Making what will likely be his final appearance here to close out the Autumn of Oud, he rather ironically wears an Amouage fragrance titled ‘Overture’ (and little else) in the promise of a beginning and an ending at once – the very essence of incongruous impossibility. Such has been the conundrum that is the existence of Mr. Oud. For those seeking resolution or revelation of who Mr. Oud really is, this post will not go very much further in illuminating that. If anything, he departs leaving more questions, more mysteries, than we had before his arrival.
Absolutely Infuriating.
Mr. Oud artfully ingratiates himself into your world, making you think of him in a way he will never think of you – his exquisitely-fragranced coat and scarf floating in the air as more of a ghostly apparition than any physical embodiment of personhood.
He is Scrooge and Santa and little baby Jesus as much as he is not, balancing precariously between worlds, straddling the dangerous space where the precious clashes with the permissible, and what you want to see diabolically overrides what you actually see.
Mr. Oud has only ever been who you want him to be – a mirror and crystal ball that invites the indulgent luxury of getting to put him in whatever box you’d like. Like smoke and perfume, he can find his way through he smallest openings – transporting himself invisibly, riding on the wind and infiltrating the mind because he was never quite real. Mr. Oud was an idea and a ghost, and once his purpose was served, it was like he was never there.
But what purpose was that? What role did he actually inhabit in your world? What does anyone really mean to anyone else?
Maybe he was just fashion and movement, pose and provocation, fuckery and trickery for a fall of dreams that went unfulfilled. Maybe he was the tragedy you could enjoy, brush up against, and thrill at from a distance. Maybe you made him do your dirty work, and maybe you were just a little envious that he got away with it. Maybe you were mad because he dared, and maybe you were glad.
The many maybes of Mr. Oud hang there in the air like filigrees of incense, curing elegantly into a darkened sky of almost-winter, studded with the sparkling promise of starlight from the past – the ultimate illustration of the multitudes that that the universe contains.
And so he ends his brief time with us on the note of Amouage’s ‘Overture’ – his ironic little wink of a name, coupled with a potent and polarizing fragrance, to be appreciated only by those with the most exquisitely refined taste – and abysmally irritating for those who like their scents sweet and safe. This one reads dangerously mythic, with notes redolent of the dark season – myrrh, frankincense and sandalwood – along with a hefty collection of spices like cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and saffron to keep things in the gourmand camp. It is most definitely and deliciously not for for everyone – just like Mr. Oud himself.
