all that jazz

beitrag von: SylviaP

The Whale and I

Seems I need to get tough if I’m to write my eco-thriller.

Did you know that trading in the barf of the sperm whale is now illegal in the Land of Oz? But in Grasse anything goes as long as it fills the perfume-makers’ coffers.

So if you’re down by the beach and a lump of ambergris washes up at your feet, you have to report it in Oz, and you can’t cash in on it. It’s totally free game on the French Riviera. Joke is no sperm whales in France.

But they do have fires. Not ones like the Australian bushfires, necessary to make tough seeds explode and ignite new growth. The French ones just wipe it all out, leaving ghostly sticks smouldering in the night.

And the whale barf? They use it as a fixative for the scents from surviving blooms. They could use it synthetically, but somehow a chemist’s lab negates the thrill of subverting nature and the law.