Esta Tarde

“Esta tarde se me va, toca me...”

These are lyrics from a great 90's trance/dance track by Fragma, called 'Toca Me.'

No one seems to be able to agree exactly on what these words are intended to mean, but that are something like: 'as the afternoon is slipping away, touch me.'

The rest of the words are mostly in english and say – 'Let me tell-a you, I need a miracle, I need a miracle; it's more physical what I need(!)'

...I think it's completely pointless pursuing any line of idea to do with the mess the world is in right now – be it anything to do with central banks, or government economic policy, or even national security, or all those crazy ideologies that end up killing and severely injuring people. Wherever they really come from.

The Fermian was a white wine, though

One of the people I thoroughly despised when reading about him in ancient Roman history, was Sulla. And yet I believe it was some close relative of his, Faustus, I seem to recall, who managed to maintain the best vinyards throughout all the disturbed years of Sulla, and make the best wine, as legend goes, of all time – namely the Faustian Fermian.

Now I'll tell you something about wine that almost no one else knows.

Dopamine is not the neuroselector for the enjoyment of wine – even though you will read from many learned places that it is. Wine, of course, goes nowadays for extreme prices in China – even now that there is something of an economic pullback – and it is difficult for those with an ordinary budget to acquire those big name wines from France, in particular. One day, soon, or not so soon, depending on several things, but one day eventually, all those purple prose words written about wines will be made to look like the foolish things they always were.

I mean there is a huge industry of wine enjoyment, let's say wine appreciation, and no one is in a hell-bent hurry to change the basis for talking about how the human brain perceives the enjoyment of wine.

But indulge me and I will just now paint a particular picture for you, and I assure you, that by following reasonably precisely yourself, the time-line of events, and the salient sensory details described, you will suddenly find, even a bottle of sparkling water, flavoured with flower petals and castor sugar, will take on an ethereal grace...

Lili Marlenes

Lately I have taken to walking the streets around my neighbourhood, occasionally with my dog, occasionally not – but in all events, deliberately past a certain front yard that has a simply perfect lawn, and about ten rose flushes growing from their ten separate straight single stock posts, carefully cultivated and tended over the many months necessary. Even before I turn the bend in the short street, I can sense the rose scent. This is not like that pink Bulgarian rose essence that you buy in bottles – which has its own place I guess – but it is a darker though lilting, and diffuse on the breeze, hint of something both mysterious and possibly miraculous, and not easy to grasp.

Here's a line from out of a great piece of literature by Arturo Perez Reverta: 'like a hummingbird, money is fast, fascinating, elusive...'

Like the scent of these Lili Marlene roses.

You must, simply must, imbibe a great wine in very special surroundings. And you must wait, at the very minimum forty minutes before letting a drop touch your lips when you have opened the vessel. Whether it is the unique and magnificent Seppeltsfield 100 year old Para – which is Australia's most expensive wine, not the Penfold's Grange Hermitage, by the way – or a 200 year old Tokaji, and you know what, if at all possible, you must either give a bit of it to someone else, or best of all, have another person give you the wine specially.

You might not be able to have music especially playing for you, but you will at least try to imagine it. Borodin or Rimsky-Korsakov. And for those very adventurous among us – Lauge: Sandslottet.

And at around 1:44 on the adventurous music track, you will begin to feel a bit strange.

Of course it depends on how clear your neuralnet pathways are, and how used they are to these kinds of experiences, but by 4.50, chemicals in the wine will commence their effects. It's not all about the alcohol either. And here's one of the key secrets – alcohol's effect on brain perceptions is that it moves the temporal signals around, sometimes inverting the wavesignals, sometimes altering the beat-pattern, with the potential effect, but not always (which is why sometimes, experiences seem less 'interesting,') of binaurality. Alcohol does more than just affect the physiology; it affects the electro-chemical nerve signals.

And if you are daring enough to program something like Sysyphe's 'Sinking' next, you will certainly know all about it later!