As a child, when Saturday morning cartoon shows were still a thing, I used to watch a series called Arabian Knights, a short-lived and cheesy Hannah Barbera show about Arabian adventurers foiling rather faceless baddies in some unspecified desert location that bore an uncanny resemblence to Monument Valley. Invariably, there were displays of magic and the inevitable flying carpet.

That's what the opening of Shazam reminds me of. It's bright and fruity and full of primary colours. This quickly turns to a lulling amber. It's very well blended so individual notes are hard to pick out, though vanilla, a creamy frankincense and patchouli are especially prominent. And is that a whiff of basil? Not a million miles away from other middle-eastern themed perfumes, but it's very well done, though it veers a little on the sweet side for my taste. Its downfall lies in its longevity, gone a in a few hours bar the faintest of skin scents, so frequent reapplications are necessary.

Not all observatories are built of steel and glass. Some are carved from ancient wood and wisdom, where mechanical planets trace their paths through the perpetual twilight of desert mysteries. Here in the thin mountain air, elevation sharpens the senses: first the bright bite of altitude, then the way spices catch in the throat like distant light. Time dissolves in the dark. What begins as calculation—the precise geometry of pepper's gentle ignition and austere cedarwood gears—softens into something warmer, more profound. Each celestial model points inward, finding its own true north in bitter cocoa and burnished amber. Brass orbits wheel overhead at the angle of eternity while censers trace their own paths below, drawing cosmic dust and incense into the undertow of old magics. In the smoke and spice of these shadowed alignments, the machinery of night turns ever inward.