiculous Founder's event ballgowns.  The rest of the time she probably rocks something like Prada Infusion d'Iris. Stefan probably wears something youthful and full of denial, like Davidoff Cool Water or Thierry Mugler Angel AMen. (And I like to imagine Damon wearing Bvlgari Black, and his songs for Elena have to be Chris Issak's "Wicked Game" and Ok Go's "A Million Ways to be Cruel".)

~~~

8. Logan Echolls & Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars

Oh, Veronica and Logan. How I love to want to kill both of you for being stupid.  If ever two people were a disaster of epic love proportions, it is you two. You hurt each other over and over, and yet there is not a moment after the kiss on the balcony that I cannot see you together. It just seems cataclysmically meant to be.

Logan: "I thought our story was epic, you know? You and me."
Veronica: "Epic how?"
Logan: "Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined and blood shed. Epic!"
Veronica: "Come on. Ruined lives? Bloodshed? You really think a relationship should be that hard?"
Logan: "No one writes songs about the ones that come easy."

Songs: Mike Doughty, "I Hear the Bells;" Blair, "Hearts;" The Be Good Tanyas, "In Spite of All the Damage I've Done"
Perfume: Veronica wears Jovan White Musk (Okay, this is a cheat KBell wears it herself, and I can't not think that when I mentally sniff her.) For Logan, something warm and sexy and not necessarily traditional - Costume National 21 or CB/Alan Cumming's 2nd Cumming.

~~~

9. Buffy Summers & Angel, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

One girl in all the world... and one vampire redeemed find love against all odds. It's written in the stars by the Powers that Be.  Some day, hopefully in the not so distant future, she will stop carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. And when she does, the monster she made a man will be waiting. (I mentally retcon the Angel/Cordelia fiasco. When it comes to Angel and Buffy, there can be only one.)

Angel: "You still my girl?"
Buffy: "Always."

Songs: Urge Overkill, "Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon;" Bat for Lashes "Siren Song;" Tom Petty, "Angel Dream (No. 2)"
Perfume: Serge Luten Bois de Violette, which I cannot justify. I don't even know where Buffy would come by such a thing. I just feel like she would. Or maybe Atelier Grand Neroli? Sweet and not necessarily innocent or fragile, but hopeful nonetheless, particularly in those early seasons.

~~~

10. Sydney Bristow & Michael Vaughan, Alias

In the first three seasons of this show, their love was so amazing and palpable and yet played with such restraint and subtly that I could not get enough of it. There is this scene from the first season that completely sold me on this relationship. Sydney is having an awful time.  She calls Vaughan and they meet on a pier pretending not to be together.  Overcome, Sydney starts sobbing, and you can just tell it is killing Vaughan he can't hurt her or help her or make it better.  Then Sydney reaches out and takes his hand, even though she's not supposed to and its dangerous and stupid and could blow her cover and get them both killed, because she cannot help herself. Even though  she can't even look back at him, and it doesn't matter because...he's her anchor.  He's the thing that keeps her in that moment from giving up.  From that moment on you just know somewhere deep inside, no matter what happens, they'll find their way back to one another.

Songs: Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman, "All I Need Is You"; Beatles, "I've Just Seen a Face;" Robin Thicke, "When I Get You Alone"
Perfume: Sydney might where a lot of different scents with her costumes, but she strikes me as a classic sort of girl -- Chanel No. 5 or Worth Je Reviens, maybe? Something that screams classic and elegant and refined, but not too noticeable - a great cover for the dangerous, adventure-loving spy in us all.

I have a tough time scenting Michael Vartan because I feel like, having spent a huge portion of his formative years in France, he'd have some strong personal preferences.  Vaughan, on the other hand, probably wears something very work-a-day government handler, like Old Spice. Boring, conventional, reliable, but also...attractive.

~~~

That's my list.  What couples for you 'ship, dear reader? I see Titanic is being re-released in 3D soon.  Who wants to tell me what they think Jack or Rose would wear?  Wish I'd done Tara & Willow from Buffy instead? Any Luke Danes/Lorelai Gilmore fans out there? What about Wash & Zoe from Firefly? Or Brian Kinney & Justin Taylor from Queer as Folk? (I will never forget that dance scene.) 

Inquiring 'shippy minds want to know.

Love is not love until love's vulnerable.

Love.

It is the worst good thing that ever happens to a body. You don't have to take my word for it. Literature is riff with examples. Shakespeare said it best: "For never was a story of more woe than this..." Or, to put it in a more modern way: "To love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be destroyed." Thanks Cassandra Clare.

Then there's poetry. T.S. Eliot: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me." Or Auden: "I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong." Or John Donne: "My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, but after one such love, can love no more."

Oh! I forgot the movies... Lloyd Dobler said it beautifully: "Maybe I want to get hurt!"

And then there's the music. I could go on and on about the music, but you get the point. Being in love means being vulnerable. It means being to willing to get hurt. And even when it goes well, trust me when I tell you it still sometimes hurts.

What makes me say these things in this holy sanctified Hallmark season of Love? Well for one, I finished reading Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's third book in the caster chronicles series, Beautiful Chaos, where upon I bawled my eyes out.

Also, David and I usually don't celebrate Valentine's Day. We usually celebrate Not-Valentine's, picking some other less commerically busy and more personally happy day to say, "I love you." But because lots of people do celebrate Valentine's Day, I thought I'd provide some shopping-related thoughts.

Envoyage Perfumes Carmel Bohême is a lovely Valentine's option. Inspired by the French novelist and poet Henri Murger: “Bohemia is a display of exuberance set against dark, silent edges; a glass house of exotic orchids”, this amber floral has notes of "Sweet Orange, Plum, Muguet, Enfleurages of Gardenia and Tuberose, French Jasmine, Honey, Patchouli, Frankincense, Labdanum, Amber, Sandalwood." It is described as "colorful, unpredictable, original, outrageous, edgy, tumultuous."

Personally, I find Carmel Bohême full of wildly delicious white flowers, a warm, lush, lovely scent. It is a wonderful blend of gardenias and tuberoses and jasmine, sweet and soapy and a little tart. Sure, you could buy your loved one a bouquet of real white florals, but trust me when I tell you this is just as beautiful and will last long after the buds are moldering in the bin. It has great longevity, and after four hours, it turns into a honey/amber/sandalwood sweetness that rides close to the skin. Truly lovely, and worth checking out even if you aren't in the market for a Valentine's scent.

Not super excited about white floral bouquets? No problem. Jo Malone is happy to supply you, not only with a bottle of beautiful Red Roses, but with a whole Red Roses Fragrance Chronicle for V-Day. You get a bottle of Red Roses, plus three accords to layer with it: "Sweet Lemon brings tantalising transparency; Scarlet Velvet Rose adds richness; and Honeycomb, a nectar-like warmth." I like the Jo Malone layering system, which in this case allows me to make seven different roses, plus several other scents that don't include the Red Roses center piece. In addition, there are always bonus gifts when it comes to Jo Malone, so when I ordered my set, I got a free 9ml of Grapefruit, which I don't own, to boot. That's a gift that stays beautiful for much longer than thorny reality of the flowers themselves. The collection is a limited edition offering, so if you like Red Roses, you may have to pretend some Valentine-y love to get it.

Not into flowers? Then go with food!  Ayala Moriel Natural Perfumes makes one of the all time best foodie scents in Immortelle l'Amour. Chocolate, vanilla, liquor, maple syrup, waffles all in one, it is a top grade, incredibly lickable scent that can bring happiness even to a wounded heart. She also makes teas and truffles, so it's a one-stop, deliciously aromatic shop to make all your edible love-themed purchases. Prefer jewelry?  You can get solids in compacts and poison rings, so your gift will be both visually and olfactorially beautiful.

Can't stand anything too edibly sweet? Well, here's a scent that you can love even when love itself turns sour. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's (The Maglignant Dreams of) Cthulhu in Love is "an amorphous mixture of incense, sea weed, sea salt, sticky dark ocean plants and chocolate." Dry chocolate and sweet dry herbs, it is a surprisingly love and high quality scent for the BPAL price point. It was a random-no-special-occasion-just-because-he-loved-me gift from David, and appears, now that I write this, to be sadly discontinued. Just like slumberhouse Ore which I also have a tiny, precious vial of. Chocolate scents are lovely, but apparently not all that long for this scented world...much like real chocolate is in my house. If you can find Cthulhu in Love, give is a whirl. It's delightful.


Speaking slumberhouse, I'll add Grev  to the mix, though I am probably the only person who will ever put this on a Valentine's list. But then, I'm not like anyone else in most other respects, so here it is. Grev is made of "copaiba, fir balsams, clove, birch, orris, and cedar" and is meant to be a marketed as a masculine, but I think it is a warm, sexy scent for a woman. It's unique, it's unusual, and it is decidedly unexpected. If you're the sort of person who gets married in a dress with blood red corset back and trim at a historic poor farm turned local brewery, then this might be your idea of sexy, too. It reminds me of waking up next with someone you love on one side and on the other, open windows of streaming sunshine and the wet, green smell of fir trees. It's a smell I associate with falling in love.

Which brings me around to my last thematic recommendation: take the ultra-realistic approach. If your love is associated with the smell of new fallen snow, try CB I Hate Perfume Walking in the Air. Working together in a garden? How about CB I Hate Perfume In the Summer Kitchen or Memory of Kindness? Find you love in a library? CB I Hate Perfume In the Library.

Alternately, you could go the Demeter Fragrance Library route, and buy a handful of large minis to create a unique perfume bouquet that hits the high notes of your romance: Vanilla Cake Batter for the birthday cake he made you, White Russian for the drink you shared on your first date, Beeswax for the homemade honey you bought on your first weekend away or the smell of the wax seal on the back of a handwritten love letter, Mistletoe for your first drunken kiss at the company Christmas party. Whatever your memory is, one of these companies probably has a scent that could represent it and give you a way to show that you remember, in a visceral way, the moment you knew you were in love.

And if all else fails, you could always go with the classic, old school approach: say it with love. S-Perfumes 100% Love or Creed Love in Black or Creed Love in White, or any of the By Kilian l'amour-themed scents (Love, Beyond Love, Taste of Heaven, Straight to Heaven, or for those of a more cynical, Amy Winehouse-bent, Back to Black and Love and Tears) are all beautiful scents, and nothing says love like L-O-V-E.

Yes, it's also a CD case!

What about you, dear reader?  Have I told you lately that I love you? Well, if you feel I haven't, then let me make it up to you with this awesome V-Day drawing. Included for one lucky winner will be the fabulously tacky fuzzy pink CD holder with a couple differently themed, love-related mix CDs made and decorated by your truly, PLUS some candy and some lovely samples that will include, but are not limited to S-Perfumes 100% Love, By Kilian Straight to Heaven, Cthulhu in Love, slumberhouse Grev and some other things not listed above.  But yes! At least five samples! Plus music! Candy! A giant pink fuzzy heart CD case! (Don't lie, you know you want its garish wonderfulness.)


POST A COMMENT BELOW talking about perfume!, love, romance, the death thereof, music, movies, perfume!, poetry, books, perfume!, whathaveyou on or before 11:59pm PST on Monday, February 13, 2012.  Will ship internationally. Winner to be announced on V-day.

So come on then: who wants to be my Valentine?

Like a wet log, I sang within a flame.
In that last while, eternity's confine,
I came to love, I came into my own.
~Theodore Roethke, from The Dream

No Longer "Silent All These Years."

The Explosion of Young Adult Fiction and Its Impact on the Future Voices of Women

My IRL friend Marni is a young adult. She is also a fan and author of YA literature. We spend a lot of time chatting about pop culture and entertainment, but particularly we talk about the current explosion of interest in YA literature and the general dismissal of it, writ large, as a substantive genre of literature. Much like romance, YA gets a bad rap for being fluff. "Those books are for children/teens," people will say with a wave of their hand, as though C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, and even -- to some extent -- Tolkien's Lord of the Rings aren't all successful and enduring series with primary appeal to younger readers. FN1.

There are a lot of things I find remarkable about the virtual explosion of the YA market in the wake of Harry Potter and Twilight. One is simply how many books there are for young adults, so many more than there were when I was that age. After reading all the original Nancy Drews, Babysitter's Clubs, and Sweet Valley Highs by age nine, I moved right into adult fiction, toting copies of Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove and John Jake's North and South into my sixth grade reading class. There simply weren't a lot of young adult books available, and though I read my share of Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine, they didn't hold a lot of appeal for me.

The thing I find the most thrilling, though, about the recent uptick in YA novel publishing is the explosion of role models, characters, and voices for young women. Though I've been thinking this for about a year, I was watching this video inspired by Josephine Angelini's Starcrossed series, and it really finally hit me. FN2. I was watching an all-female rock band named DemiGoddess in a video they made and shared with the world.  In it, they sing a song they wrote about a female protagonist superhuman that reclaims an infamous female character of Greek literature in a series written by a woman.  It was like a tiny explosion of women reclaiming and rebuilding stories about women from the past for women, inspiring other women to create further works capturing women's voices as the primary storyteller of a world where women can both fall in love and save themselves.

When I was fifteen, there weren't shelves and shelves of books like this.  I survived for a long time on the works of female musicians, '80s pop stars and rockers and '90s riot grrls like Madonna, Joan Jett, Johnette Napolitano, Chrissie Hynde, Kathleen Hanna, Kim Deal, Tanya Donelly, Ani DiFranco, Liz Phair, and Tori Amos. They were my voice; I couldn't find a corollary in books, television, or film. FN3.

I had to search for female protagonists in literature to identify with, to be inspired by.  While I eventually discovered the works of Dorothy Allison, Virginia Wolf, Connie Willis, Alice Walker, Annie Dillard, bell hooks, and Toni Morrison (all of whom I still recommend), those writers didn't reach me until I was in my early-mid twenties.  It took a long time for me to find my voice, to tell my story, to know it was important and valuable.

When I go to bookstores now, I run into tons of twelve and thirteen-year-olds hauling stacks of books written by women about female protagonists to the cash register. When I go to the library, they haunt the same bookshelves.  These girls are growing up with a vision of the world that tells them their stories matter. They are superheroes.  They are smart, strong, magickal, powerful, capable.  Their voices are worth hearing, and as a consequence, they will themselves demand to be heard.

In ten or fifteen years, these girls will graduate from college and enter the workforce.  They will have careers and incomes and purchasing power.  And their experiences with these books will tell them that their stories deserve time and exploration.  Their adventures are every bit as important as their male counterparts.  Their lives are valuable. Their knowledge is powerful.

And they will have learned it from writers like Josephine and Marni, like Beth Revis and Lauren Kate, like Jennifer Lynn Barnes and Leigh Fallon, like Suzanne Collins and Sophie Jordan and Sara Zarr, Melissa Marr, Jeri Smith-Ready, Margaret Stohl, Kami Garcia, Maggie Stiefvater, Stacey Jay, Victoria Schwab, Carrie Ryan, Sarah Rees Brennan, Kelley Armstrong, Alyson Noel, Melissa de la Cruz, Richelle Mead, P.C. Cast, Laini Taylor, and probably tons of others I am forgetting. FN4.  And yes, even Stephenie Meyers and J.K. Rowling, who helped expand and relaunch earnest interest in the genre, even if one wrote a less than perfect female protagonist and the other wrote primarily about a boy, because there are strong female characters in those stories, too. FN5. And those stories are quickly being turned into movies and television series, which will inspire more and more stories, echoing forever forward.

These young female readers, as grown women, will be creating and managing and participating in media and the marketplace of ideas, and they will expect, as a matter of course, that their ideas, stories, desires, and experiences be treated with dignity and respect and given equal opportunity to flourish.  This was the thought that gave me hope when I saw the heartbreaking documentary Miss Representation, a film about the continuing shortage of women in positions of power, the biased view we see of women in media, and the disproportionate lack of coverage for women's stories and issues. FN6.  These young women are hearing a different message every time they pick up one of these books.

When I was fourteen, Tori Amos had her first hit with "Silent All These Years." Twenty years later I still remember the desperate urgency that made me cling to that song, lying in my bed and listening to its words over and over again:

I got something to say, you know, but nothing comes.

Yes, I know what you think of me. You never shut-up.

Yeah, I can hear that.

But what if I'm a mermaid in these jeans of his with her name still on it?

Hey, but I don't care 'cause sometimes, I said sometimes,

I hear my voice and it's been here --

silent all these years...

My scream got lost in a paper cup.

I think there's a heaven where some screams have gone...

Years go by.

Will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand?

Years go by.

If I'm stripped of my beautyand the orange clouds raining in hand?

 Years go by. 

Will I choke on my tears till finally there is nothing left?

One more casualty.

You know, it isn't easy, easy, easy.

But what if I'm a mermaid in these jeans of his with her name still on it?

Hey, but I don't care 'cause sometimes, I said sometimes,

I hear my voice...

I hear my voice...

I hear my voice.

And it's been here: silent all these years.

I've been here, silent all these years.

If I were to hope for one thing for the daughters of the world present and future, it would be that they wouldn't spend so many years in silence, reaching for their own voice, wondering if its been stolen away to some heaven that holds the silenced screams of generations of women past.  My brother recently told me my sixteen-year-old niece is hard at work on her first novel.  She is sixteen, but she already knows her voice matters.  I see the same thing over and over when I go to book readings -  crowds of women and girls, all clamoring for more stories about themselves and the people they hope to be.

When I look at the stories crowding Young Adult fiction shelves today, with all their flaws and foibles, I still see something revolutionary: an overwhelming sense that women have stories of heroism and adventure to tell and to hear. These writers may be sparking the most important feminist change in media today, one that will continue to bear fruit long after these books leave the New Release shelves.

So I'll let the haters who dismiss the growth in YA fiction as a trend hate all they want; I'm a historian, and I think history will bear me out. Right now YA fiction is sparking a subtle feminist revolution that we will feel the tremors of for decades to come.  These writers are creating a more equal world by virtue of their contributions, by responding to a need young women didn't even know they had because they lacked the language to express it.

Viva la revolution, my young readers! Your story gives me hope, and it is the story I hope to hear next.
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FN1. I find it irksome that someone would dismiss the Harry Potter books because the protagonist is a child and teen; the series will likely last a millenia over. Over 450 million individual books have been sold, more than any other series of books. If generations hence there are archaeologists trying to determine what people were reading and thinking during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, you'd be foolish not to realize the trial and tribulations of a small bespeckled wizard would be high on the list. You can knock plebeian literature all you want, but I always think it is worth remember that Shakespeare was written for the masses, as was Jane Eyre. Sometimes what makes literature great is not its rich lyrical writing or thick subtext, but that it moves people of all kinds the world over. The Boy who Lived will, indeed, live -- long after the critiques who have dismissed him have been returned to dust.

FN2. You can see the video that inspired this post below.

FN3. Okay, maybe BTVS. And also possibly Felicity, a little. But both those shows were created by men.

FN4. This isn't to say there haven't been authors doing this for years (two that immediately spring to mind are Tamora Pierce and Ursula La Guin, who deserve their share of high praise and glory) but more that the sheer volume now sends an overwhelming message that women's stories are valuable, in the same way that having to hunt for a female author and/or protagonist in the past sent the message they were not.

FN5. I remain decidedly Teams Hermione, Alice, and Bella Should Go To College.

FN6. Trailer available below. I highly recommend seeing it if you can.