Card1 - The Monday Morning Memo

Cards like this one make me happy because they tell me I'm making a difference.
But if Barry had said these same things to my face, I would have been horribly uncomfortable. Go figure.

“I have spoken to you this afternoon of poetry and of sexual magic. No too many years ago, the names of our perfumes bore testimony to such things. There was a popular scent called Tabu, there was Sorcery, My Sin, Vampire, Voodoo, Evening in Paris, Jungle Gardenia, Bandit, Shocking, Intimate, Love Potion, and L’Heure Bleue – The Blue Hour. Nowadays what do we find? Vanderbilt, Miss Dior, Lauren, and Armani, perfumes named after glorified tailors – there were murmurs and gasps in the audience – names that evoke not the poetic, the erotic, the magic, but economic status, social snobbery, and the egomania of designers. Perfumes that confuse the essence of creation with the essence of money. How much sustenance can the soul receive from a scent entitled Bill Blass?

Vanderbilt and Bill Blass are what the marketing people have given us.

But you know, you perfumers, in the deep unfolding rose of your hearts, you know that fragrance is no automobile or table setting, no insurance policy, no Preparation H. Attempts to reduce perfume to a predictable product with which cost accountants can safely deal; attempts to own it, control it, and make it happen when the mysterious spirit is not there are fated to end in crude failure and coarse farce.

Perfuming is most unlike manufacture. And perfumers should be proud to assume our historic role as enchanters, soul feeders, sacred pimps, and alchemists. Marketing people are fine when it comes to peddling wares, but let us remember always that it is the perfumer, the flowermaster, the guardian of the Blue Hour, who can charm the birds and bees in the human spirit – and destroy its dinosaurs.

“

- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume, p. 229

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