Canto XVIII: “Cola” lyrics

[Originally posted at x.com/hegetsgod on April 4, 2024.]

1.

There’s a lot of unintentional self-mythologizing going on here.

You wouldn’t believe me if I claimed to just be a self-aware stoner being like, “Whoa, I’m really cool…”, on X, would you?

You would? Okay good so that’s all that was.

Also a coherent story of the Second Coming.

2.

Introducing MACHAUT, a brand-new lifestyle brand by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Established 2024.

Only at http://machaut.co.

3.

Eyewear

You’ve seen sunglasses before. You’ve never seen sunglasses function as cross necklaces architectеd by Raphael. Priced to competе with Volkswagen, Machaut aviators are tinted such a specific shade of light blue (or pastel pink) that anything similar will be a knockoff, brimmed by bright-white ethically-sourced stainless steel from West Virginia, or somewhere else within the United States’ domestic labor jurisdiction. These sunglasses are why you own a Tesla.
In case you can only afford Volkswagen, Machaut also offers a pair of paper sunglasses modeled after Ace Visconti’s in “Dead by Daylight.” (Just because you’re in a tough spot in life doesn’t mean you can’t look goofy.) Throw these on when your friends least expect it, and you’ll instantly become the life of the party! To put it bluntly: you wear these to signal to others you can laugh at yourself, which everyone likes.

4.

Outerwear

I once dreamed of a perfect sweater. It was on Cape Cod, where I heard the sea. As far as sweaters go, it’s the “fit” that’s alarming—Machaut’s sweaters somehow manage to fit a sailor’s shoulders perfectly. It’s something about the way they’re structured. They would have worn these in lighthouses. Our sweaters aren’t a fashion statement: they’re functionally snug. They can’t help being maritime and formidable.

If that’s not enough: they’ll come in specific palettes with specific stripes that’ll update year after year. One year the stripes might even go missing! What does a solid sweater mean? Let’s hope we never find out. Last but not least: if the yearly update of Machaut’s sweaters are synchronized with Apple’s yearly update of macOS, watch out. You’ll have two upgrades to take care of in the autumn. Hope you have plenty of hot cocoa!

We’re not done yet: our jackets are the perfect curtains for your shirt. They’re not blazers, unless you want them to be—some are summer blazers, if you work from a yacht. They’re so light gray they wouldn’t work in an office environment. You’d blend right into the wall. Meanwhile, the “TCs” are street slang for a specific line of Machaut jackets that have such an iconic shape and color palette that they’re now the Tizzies. The Tizzies will never go out of style.

If they do, we’ll just discontinue them.

5.

Accessories

We don’t sell shorts—you’ll have to go to Old Navy for those. But we do sell scarves that are mysteriously cheap. How were they financed? We’re not sure yet, since the prices of our scarves change erratically—like a Sorting Hat that has a different direction for every day of the year.

As a matter of fact, the prices are determined by a random number generator that uses weather data from Oxford—where Harry Potter was filmed—to determine both the size and direction of each day’s fluctuations, as adjusted by an algorithm to ensure that the mean stabilizes at “fair market value,” which doesn’t mean anything here.

So we don’t sell shorts.

We sell scarves that you wear while studying for your A-levels. It’s cashmere you thought could only be made in Italy. Well maybe. If we made these in Italy, we’ll add $1000 imaginary dollars to the algorithm. What’s enigmatic about these scarves is they’re truly magical. You never know when you see one in the wild, whether it was purchased for $3200 or $4—they all look the same, so everybody has plausible deniability.
The scarf bears Machaut’s iconic knight logo, so everyone will know your gray cashmere is Machaut—but only if they check the label, because there is no logo on the scarf. As far as what they’re truly worth, Machaut scarves are designed to compete with The Row. It’s unclear what they’ll finally look like, as they’ll be based on AI renderings of what a scarf that a man would pay $3200 for might plausibly look like, as curated by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

6.

Fragrance

Have you ever smelled something so natural—it reminded you of springwater? Have you ever felt so clean that just walking to your desk in the morning feels like you’re doing everyone a favor? At a bar, a stranger brushes past and it’s jarring—why did the air come alive with the subtle notes of a forest all of a sudden? You didn’t know a man could take you back to your childhood exploring the forests of Washington.

You didn’t know a stranger could show you the smells and sounds of Thailand. There’s a way to make pheromones come alive that you never picked up on: salt. Add the faintest whiff of salt to a fragrant rational context for why the salt would be there, such as the ocean—or even the faintest, most distant notes of pad thai frying in a street wok underneath an entire atmosphere of Sichuan pepper notes inside many layers of cedarwood. A spray of citrus. This is just what we call the smell of a man who’s battled the seven seas.

7.

If you ever wondered what the Dune kid smelled like, wonder no more. He smells like the desert. Meet BLUE PALO VERDE, Machaut’s signature fragrance. You didn’t understand how sand could smell so good. The first time you spray Blue Palo Verde into the air—it doesn’t disappoint you. Sand smells like vanilla. For some reason, you’re falling in love with the smell of sand. Blue Palo Verde is a sweetness unlike any white sand dune you’ve ever known. It literally smells like mossy vanilla ice cream, but so subtly so that all you want to do is be trapped inside an elevator with the smell of sand. On a white sand beach, you have to literally stop yourself from patting your face into the beach and sniffing sand. Sand doesn’t actually smell like Blue Palo Verde—nothing in the world quite does, except for sand.

8.

There’s something deep though. There’s the man who smells like tobacco notes. We’re not afraid of that—not when it’s just notes. Not when it’s just oratory. Shavings of sandalwood and orris butter too. Sprigs of sage. But this dry and woody rum isn’t going to conceal the faint traces of tobacco leaf, giving these memories the brightness of that street in New Orleans—you remember. What’s it called. Well, a lifetime of drinking can do that to you. Not Canal Street, that’s New York. Introducing ORANGE STREET by Machaut. It’s when you’re gunning for a night out. Priced to compete with Le Labo.

9.

Have you ever traveled before? If so, put on EAST ROCK by Machaut and call it your signature scent. It’s the one that smells like cedarwood and pad thai—but again, so subtly so that in an elevator, the most you’ll make is someone hungry. What East Rock really calls to mind is monsoon season. The freshness after rain is what East Rock strives to emulate. You wear it to work and your coworkers now know: you’ve just been in the warmest and freshest of rains, a bit like a forest in the morning might smell, but with the distant urban sounds of tuk-tuks and street food vendors in the recesses of memory. The undertones of salt—of course not from salt, but the illusion of salt—call to mind the confidence of walking alongside the world’s working class. Hiking, even.

10.

You open the tent the morning after the rain and you’re faced with the mountains. To really smell like a forest with still-wet leaves, you put on MT. MACHAUT by Machaut. Mt. Machaut, laced with pheromones to implant into all unsuspecting nostrils the suspicion that you might be someone worth paying attention to, is the smell of morning unleashed by mango, sage, and sandalwood that’s beyond good and evil. This is for when you need to pull out all the stops. This one will have anyone who’s friendly stopping you to tell you “Something smells up!” The secret really is the vanilla. Laced with so many pheromones that the overall effect is that of moss and morning dew, Mt. Machaut—don’t do too much. This is the one that’ll have strangers at the jazz club throwing themselves at you.
11.

Last but not least, PALO HALO is when you not only need to pull out all the stops—you need a cologne that, quite frankly, will change your life. It’s impossible to describe what Palo Halo smells like. The closest anyone has ever come to describing it is just—peace. It doesn’t smell like any other cologne on the market. It’s distinctively springwater. It’s distinctively fresh. It’s distinctively clean. Palo Halo is one of the very few scents in humanity that can establish trust between strangers instantly. Why? Palo Halo costs $1,800 for a 9 oz.-vial that contains such a distinctive smell that, once it’s broadly recognized among the rich, will confirm their presence to each other. In a world where you don’t know who to trust? What we need is phones that can parse scents, and apps that’ll lead you to men who wear Palo Halo. That’s the new Hinge.

All of our colognes are oil-based, alcohol-free, and cruelty-free. Each bottle and branding is distinctive, so they really are meant to compete with each other, so periodicals such as VOGUE shouldn’t be embarrassed to list two or more competing Machaut colognes on the best colognes lists that they publish each month.

12.

Stationary

There’s no easy way to put this but, have you ever thought about writing again? I don’t know. I was just thinking that now that you have such a distinctive voice planted in your head, that maybe you’ll start to hear thoughts of your own… verbalize.

It’s just something to have a notepad friend.

It’s like a skill point added to your memory. You thought the internet had that covered, but what about all of the thoughts you were too afraid to google; even in incognito mode. Come to think: what about passwords. What if you just don’t want everything to come out digitally like “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” already predicted. What if you just want… privacy.

Shh. Do you hear that?

It’s your own thoughts for the first time, because you have a notepad with a rechargeable writing instrument—someday it’ll be a refillable magnet pen with an open-source recipe, but for now, it’s a pencil. You can hear the future, can’t you? What if the power goes out? What if there’s an apocalyptic situation and you need to make lists. What if you just want to go to the park… without your phone for once.

Throw this thing into your backpack.

Take it out to write. Or draw. The graphite of the pencil will be designed for the pages of the Machaut notepad. Are you ever curious about people who own Moleskin notebooks? It’s like they know Moleskin means you’re more literary or something. That’s sort of like what it means when you look over, and the journalist has a Machaut notepad. She’s not afraid of the truth.

You’re getting grilled.

If you see a Machaut notepad in the wild.

Be calm.

You’re in the company of someone more likely to be reasonable than most human beings.

13.

Navigation

There are so many things you don’t understand about what makes the Wristscope by Machaut a revolutionary in wristwear. You wanted an Apple Watch because you wanted something beautiful to wear. You never use it to text anyone. So now, we’re here. This is your watch.

14.

Cryptography

Have you ever wondered what all the videos in A Stick of Dynamite in the American Elite add up to?

A memory.

Now you can have a physical memento of how confused you were when watching them. It’s a code with a riddle scrambled. Every cube has a different icon.

P.S.

I lost 3 followers since this post went up a year ago.

If you follow me at this point, you’re shaming human history.