Every Monday, we get a few pages from the New York Times, some highlights of last week’s NY Times features, printed and added to one of our two daily newspapers. I am always looking forward to receiving it, as – quite often- there are little sparklers in there, worth reading. Unfortunately, reading and learning about the news and developments of the world, written by journalists who have done their research and thinking, has been replaced by a facebook-twitter-“Hunk Of The Week “- thing for many. The media is the message; nothing new,  I have written about it many times on this blog.

The media is the message means: the media influencse the way a message is received. This is true for TV, internet, printed information,…

Anyhow: I came across this article in the NY TIMES about art, and a visual artist and there, it said, referring to an exhibition of a hip young artist: “….that the exhibition defines our times, a kind of gilded age on steroids, when the past gets repackaged as farce. ”

I couldn’t have found  better words to describe the state of works in the field of perfumes, too. I would just add “…and the present is drowned in tackiness without the hope of future melioration.”

Let’s face it: farce fits quite well, for most categories that are there. If I talk to perfumer friends, we normally end up within 5 minutes in “this is so unbelievable! Oh my..! How horrible! How can they do that? Oh no, not again!”-territory. What me and some of my friends do: Shake our heads, and move forward. Thus, we say, often “the caravan moves forward, let them sit in the oasis, or is a fata morgana?

So there we go. This brings me back to the newspaper. I wish there was a newspaper for perfumes, too. Complementing the perfume discourse, where journalists write about perfumes who did their research and facts checking and investigative digging. And, sorry, blogs-facebook-twitter do not count there,  the media is the message. And I guess glossy magazine don’t count either, and TV does not, too. I just want investigative down to earth journalism for perfumes.

Of course, the media is the message is true for this blog, too. I guess that’s ironical. And now: a happy start in tauerville. Today’s picture: A self portrait, done 2014 03 23, photoshop, pencil, reduced in size for publication here. Unsigned, as I forgot to sign it.

Tasks this week: getting ready for next week! Next week sees me travelling and shutting down the shop and website for a few days for maintenance.