The Loose Connections Recommender #3

On Difficult Women, Resilient Flowers & Bespoke Perfume

The death of Sinead O’Connor has prompted much reflection about how (terribly) she was regarded in her lifetime.

Jude Rogers

succintly noted “Difficult women are easier when they’re dead.” in her excellent think piece here.

Future #3: How to treat female artists better after Sinéad

Here’s the story behind her incredible version of Prince’s song ‘Nothing Compares To You’. In her memoir Rememberings, she tells a story of being summoned to Prince’s house for an utterly bizarre meeting where admonishes her for swearing, pillow fights her, and becomes furious when she won’t eat his soup, and it ends with her racing down the street to get away from him and Prince chasing her in his car.

This Ringer essay, written from Rob Harvilla’s podcast ‘Songs That Explain the 90s’ is a brilliant overview of Sinead, truth and expectations.

2. The Hyacinth is one of my very favourite flowers for its intoxicating, delicate scent and its wild, spiky blue/pink/purple/yellow/white appearance.

It can survive in extreme conditions, such as rocky, volcanic mountain tops, as well as in pretty, well maintained garden beds.

In Greek mythology, Hyacinthus was a glorious young Spartan man, adored by his lover Apollo, the immortal sun god, admired by various others. One fine day while Apollo was teaching Hyacinthus how to play quoits with another admirer, the discus rebounded and hit Hyacinthus in the head, killing him. There are suggestions that jealousy may have been involved in this accident. Apollo tried everything in his power to resurrect him but could not, so he created a flower that would re-bloom eternally from his spilled blood.

An eleven year old Mozart was inspired by this tragic story to write an opera ‘Apollo et Hyacinthus’.

The hyacinth flower can symbolise luck, rebirth and constancy, but can also be associated with sorrow and jealousy. It can be given to symbolise a fresh start or to apologise after thoughtlessness.

Fascinating facts:

• the hyacinth bulb is poisonous to the touch - the oxalic acid it produces is strong enough to remove rust

• the perfume of each colour variety is distinct and different

• the juice from the flower is so sticky it was once used for book binding

3. Speaking of scents, this award winning Adelaide based natural perfumery One Seed allows you to create your own bespoke fragrance sample from over forty natural extracts in its scent bar. I mixed up my own lovely creation from blood orange, bitter almond, may chang, jasmine, orange blossom and vetiver…. at $18 for the 2ml trial size its well worth a try. If you decide to go ahead and order the full size version you can choose your own label as well. I was considering making a range of bespoke perfume for my artist merch but I think it is a little impractical… however I highly recommend doing it for yourself or as a gift.

   

   I gotta go and rehearse for my show tonight.

   So, til next week,

   Lo x