Scent has such a direct connection to our more primal brains. Catch the whiff of an odor  you haven't smelled in many years, and suddenly you are transported back to that place and time as if in a dream. I remember once visiting an basement apartment and upon entering was hit with this smell that was exactly the same as my Aunt's cottage in rural Ohio.
A strong dose of mildew, old wood, decaying leaves, and the fresher air of the surrounding forest. Despite the fact I was in Brooklyn, I suddenly was overwhelmed with memories and emotions of that place and just sat and let the odor and thoughts take over for a while. It was a beautiful experience.
Just a few days ago, I came across an article that was mocking some strange perfumes... not traditional to say the least, but based more on evoking raw sex, strong emotions or scents that I feel are more tied to memory. Florals and citrus smells are pleasant, but life's events don't usually surround musk oil. Think of all the odors of the beach.... fish, brine, and seaweed.. not easy to market as perfume. But there are a few who are daring evidently.
Demeter Fragrance Library is putting out some novel ordors... a few favorites I would like to sample are
Mildew ( will this smell like my Aun't cottage?), beeswax, bonfire,  dirt, dust, funeral home, fresh hay, frozen pond, rubber, russian leather, earthworm and thundestorm... but there are a ton more....
To check out their website go to
Demeter Fragrance
 Yet another maker of fragrance... french of course has some unusual scent combinations.
Sécrétions Magnifiques by Etat De Libre D'Orange is the bottled essence of of coitus. Here is the company description:

Like blood, sweat, sperm, saliva, Sécrétions Magnifiques is as real as an olfactory coitus that sends one into raptures, to the pinnacle of sensual pleasure, that extraordinary and unique moment when desire triumphs over reason. Masculine tenseness frees a rush of adrenalin in a cascade of high-pitched aldehydic notes. The sensation of freshness is gripping. Then the fragrance reveals a metallic side, precise and as sharp as unappeased desire. We are on a razor-edge… skin and sweat mingle, and tastes of musk and sandalwood. The slightly salt marine effect stirs, arouses, and sets your mouth watering. Tongues and sexes find one another, pleasure explodes and all goes wild. Confusion reigns supreme. A subversive, disturbing perfume. It’s love or hate at first sight. Sensuous jousting is rarely satisfied with half-measures…In between Don Juan and the Woman who offers herself, arms are laid down…who will be the first to surrender?

But they also have some other wonderful ideas of fragrance:
Virgin and the Torero and Like this Tilda Swinton (love that actress)
www.etatlibredorange.com
But if you feel the need to go directly to the source... try Vulva ! Yes it smells like it sounds.. and you can get a t-shirt for some odd reason.. Love the description
"Vulva is not a perfume... it's an intimate scent for your own smelling pleasure..." for guys to jack off too evidently..
Love the pictures.. really drive the point home so to speak
Vulva

Got to view the full moon for a bit between cloud cover last night at a roof top bar. I was excited to hear about the lunar eclipse until I realized that the moon will have already set before the eclipse would start on the East coast.
Maybe next one...
which will be in North America December 21st and it will be a total eclipse... pray for no cloud cover !
Here is the info from NASA in PDF.. translated for North America as starting just after midnight...
Total Eclipse December 21st 2010

'God Particle" as sound.... was very excited to go to the LCH website and hear what God may sound like... but though they can build the CERN's Large Hadron Collider, they can't seem to build a decent website to deal with the traffic to their site. Bad design too. They are claiming to be improving the site for better traffic.
Check out http://lhcsound.wordpress.com/ when it's up and running.
Meanwhile you can check out article 
'God particle' symphony: CERN scientists simulate sounds of Higgs boson - CSMonitor.com
What the hell is a Higgs Boson: confusing article at wikipedia may help.... 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
otherwise let's wait for the music... sometimes theoretical science is best experienced directly if possible for an artist than broken down to mathematical formulas. Our minds don't always work that way.
Meanwhile for those in deep need for both science and a supernatural religion you can check out Godparticle.net. 

Happy Summer Solstice... the longest day of the year (sort of) and the first day of summer. Also is celebrated as Midsummer's Eve usually with the lighting of a bonfire... here are some pictures I linked too from the web....there is something to a conflagration, even a small fire when I go camping feeds some primal aspect to my psyche. It bonds groups of people and amplifies yet focuses their mysticism and violent inner natures. So beautiful to see yet you can never really join with it without huge sacrifices.
It's a pity we can no longer have these huge fires as part of the rituals of modern life. But I think you need to be a culture that understands these traditions, like in Northern Europe or a small of enough community of people to empathize with one another so that the rituals evoked do not go overboard. In American large cities people light fires in riots or to celebrate a basketball victory (and turn over someone's car while their in it ). Unfortunately we have whole aspects to our cultural that are to immature to be playing with fire.

When I was at the orientation on Sunday at Platte Clove we took a hike down to the waterfall...We had a few people from the Catskill Center with us that day and one was a conservationist who knew a lot about the forest. I had assumed that the woods that were found around scenic waterfalls in the North East were usually left uncut as they were a source of revenue for the landowner who had visitors pay a toll to see the falls. And that the surrounding forest looked very untouched to my eyes. But this man said I was wrong, and that this was more likely a "mature" forest, getting closer to a "old growth" forest since it is hitting about 150 years since it was last clear cut. He said this land was probably cleared for pasture and for forested for hemlock, which was used in the tanning industry and grows in abundance in that area. He also could identify birds by their song, which he said is the easiest way to know which birds are in the area than trying to see them in dense upper story of the canopy. I looked up a  few websites with birdsongs and of course there are Apps now you can download to your Blackberry or Iphone. A bird singing nearby he identified as the Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Check out the song at Whatbird.com
Yellow-rumped Warbler - Whatbird.com

Just got back from my trip to the Catskills. I went camping with the Stogie and got to experience some severe weather on Saturday night. Of course my thoughts ran to 20 people who died when a flash flood sweep through their campground last week. Most of the them were sleeping in tents near the river when the water started rising very quickly. We had a lovely spot, but we were near a dried out river bed, and the stream was a bit further back, but you could see where in flood conditions the water would rise so high that the river would be right next to our tent. But it was a great trip and we got to spend some time up near Platte Clove which was very lovely since it was covered in fog.  On another note, evidently Jesus was struck by lightning in Ohio. It was a giant Jesus with hands outstretched to heaven, nick-named the Touch Down Jesus. Seems appropriate that Jesus would be killed by nature in Ohio.

Well, my first solo show of Bodies of Trees is up at Artspace in New Haven CT. Got done installing this last sunday and the official opening is Thursday June 10th at 6pm... I will try like hell to be there.
Here are some pixs  of the images. There are 9 pairs of images total. Each image is on 20x24 inch MDF and then the image is covered in shellac. Some images have inclusions such as hair or rust imbedded into the surface. There is an old saying... "Nature abhors a straight line"  For some reason when it comes to my work, I never want to see it perfect... slightly flawed. Here is a link to the website http://artspacenh.org/galleries/longwall/

A very sad day.. probably not going to be noticed as much as the death of washed up child tv star, but significant non-the less. Louise Bourgeoise died at 98. I guess to have lived most of your life doing exactly what you were meant to be, up until the very end is not such a sad thing after all. Here is a link to NY Times article:
Louise Bourgeois