The Saturday Magazine: My Favorite Non-Perfume Things of 2017

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The calendar be a cruel mistress. Usually I post my favorite non-perfume things of 2017 on the last Sunday of the year in my usual The Sunday Magazine column. Except this year Sunday is also the last day of the year when I post my column of perfume hopes and wishes for 2018. So, for this week only The Sunday Magazine becomes The Saturday Magazine while I share some of my favorite non-perfume things of 2017.

Favorite movie/TV show/ whatever you want to call it: Twin Peaks: The Return– My affection for this grows daily. It also has created some of my most consistent correspondence with readers. What I think is undeniable is David Lynch and Mark Frost pulled off one of the greatest continuations in media history. In something which could only have existed in the current way we watch stuff Twin Peaks: The Return existed exactly as Mr. Lynch wanted it to. That there is this debate as to whether it is a television series of movie is irrelevant; it is uncompromising storytelling. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t think about something that I saw. Oh yeah; Kyle McLachlan essentially held this all together in an acting performance of four different versions of the same character. If there is no Emmy for him my scream will match Laura Palmer’s.

Favorite Album: Melodrama by Lorde– When I went to see what the most played music of 2017 was on my iTunes playlist I was surprised to see this in my top 5 most listened to. I begin to think that is what Lorde’s second album is all about; sneaking up on you. Working with producer Jack Antonoff, Melodrama feels like the work of a much more seasoned musician. If the fun of Lorde’s first album “Royals” was this precocious talent then on “Melodrama” it is as if she has traveled through a time machine straight to experienced. It is an example of how to make electronic music for the pop music world without selling out.

Favorite Single: Bad Liar by Selena Gomez– I know this was not as big as some of the other hits of the year but this was always the most improbable. If the equation of Pop Tart + Talking Heads = Favorite Single doesn’t compute it’s because this should have fallen apart in so many ways. Instead Ms. Gomez takes the incredible Tina Weymouth bass line from Talking Heads “Psycho Killer”. In a restrained performance using finger pops and hand claps as percussion Ms. Gomez lays out that delicious tension of not wanting to let on how much you’re attracted to that person. That Talking Heads signed off to allow Ms. Gomez permission to use the bass line tells you that this is pop music on a different level. Is it wrong I want a mash-up?

Favorite Book: My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris– I read this graphic novel back in the spring; it has never fully left my consciousness. A semi-autobiographical story about a ten-year old girl in 1968 Chicago dealing with a mother stricken with cancer while a neighbor is found dead from a gunshot wound. The protagonist communicates her fears in pen crosshatch drawings in her composition book. The words in the margins take this right to the top of the literary world. Visually and intellectually stunning.

Favorite Spirit: Havana Club Anejo 7 Anos- Free trade with Cuba might mean cigars to many but for me it was the chance to try the full Havana Club line of rum. Usually by the time the frost is on the pumpkin the scotch is in the snifter. This year the honey and tobacco sweetness of this aged rum has been my sipper of choice.

Favorite Wines: 2015 Mendoza Malbecs and Maipo Valley Cabernet Sauvignons– In the expansion of wine regions there has been some amazing little pockets of excellent winemaking. The Argentinian Mendoza area and the Maipo Valley in Chile among the best. I have recommended these wines as best buys for ten years now. This year they are especially a fantastic bargain because the 2015 vintage which is just becoming available was the best, perhaps ever. These are the kind of nuanced red wines you usually get for over $100 which are commonly available for $20 or less. Drinkable now but will be even better in five to seven years.

These are some of the other things, besides perfume, which brightened my life in 2017.

–Mark Behnke

The Sunday Magazine: Twin Peaks: The Return

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Sixteen weeks ago on the eve of the premiere of Twin Peaks: The Return in this column I said “it’s been twenty-five years; tell me a story”. Well after the 18-hours of this I have been told a story that has been more than I could’ve expected. I have been given so much story, along with spectacular visuals, I suspect it will take another twenty-five years for me to digest it all.

Back in 1990 when Twin Peaks premiered on ABC it was so unexpected for a broadcast network to show something like that. In 2017, with the niche television landscape Showtime could commit to 18-hours. This allowed creators David Lynch and Mark Frost to fully realize their visions. Mr. Lynch would direct every episode. It resulted in one of the greatest collection of a particular visualist’s aesthetic since Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz”. For a director to be given the opportunity to make an extended version of a movie over a number of segments must be a gift. Mr. Lynch took this largesse and displayed everything I admire about him. If you’ve been a long-time viewer of Mr. Lynch’s style every bit of it was here to one degree or another.

Michael Cera as Wally Brando

There were long pauses between dialogue verging on and passing uncomfortable. Commentary on how we are so used to word salad when it comes in haute cuisine we’re not sure what to do with it. There were moments of sweaty palmed tension released in a horrific climax. To the point that other moments ratcheted up tension that didn’t get released. The sound editing also done by Mr. Lynch carried by crackling electricity throughout was all about the energy running through the story. There were moments of wry commentary on our current way of life epitomized by Michael Cera who plays the son of Deputy Andy and Receptionist Lucy; Wally Brando. Mr. Cera gives a comedic performance where he channels the cadence of Marlon Brando as he comes to pay respect to his godfather, the local sheriff, in the dialogue of Luca Brazzi. It is four minutes of writing and performance gold.

The Three Faces of Kyle MacLachlan in Twin Peaks: The Return

Another component of all of this is the David Lynch Repertory Company was represented throughout. Many of the actors he has worked with in his movies joined original cast members. There are so many good acting performances I am only going to focus on one; that of Kyle MacLachlan. Mr. MacLachlan had to be the glue that held all of this together as he played three versions of characters who looked like him. He gave each of them distinct personality so just the way he delivered the line you could tell which character it was. Through his performance Mr. MacLachlan portrayed almost every imaginable human emotion through the entire series. I know Twin Peaks: The Return is going to be odd but if Mr. MacLachlan is not in the Best Actor Emmy race for a Limited Series then the Academy is full of idiots.

Edward Louis Severson III a.k.a. Eddie Vedder at The Roadhouse

The final part of what made Twin Peaks: The Return a joy for me was almost every episode ended with a musical performance in The Roadhouse. Some of my favorites like Chromatics, “the” Nine Inch Nails, The Cactus Blossoms and Lissie were already on my playlist. I added new bands Au Revoir Simone, Sharon van Etten, and The Veils. Just from a musical perspective it was a feast. The one single performance which made the top of my list over the entire series was Edward Louis Severson III’s “Out of Sand”. You might know the singer better by his stage name Eddie Vedder and this song was a perfect capstone to one of the pivotal episodes. Giving these musicians the opportunity to enter the Twin Peaks playground was another brilliant decision.

Take a Bow Mr. Lynch

I know I have a lot of readers who were frustrated by everything; I got a lot of e-mail about it. I know Episode 8 was the break point for many. That episode was done in the most surreal way where I think Mr. Lynch was equating the A-bomb was responsible for the release of evil in to the world. I’ve watched the episode six times now and It is jam packed with so many visual beats I am still seeing new things. I think everyone who returned for episode 9 was like me completely captured. There was almost the idea of Mr. Lynch laying down this barrier of if you can’t deal with this I still have ten more hours for you.

My opinion is Twin Peaks: The Return has incredibly duplicated what Twin Peaks did. It re-invented what you can aspire to on television. If it spawns half of what the original did it will be fabulous.

–Mark Behnke

The Sunday Magazine: Non-Perfume FAQ July 2017

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One of the great joys of writing Colognoisseur is the amount of e-mail I receive. The interaction between reader and writer has sparked many story ideas on fragrance. When I started Colognoisseur I wanted to spend one day a week writing about non-perfume things. I always expected those to be my least read piece of the week, or month. What has been a pleasant surprise is some of the readership is also interested in the same things I am. I also get e-mails about that too. Because the perfume ones eventually get answered through a story I thought I’d take a week to answer some of the questions which have been asked about The Sunday Magazine topics.

The question I have received, particularly in the last three weeks, several times now is what convinced me to write this column. “What do you think of Twin Peaks: The Return?”

The volume of this question spiked after the airing of Episode 8. First as I replied to everyone who asked; no I have no idea what exactly was going on for that entire episode but I expect some of it will become clearer by the end of all 18 chapters.

To the larger question I have really found myself immersed in the vision of David Lynch and Mark Frost twenty-five years later. I think Mr. Lynch is telling the story in a way so different that it can be hard to embrace. Halfway home I am happy.

I received a half-dozen emails on the graphic novel “My Favorite Thing is Monsters” by Emil Ferris. With the question is there anything else like it to read? Short answer; no.

Better answer is Ms. Ferris uses graphic storytelling to tell her story in an unconventional way. If it is that which you are looking for “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui tells the story of her Vietnamese-American family and the immigration experience in the United States. It is timely and poignant.

What wine should I serve with BBQ? That’s an easy one where I have recommended the same thing for many years. The best BBQ wine is the reds from France’s Cotes du Rhone. They all come in at under $20 a bottle and provide an ideal counterpoint to the smoky barbecue. The best ones are from Guigal, Vidal-Fleury, and Louis Bernard.

Nobody asked but my favorite recent guilty pleasure is the Netflix series GLOW. Loosely based on the story of the first televised women’s professional wrestling show it captures the Los Angeles 1980’s milieu hysterically well. It is mostly played for laughs but the underlying point of women figuring out how to own their own lives by dressing up as wrestlers; is heartfelt.

Which leads to the number of responses my column on strong women in pop culture generated. From “not good enough; yet” to agreement with most of my hypothesis. I am happy that we can have the discussion with so many examples to choose from. I am looking forward to seeing Charlize Theron as Atomic Blonde next weekend. I don’t think that movie ever gets made five years ago.

Please keep writing to me and I’ll do this periodically when there are enough responses.

–Mark Behnke