Media Potpourri

A seasonal medley of fragrant nonsense.

via Marie Claire

I.

The latest offering from Marie Claire, written by Morticia Addams Aliza Kelly, is titled “Your Fragrance Horoscope for Sagittarius Season Is Playful, Illuminating, and Party Ready.” Depending on your level of cluelessness, you can select a scent from her “fragrance horoscope” or just tape some perfume ads to the wall and throw darts at them.

II.

Image by H. Zell

Something stinks at the California state capitol.

The smell wafted through the air in the October sunshine. At least one Harvard scientist has likened it to “rancid butter and vomit,” while Jennifer Iida, a spokesperson for Sacramento’s Department of General Services, called it downright “pungent and unpleasant.” It was the sweet aroma of two 75-year-old ginkgo trees in California State Capitol Park, and it’s gotten so bad, officials have taken matters into their own hands, surrounding the trees with metal barriers affixed with zip-tied and laminated signs to ward the public away.

In graduate school I would often walk past beautiful ginkgo trees in West Philadelphia. In autumn the fruit would drop, rot, and stink like butyric acid. But a few elderly Chinese ladies would gather them up, presumably to boil off the noxious pulp and salvage the nuts within. You can find ginkgo nuts in many Asian food markets, but you might think twice about offering them as cocktail snacks:

Overconsumption of Ginkgo biloba seeds induces food poisoning characterized by tonic-clonic convulsions and vomiting.

III.

Dr. John Zannis

News from the frontiers of science:

BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In a bold leap beyond traditional perfumery, a new player has emerged with a mission far deeper than scent. SIX7, founded by Stanford-trained human biologist and surgeon Dr. John Zannis, is the world’s first scientific fragrance house built at the intersection of neuroscience, molecular biology, beauty, and high art. The goal? To engineer not just fragrances—but chemical identity codes designed to activate memory, trigger attraction, and shape personal identity on a molecular level.

SIX7 isn’t selling perfume. It’s selling neurochemical influence, precision-designed to affect the brain’s deepest wiring.

That’s some impressive PR copy right there, although the “Stanford-trained” tag is lame. [You’re obviously a Cal grad.—Ed.] [Go Bears!] I wonder if chemical identity codes can be linked to your horoscope. (Morticia, CALL ME!)

IV.

Making the World Clean: Wasted Lives, Wasted Environment, and Racial Capitalism, by Françoise Vergès. This looks like a breezy, uplifting read. It might be the perfect holiday gift for that cousin who’s in the sixth year of graduate school at Oberlin. Sample passage:

Olfaction, which is “possibly our most primitive sense,” has been very useful in many jobs: medicine, cooking, gardening, taking care of animals, babies, the elderly. But racial capitalism has imposed a perfumed and deodorized world where some smells are found offensive.

So Françoise, does this mean that once we’re all socialists, no one’s shit will stink?

V.

Celebrity fragrances were once a big deal, as were the personalities associated with them: Elizabeth Taylor, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Jordan. [Hey, what about Sarah Jessica Parker and Adam Levine?—Ed.] [Adam who?] Industry rag GCI Magazine wants to shoe-horn even more people into the celebrity category:

Beauty’s Crossover into Celebrity Spaces: Feat. Wicked Stars, Kim Chi, Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift.

Okay, Taylor Swift is a celebrity. Sabrina Carpenter, maybe. But Kim Chi? His claim to fame is being a runner up in Season 8 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. That was nine seasons ago. That was in 2016. The KimChiChic company’s Puff Puff Pass Setting Powder and Candy Girl Fake Freckle may be the bomb, but the celebrity claim reeks of flop sweat.