Archive: Nola

[luna65]

 

 

This is an uber-vanilla fit for the delights of the Crescent City! Decadently boozy and mouthwateringly edible, we've blended Bourbon vanilla, French vanilla and black vanilla with brown sugar, pecan and dark resinous amber, topped with a dash of Sambuca and a tantalizing whisper of firewood smoke. To honor the city which inspired this fragrance, the proceeds from Nola have been donated to Habitat for Humanity-New Orleans, whose mission is to build simple, decent, affordable homes in partnership with families in need as well as to educate the public and policymakers about the importance of affordable housing for every American. To find out how you can help, please visithttp://www.habitat-nola.org/

 

VANILLA ~ Aphrodisiac, inspires happiness, playfulness, sexual arousal, lust, vitalizing.
FERMENTED ALCOHOL: (BOURBON) ~ Intoxicant, used as an offering or appeasement for Gods, used in love spells, and celebratory spells.
ANISE (SAMBUCA) ~ Sexual potency, cleansing, wards away nightmares, protective, purification, happiness, youth, psychic powers, luck, calming, soothing, meditation. Wedding rituals.
BROWN SUGAR ~ Attracts love, luck, sweetness and riches. Lust inducing, wishes granted.
PECAN ~ Money, employment, mental acuity.
AMBER ~ Fertility, creativity, love, luck, riches.
WOOD SMOKE ~ In addition to the attributes of whatever is being burned (resins, woods, etc), smoke is for cleansing, purification, renewal, consecration, concealment and celebration. It is also the foremost mode of communication from this world to the realm of spirits and the gods.

 

Created by: Mara Fox

Description: Julie (luna65)

Label art:

February 2014

 

Review Thread

 

from Hurricanes and Hoodoo: a Savannah Finch adventure

by Julian Lune

 

The heat of the city seemed a living thing, a caress lingering and lascivious as I moved through the streets of the French Quarter – my trip down Toulouse was riotous with the sound of barkers and street vendors and music spilling out of bars and clubs and redolent with the scents of the decadent cuisine always on offer in the Crescent City.  I was on my way to meet famed stage magician Nicholas Flambe, who wasn’t a native, mind you, but he might as well have been, looking cool and elegant in a seersucker suit, sipping a Vieux Carre at an outdoor café at two o’clock in the afternoon.

“Found your brother yet?” I asked without greeting.  We were long-acquainted and it was well-known to all who would make it their business why Nicholas had appeared in their midst.  Sebastian Flambe was equally adept at the occluded arts, but his specialty was more arcane.  He told fortunes and conversed with spirits, but he picked his own clients.  It was said he was working on a tarot to rival the Thoth and it had taken him a year to paint each suit thus far.

The brothers were each uniquely handsome: both tall and dark, but while Nicholas’ eyes shimmered like the aquamarine seaglass one sometimes found on the beach after a storm, Sebastian had eyes like amber buried in the strata, centuries-long, until some enterprising paleontologist dug it up and discovered whatever piece of deep time it contained.

“I know he’s here,” came the answer.  “I can smell him all over the Quarter.”

Nicholas never liked to let Sebastian out of his sight for too long, the other had a habit of getting into trouble with those familiar vices of wine, women, and other, more addictive pastimes.

“Well sniff no more, dear boy, I saw him just last night.”

Nicholas leapt to his shiny leather-shod feet and exclaimed, “Why didn’t you say so, damn you!  What do you think I’m paying you for?!”

“For a good time, one imagines, but c’mon then, we’ll visit the place now.”

We strolled – for one never hurries in the Quarter, you see, it appears suspicious – to Dauphine Street and one particular establishment: part hoodoo shop, part café, and thoroughly spooky.  The place was named after the owner – Nola – and she lounged indolently in the doorway to observe our approach, her dusky skin glowing with the afternoon’s humidity.  She was truly lovely, I could see why Sebastian had sought her company.

“Ah, I am honored indeed, The Great Flambe has seen fit to visit my humble shoppe,” she drawled, which imbued the statement with as mush irreverence as you might well imagine, much in the same way one louches a glass of absinthe with spring water.

“Sebastian Flambe was here last night, I saw you with him, do you know where he is now?”

“Even if I did know, Miz Finch,” she said, turning into the cooler recesses of her curio collection, “why would I break Sebastian’s confidence and tell either of you?”

I’d never met Nola prior to that moment, but it didn’t surprise me that she knew who I was – any conjure woman worth her goofer dust pays attention to her surroundings at all times.

Nicholas bustled in before me, all officious showiness.  “Look here, er, um –“

“You may refer to me as Nola.”

“- Nola, please.  My brother is known for running away from the family, and always gets himself into a scrape which I then have to rescue him from.  I’m attempting expedience before things get too awful.”

“Sebastian is his own man, big brother Nicholas – or do you prefer your nickname, eh?”

I snickered.  Nicholas was also known as “Tricky Nicky” to those who knew him, or wanted to know him better.  He wasn’t looking at me but I could tell from the set of his shoulders he was annoyed.

“Savannah!” he snapped.  “I’m ready to renege on your retainer if you don’t stop being obsfucatious!”

“Nicky I did what you asked, I brought you a lead.  It’s not my fault if you don’t know what to do with it.”

Nola grinned.  “Y’all want some gumbo?  It’s been stewing three days now, should be tres delicieux.”  She made a sort of kissing sound and winked at me.

I managed to convince Nicholas that his questioning would go much better if he accepted some Big Easy hospitality and we followed her into the kitchen where she dished out big steaming bowls, along with cornbread and greens and sweet tea.  But it only took a few mouthfuls of the stuff to cause him to…well, there’s no other way to describe it: he froze.

“Well shut my mouth and call me Clarence!” I declared.  “You done put a icing on him!”

Nola shrugged, took another bite of gumbo, chewed and swallowed.  “How can you endure such a person, chere?  The most boring –“

“We’re not –“

“- officious –“

“ – involved.”

“Savannah Finch gives her heart to no one,” I heard a voice behind me comment.  It was plush and mannered, like a rococo piece of furniture you want to run your hands over to appreciate its surfaces.

“Because I’ve already given it to you, Bast,” I answered, as Sebastian Flambe slid onto the seat next to mine.  He flashed me his dazzling grin, as always full of mischief and the promise of pleasure.

“Naughty man,” purred Nola, “you’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” the other replied, helping himself to my gumbo.  “But likely not, the dead are such a noisy lot, you know.”

“I’m hurt,” I pouted, “you slink into town without telling me?”

“Because I knew Nicky would ensure you’d find me eventually.”  He looked over at the still form of his sibling and clicked his tongue.  “Whatever shall we do with you, brother mine?”

“I say we fill him with Chartreuse, drape him in beads, and leave him on the doorstep of the Pearl,” Nola said, then giggled.

Sebastian laughed as well, “Oh dearie me, he might never escape their clutches if we did that!  So, my dear detective,” he continued, his tone full of affectionate mockery, “what were you planning to do with me when you found me?”

“Certainly not what I’d like to do,” I replied, equally teasing.  “Let’s go have a drink and you tell me whatever it is I’m supposed to tell your family to placate them, oui?  Preferably a place that makes a good Bywater.”

“Hardboiled to the last,” he said, leaning back in his chair.  “But only if we really do dump my brother on the doorstep of the most exclusive demonic brothel in New Orleans.”

“They won’t hurt him,” Nola added.  “Much.”

We all had a good laugh at poor Nicky’s expense.