ABOUT HEMMINGWAY ...

Almost like they're aware of what I post, the algorithms have started scattering nasal relief and nostril spa treaments in my social media and news feed. They really, really want me to shove liquids and gels up my nose. Somewhere out there marketing types think that doing so will solve all my problems and lead to a greater sense of peace and harmony in my universe. Surely congestion is affecting my love life? Don't I passionately wish to inhale the rich aroma of olive oil roasted garlic in it's karmic fullness? My life is incomplete without the deep, deep clarity that sterile lightly medicated sprays will be bring!

At the moment it smells like pipe tobacco and freshly brewed coffee in here. When an adult wakes up, that is really all he needs to smell. A mature and civilized spectrum of fragrances.

[The tobacco is Rattray's Marlin Flake, which is very similar to McConnell's Folded Flake, and might actually be the same product. Medium, somewhat on the mild side. A good solid product. Minor inclusions of Kentucky and Perique as condimentals. It's what Hemmingway would have smoked if he hadn't been such a macho poseur.]


Wet grass, wood polish, a bowl of lemons, tannins from a distant bog, roofing tar, the salt fish perfume of a Chinese grocery, overripe fruit in the neighbor's orchard, grilled fatty pork with a touch of lemon grass ....


The best smell in the city during summer is the complete absence of people on the street outside the apartment building. The oldsters that cluster at the bus stop shortly after seven have all headed across the hill to Chinatown for breakfast, the bums sleeping in two or three doorways have woken up, scratched themselves, and gone in search of cigarettes and a bag of cheetos, and the joggers and dog walkers have done their necessary defecatory acts, bagged it all up, and are at work. Peace.

You smell that, son? It smells like freedom. We have no tourists on this part of the hill, not a single stinking one. We don't need any napalm.


À propos of nothing at all ...

Sadly, there are no iguanas either. I like iguanas, but hell will freeze over before I ever go to Florida, even for that. Life is too short to put up with elderly racists and dirty A-shirt wearing slovenly Turmp voters doing stupid stuff. That's ninety percent of the people there, yes?

That more or less describes the entire Red State area. Bucket loads.
Hundreds and hundreds of miles of dunder heads.
A vast expanse of Placerville.



Ernest Hemmingway had a pet iguana named Abdul. Who would have much preferred it if the old bastard had smoked Marlin Flake instead of those rancid Cubans. Heck, any one of the fine VaPers by Ratrays. Brown Clunee, Hal O' The Wynd, Marlin Flake, Old Gowrie.
Iguanas hate the smell of stogies. This is well-known.



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