Ibis and Jacquel was a small, family-owned funeral home: one of the last truly independent funeral homes in the area, or so Mr. Ibis maintained. “Most fields of human merchandising value nationwide brand identities,” he said. Mr. Ibis spoke in explanations: a gentle, earnest lecturing that put Shadow in mind of a college professor who used to work out at the Muscle Farm and who could not talk, could only discourse, expound, explain. Shadow had figured out within the first few minutes of meeting Mr. Ibis that his expected part in any conversation with the funeral director was to say as little as possible. “This, I believe, is because people like to know what they are getting ahead of time. Thus, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, F. W. Woolworth (of blessed memory): store brands maintained and visible across the entire country. Wherever you go, you will get something that is, with small regional variations, the same.”
“In the field of funeral homes, however, things are, perforce, different. You need to feel that you are getting small-town personal service from someone who has a calling to the profession. You want personal attention to you and your loved one in a time of great loss. You wish to know that your grief is happening on a local level, not on a national one. But in all branches of industry-and death is an industry, my young friend, make no mistake about that-one makes ones money from operating in bulk, from buying in quantity, from centralizing one’s operations. It’s not pretty, but it’s true. Trouble is, no one wants to know that their loved ones are traveling in a cooler-van to some big old converted warehouse where they may have twenty, fifty, a hundred cadavers on the go. No, sir. Folks want to think they’re going to a family concern, somewhere they’ll be treated with respect by someone who’ll tip his hat to them if he sees them in the street.”
Mr. Ibis wore a hat. It was a sober brown hat that matched his sober brown blazer and his sober brown face. Small gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. In Shadow’s memory Mr. Ibis was a short man; whenever he would stand beside him, Shadow would rediscover that Mr. Ibis was well over six feet in height, with a cranelike stoop. Sitting opposite him now, across the shiny red table, Shadow found himself staring into the man’s face.
“So when the big companies come in they buy the name of the company, they pay the funeral directors to stay on, they create the apparency of diversity. But that is merely the tip of the gravestone. In reality, they are as local as Burger King. Now, for our own reasons, we are truly an independent. We do all our own embalming, and it’s the finest embalming in the country, although nobody knows it but us. We don’t do cremations, though. We could make more money if we had our own crematorium, but it goes against what we’re good at. What my business partner says is, if the Lord gives you a talent or a skill, you have an obligation to use it as best you can. Don’t you agree?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Shadow.
“The Lord gave my business partner dominion over the dead, just as he gave me skill with words. Fine things, words. I write books of tales, you know. Nothing literary. Just for my own amusement. Accounts of lives.” He paused. By the time Shadow realized that he should have asked if he might be allowed to read one, the moment had passed. “Anyway, what we give them here is continuity: there’s been an Ibis and Jacquel in business here for almost two hundred years. We weren’t always funeral directors, though. We used to be morticians, and before that, undertakers.”
“And before that?”
“Well,” said Mr. Ibis, smiling just a little smugly, “we go back a very long way…”
Egyptian embalming compound: beeswax and fir resin, myrrh, natron salt, cassia, palm wine, lichen, henna, and camphor.
The Emily –
My absolute favorite and yearning for the restock!
vsyverson –
I have a bottle of this that’s been aging since 2008 and so I thought it might be useful to report. It’s very smooth, slightly more metallic than it was new, and dries down to something surprisingly reminiscent of Laudanum but with additional notes of beeswax and balsam of Peru. Not sure why it’s similar to Laudanum despite having no reported notes in common ; rather confusing. Still, this is on my short list of favorites.
VetchVespers –
No 93 Engine was one of my first BPAL loves and one of my first bottle buys. It’s an unusual fragrance and is hard to categorize.
There is a dark, metallic tang in the scent’s opening that is reminiscent of something industrial. It’s easy to imagine a drop or two of gear lubricant within this distillation, though I hypothesize this effect has to do with the acrid bite of sage. I also get a distinct impression of sassafras (though it isn’t a listed note) that isn’t confectionary, but spiced, woody, and dark, like the home hooch brews one might expect to find fermenting in a hillbilly’s cellar. Sometimes I catch whiffs of bitter vetiver, and sometimes something sweet and vanillic (from the benzoin). I never get anything lemony or lemon “balmish”. Nor do I get a distinct impression of incense, though several of the listed notes are found in incense. Rather, they produce a grounding warmth and weight to the whole. I am usually ambivalent towards beeswax, but here it’s used to lovely effect, adding a soft sweetness and glow that tie the brasher notes together.
No 93 Engine is both elegant and avant-garde, delightfully unisex, warm, spicy, and unique. It still ranks in my top favorites of the many BPAL blends I have tried.
dragonragdoll –
This is the scent (gifted from a close friend) that led me to start buying from BPAL.
This is a tarnished, earthy scent for the person who can’t typically pull them off. It’s very fresh, almost sweet.
Gloame –
Spicy and resin-y. A nice heated scent for those who enjoy woody/leathery/spicy blends. Smells hot and exotic.
Unisex, woody, spiced.
jessecake –
First applied, No. 93 Engine smells like a dark mildewy basement.
On the dry down it smells like a freshly emptied bottle of Vanilla Coke.
It isn’t bad when it dries but not something I would wear.
Grenouille –
Knocking off a “star” (or a bar, I suppose) only because this scent didn’t send me into a helpless, eye-fluttering rapture. Otherwise, it’s as close to a peculiar kind of perfection as I’ve experienced from BPAL (barring Iago, which actually has led me to eye-fluttering rapture).
While the site lists a great number of ingredients for this scent, by far-and-away the strongest were beeswax and frankincense, at least on me. Leaning in to take a fresh whiff on my arm, I was first hit by a dark, oddly mirthless and foodie-free honey note that had a rich, gummy middle-eastern incense so hard on its heels it was all but impossible to distinguish between the two. The instant I pulled away from my arm and started taking in fresh air, my nose was tickled by the slightest waft of something faintly effervescent and bright. I’ve since come to the conclusion that this was just a hint of the lemon and sage, which has more of a palate-cleansing quality, rather than acting as a high-note in its own right.
No. 93 would be a perfect scent for the sort of person that wants to spend an evening chatting about the finer points of The Picatrix in a dark, high-end bar in the UAE, curled around a hookah, with a post-modern answer to Abdul Alhazred.
Be warned, however; this scent, wonderful as it is, doesn’t have a lot of throw. It would be best used for one’s own pleasure, or under comparatively intimate conditions.
bonebone24 –
Wet: Bright and sweet, like an old-timey tonic.
Drydown: A spicy metallic with bright lemon and grounding sage over a sweet and creamy base of benzoin and beeswax. Woodsy balsam and sexy frankincense round it out. The throw smells a bit like cinnamon.
Dry: More of the same. Brilliant coppers and oiled brass. Deliciously spicy resins with smoky beeswax and herb-spiked lemon. It’s like all of my favorite things rolled into one. To quote Nine, it’s “Fantastic!”