Base scent of Teen Spirit with notes of Glove

I had the bright idea of writing a novel in which a gifted parfumier becomes a serial murderer, so as to use the pheromones extracted from his victims as ingredients in the ultimate perfume.

Buggrit!

The inspiration was of course the news that someone has introduced a perfume named after a notorious unsolved murder victim. Is this a one-off, or does it herald an entire wave of competing products with names like JonBenét from rival perfume house?

It would be irresponsible not to speculate whether the constituents of Dahlia Noir^§ include cadaverine¹ and putrescine² as substitutes for ambergris³ and musk.

In fact there is a literary tradition of portraying parfumiers as serial killers; it must be an old tradition, or a charter or something.
Süskind's novel is set in a past epoch of squalor and fetor and filth and absence of clean water for hygiene. The Bester story is set in the near future where similar conditions obtain.

Anyway, Interpol would clearly be wise to track the movements of Givenchy's creative consultants for the last few years and cross-tab them with reports of mysterious deaths or missing persons. They would also do well to assemble a team of anosmic detectives.

That last paragraph has movie-plot possibilities but I will not be having with Steve Martin in the role of Inspector Clouseau.

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§ Perfume review: "It’s a modern chypre (aka woody oriental). The opening is a short-lived whoosh of tropical fruit (guava?) and citrus. The heart is a medium weight fresh peppered floral; in keeping with the references to the fantasy flower, perhaps, it doesn’t smell like any flower in particular (the notes: pink pepper, mandarin, mimosa, rose, iris, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla and tonka bean). The base is a dry woody-musky patchouli, very clean and smooth, and made even more of-the-moment by a soft, powdery finish. There is something in the dry down, I don’t know what, that smells ever-so-faintly medicinal; sometimes I noticed it and sometimes I didn’t."

¹ "[Cadaverine] is partially responsible for the distinctive odors of urine and semen."

² Biotechnological production of putrescine from renewable feedstock is a promising alternative to the chemical synthesis. A metabolically engineered strain of Escherichia coli that produces putrescine at high titer in glucose mineral salts medium has recently been described."
-- This is good news for those of us who use the stuff in industrial quantities and are worried about adequacy of the supplies.

³ Monkey Wizard Brewery has "added some [ambergris] to this years Steampunk Strong Ale, now for the first time worldwide you can have some whale in your ale!"
-- Is this good news? Discuss.

A Question for the Readers

Resorting to a bleg because I am new to the ways of the cartooning lexicon. Question: Does its rich word-hoard contain a special term -- like 'plewds' and 'briffits' -- for that graphical convention whereby the speed of some passing object or character is dramatised by drawing doubled-exposure head-turning onlookers?*

R.: Eagle with doubled head as it watches
rapid falcon turning in the widening gyre

I tried searching the Interlattice for the search term 'comic + convention'... the results were inconclusive, except to convince me that there are more people than there are lives.

Further research indicates, surprisingly enough, that doubled heads have only recently become the arbitrary standard. The convention has evolved, much in the manner of the evolution of the fork though in the opposite direction.** Three heads were common in Renaissance woodcutlery-cuttery, as shown in an image familiar from previous weekly installments of the Riddled World of Knowledge.

It is best if the heads look similar. Otherwise the sense of motion turns into an Allegory.

See how convincingly it works when done properly!
There can be too many heads in the turning time-exposure. If they blur together into a continuous curve, the onlooker looks like a butt-plug.


* Double heads are also a useful graphic shorthand for representing the erstwhile tyrant Typhon, in that scene in Sword of the Lictor where Severian encounters his dehydrated body and unwittingly activates the mechanisms that reanimate him.

I am beginning to wonder whether Bill Hammond really has the right aesthetic for our Illustrated Gene Wolfe project.

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** Note only two tines in Renaissance forks from 1573.

Yet Morton's Fork (1487) is clearly shown with a third tine already!

Making sheep eyes

These are busy days here at Casa Kiwi. Luckily Mrs. Kiwi is a dab hand at preparing tasty, nutritious snacks for the modern family-on-the-go!! Does anyone want to adopt 4 blind sheep?

Showed me an ink-blot \ Looked just like a hornets' nest

I agree that the graphic style of the images in the Thematic Apperception Test have dated badly and have that "self-taught artist stuck in the 1930s" look. I will further concede that there is probably a market for a new series of projective psych. test images, drawn in a more timeless style, for discriminating connoisseurs.

Another Kiwi assured me that it would all be ink-blots that look like beautiful butterflies. "And pairs of dancers," tigris added.

I am beginning to regret letting them talk me into posing.

Also I cannot see what any of these tests have to do with maintaining and operating cinema equipment.

Trebuche Guevara

When I am King of England, no one will ever dare call me Shorty Greasy Spot Spot again!

Who is this bad boy?
Why it is one Cameron Slater, blogger, whom Riddled last encountered back when he was arguing with judges as to whether New Zealand's innocent-until-guilty name-suppression laws were intended to cover him. Here he is cooperating with a photographer from the Com-Post (Wellington's newspaper of note),* with a pose presumably chosen to emphasise the Sensitivity and Sex-Appeal aspects of his personality. Unless he is actually auditioning for a role in the next Coen Brothers movie.

Mr Cameron does not have much time for mainstream journalists, regarding them as effete, punch-pulling, time-serving woofters, too concerned with Political Correctness and not enough with Getting the Real Story:
Some people might wonder whether Slater was ever bullied at school but we could not possibly comment.

But wait! Call the WAAHmbulance!
Liberals have been uncaring about Slater!

* For a feature space-filler in the Saturday Less-Content Edition, surveying New Zealand's blogging culture. The excellent Dim-Post receives a mention -- but not Riddled! -- leading to the suspicion that the Com-Post was not interested in promoting serious alternatives to the print media.

The First Rule of Rock-Paper-Scissors Club

You would never think to see them now that in their day jobs they are quiet unassuming typeface manicules.

UPDATE. Manicules are seldom seen without their trousers.

Yet they live a secret life!

Trombone triumph

The five member Old Entomologist Trombone and Equestrian team arrived back from this year's "Oompapacalypse" with the trophy from their class. The Trombone (Equestrian) class was very keenly contested this year and the Rat and Cockle team who won the competition are said to be furious and sad in equal parts. However as team leader Evangeline van Holsterin says "Finders keepers, losers bastards"
There was some criticism levelled at the judges of this years competition by First Trombonist Mr. Smut Clyde who vouchsafed that "the Judges did not seem to understand the spirit of giving from the Old Entomologist team, "You would think that none of them had ever seen a Quince and Tadpole potato top pie before, the way that they carried on." He thanked the experimental division of Mrs Miggins' pie shop, her and her nephew Erasmus, for their efforts, "I know Ras was out at all hours catching good sized tadpoles".
The teams horses appeared to be in good condition and have benefitted from a new dietrary regime instigated by Food Technologist (Equestrian) Another Kiwi who said that "a good mount is a good mount but a horse is a leopard of another stripe" He appeared to have taste testing the Stout based oat infusion that the horses had been having in addition to Whirlsteller Horse Dietary supplements available from Vince Whirlsteller in the carpark of Albies All-Nite Snackatorium on Fridays at 2.17am.

They hung there dependant from the sky

Sometimes negotiations with the library pixies progress favourably, and sometimes they go all kattywumpus and end with management concessions and loss of dignity, for that is the essence of good-faith bargaining in the cut-and-thrust of the labour market. Recent negotiations to roll over the terms of October's Cataloging, Shelving and Downloading Digital Material Relevant to Needs of Riddled Researchers without Snide Comments and Rickrolling Contract through the month of November have turned into something of a coup, thanks to the brinksmanship and superior poker skills of the Riddled Appointed Negotiating Agent, though I say so myself.

You can see how cleverly I have convinced the pixies that a management-supplied Guy Fawkes piñata is appropriate for their Guy Fawkes Night celebration, rather than allowing them to expect a more expensive firework display and bonfire that would have made serious inroads into the staff Chocolate Digestive-Biscuit fund.

It is not my problem if they want to bring a spider along as their own Appointed Negotiating Agent. If you are wondering why the background consists of two elephants standing on their trunks on levitating hillocks, it appears that the pixies' notions of decor for the Graphic Novel wing of the library are inspired by reading the "geyser bouncer" episodes of Dan Dare on the Rogue Planet.

I'm sure that's only a piñata.

I watched their rich attire

The latest outrage from the Zombie Menace:

This afternoon, Monday October 31, 2011, Portland Police officers from Central Precinct responded to the Bank of America branch located at 121 Southwest Morrison Street for a disturbance involving a group of zombies that were in the lobby.

Officers arrived and observed a red substance and pieces of paper stuck to the glass in the lobby and large group of people dressed like zombies leaving the location. One of the employees of the bank identified one of the zombies as the person that vandalized the glass.

Imagine the disruption that could result from an entire costume made of POS-tit notes.

Of course costume-related forms of political protest have a long and noble history: