The personal website and blog of Nathan Upchurch, where I write about incense, free and open source software, design, vegan cooking, music, and all sorts of other topics that I find interesting.
When Eugene of Bhagwan Incense first reached out offering samples I was hesitant to accept them; my experiences with Indian style incense at that point had been less than stellar. After Irene of rauchfahne.de sent me some very nice Indian sticks, however, my mind was opened, and I found myself keen to see what Bhagwan has to offer. Being an exporter rather than a manufacturer, Bhagwan’s product…
Content warning: sexual assault. Every year, I receive a glowing review from my employer, effusive, even. But each year, I dread the review. ‘This time, it’s going to be bad,’ I think. ‘I’m sure my boss was annoyed with me by the tone of their last teams message’. ‘I can sense that she wants to replace me’. ‘It’s been a good run, but I’d better refresh my resume’. My thoughts run away from me and…
It’s been a while since my last update; I wanted to finish refreshing the style of my website before writing anything. The update took quite some time. At first, I implemented a design with big full-width header images on blog posts, and it looked pretty good. But, for some reason, after putting in all of the effort to accomplish my design I found that I lacked any motivation to keep going. I…
Some time ago, I reviewed a variety of Wild Berry incense sticks and cones. If you don’t know how that went, here’s an idea: It’s the kind of smell that makes you feel that your lifespan is being reduced… off-notes are tremendous… beginning to feel as though I’ve french-inhaled my way through a pack of menthol Newports. I didn’t think I’d wind up returning to the brand, but I figured I’d give them…
If, like me, you have ever lived in the U.S.A., and if, like me, you are of a sufficiently distinguished BMI so as to rank highly the invention of comestibles, you will agree [1] that Ranch (enPR: rāyŭnch) dressing is one of the great American inventions—right up there with the cotton gin, surgical anesthesia, and the modern assembly line. This bottle is about half empty already. For those…
In response to this recent post by gary online : I am absolutely not someone who derives their worth or identity by what they do to earn a crust. If I didn’t have to work, I’d lead a richness of life that would put to shame both the wastrels [1] of inherited stolen means who live by the labor of others, and the wealthy denizens of the c-suite who earn their exorbitant salaries by becoming…
In the interest of transparency: as readers may recall, I paid Dave a visit at the company’s workshop in 2024. Since then, I’ve been back several times and we remain friends, trading ingredients, incense, and knowledge. I also received this incense for free. Despite this, as always, I will do my best to be objective. The new packaging is fun, don’t you think? Hippy Hug Sticks # First of all I’d…
My last attempt at a sweet agarwood stick was okay but, as I noted, there was room for improvement. My goals with the original build were to create a decent amount of agarwood fragrance, while mitigating the harsh note that comes with cheaper wood. Following my notes from the old build, my new objectives are to increase the amount of agarwood fragrance, reduce sweetness, and add complexity. The…
In case you haven’t heard, Eleventy, the excellent static site generator that I use for this very website has been acquired by Font Awesome. As a result, it has been renamed, sigh , Build Awesome . After seeing what happened to Shoelace , I’m apprehensive and very much not looking forward to seeing what features get locked behind a paywall. But beside the enshittification likely to follow, I…
Maybe this is just my algorithm, but I just can’t escape Nathan and Sons Underbrush Remineralizing Gum on Instagram . In case your feed isn’t absolutely inundated with Underbrush content like mine, Underbrush is a chewing gum brand that uses natural botanicals rather than the, well, plastic that is commonly used as a gum base. Instead, Underbrush contains chicle, mastic, spruce, and acacia gum,…
I found this questionnaire on the website of my Geekring neighbor Corvidae . Original questions sheet on mousling.net . Please introduce yourself. # I’m Nathan. I live in Chicago, U.S.A., and have far too many interests. I play classical trombone for fun, make incense sticks, write things, cook vegan food, and more. How long have you been making websites? # Beside tinkering with HTML and CSS to…
Woo-woo incense description generator # Whether they are spiritually inclined or mere earth-bound fragrance-heads, all sorts of people are attracted to the fragrant world of incense. It’s no surprise, then, that the language people use to describe the incense they make can get pretty colorful. If you’ve ever wished you could write so… interestingly about incense, my brand new Woo-woo incense…
Whether discussing wine, spirits, perfumes, or incense, there is much back and forth on the subject of quality. On the one hand, there are the connoisseurs flashing their three-plus digit purchases on enthusiast forums, and on the other, there are the humble, salt-of-the-earth naysayers gleefully reminding them of that time a bottle of supermarket swill beat out a premium bottle in a wine…
During a Black Friday sale, I bought some cultivated agarwood “chips” [1] from Crassna Khmer. They are pleasant on the heater, and show some pretty good resination on one side. Some skins from Crassna Khmer that have been broken down to fit into a small jar. I was curious to see how the pulverized skins would perform in a combustible incense. Every agarwood powder I’ve tried so far has had a…
Christmas time # Sol sneakily decorated the apartment while I was busy earlier in the month, with two wreaths they made a year or two ago with parts from a trip to Michaels , and some paper chains we made last year (?) out of cardstock printed with plaid patterns and gold foil. They also left some of those tiny fake presents on my desk that I bought because I thought they were cute. A closeup of…
Flora Botanical Incense is the brainchild of Alyssa Severeid, who is also behind the Incense Explorer podcast [1] . I’d been keen to try her sticks for some time, but I admit the price tag kept me at bay until a recent sale. Not long after ordering I was delighted to receive a rather pretty compostable mailer along with the usual contingent of bills and junk mail. The packaging of the sticks is…
These sticks appear to be made of masala hand-rolled onto a rather thick bamboo splint. The scent on the stick is fairly muted for an Indian-style stick. This usually indicates more of a reliance on whole-botanicals rather than oils and other concentrates. In the burn, the benzoin is very prominent, revealing a bit of that plastic note that benzoin can have at high percentages. There is a warm…
These sticks appear to be made of a masala hand-rolled on a bamboo splint with a light dusting of wood powder. In the burn there is a prominent sandalwood fragrance that strikes me as very natural; it has that sort of mineral and/or metallic top-note that you find when putting exceptionally oily sandalwood chips on the heater. In the background I find a gentle barnyard animalic note that reminds…
Not much of tremendous interest has been going on lately; I took the week off because I forget to take time during the year, and thanksgiving is as good excuse as any to cram in some PTO at the end of the year. I’ve also been taking Fridays off lately. Sol and I had planned to spend thanksgiving day with their folks, but we unfortunately had to cancel the day before due to some medical stuff.…
For my younger readers: much new music is mixed in such a way that it sounds good on tinny (and tiny) smartphone speakers, often at the expense of sound quality on better audio systems. The songs below are not. If you can, please listen to these song snippets through a good pair of wired headphones, earphones, or speakers for the best experience (it’s true: wireless sounds worse). You won’t want…
I occasionally talk to people facing what I can best describe as job paranoia—the fear that their boss is out to get them, see them fired, et cetera. If you’re someone who occasionally feels like this, as someone who has both hired and fired people, I’m here to offer some reassurance. Before we proceed—and I know you’ll understand this intuitively because you have excellent reading…
I’m pretty happy with the look and feel of my website but, looking around the indieweb, I see so many creative and fun websites with neat animations and interactive features. Reader, I was jealous; I wanted my website to be more fun. The flying toasters just weren’t enough anymore. My first thought was to add a midi-player. I spent a few hours in a hyperfocus-hole digging up all sorts of fun midi…
Just a quick post to let all of you incense-heads out there know that I’ve put together a page compiling all of the resources I can find on incense and incense making. The page contains links to everything from documentaries to tutorials and suppliers. It even has a place of honor on the home page for easy access. Feel free to check it out and let me know what I’ve missed!
I’m not a big perfume guy. I’ve been wearing 212 Men by Carolina Herrara (well, actually by Alberto Morillas, Rosendo Mateu and Ann Gottlieb ) for years just because I happened to have bought a bottle at some point [1] . Perfumes are expensive. They’re strong; they cling to you for days, making it difficult to try new ones even if you do have the money and fridge space. Fragrances can also make it…
In a recent post , our friend Steve of Incense in The Wind described those with an aversion to perfume-dipped incense sticks as prejudiced . This has invited some self reflection. Dear reader, I think I may have been called out [1] . It is true that I typically enjoy incense made out of, well, incense, but hell, maybe it’s time to challenge this blatant elitism ! After all, aren’t incense sticks…
Since I started writing here in earnest, I’ve been enchanted by the idea of having a proper name for my humble blog. I didn’t dare put too much thought into it until recently; the task seemed too intimidating. There’s a lot to think about after all: Do you choose something dry and professional, at risk of sounding pompous or grandiose? Something pithy, at risk of sounding too cutesy? Or something…
Someone recently shared with me transcripts and audio recordings that have been going around of comments that are alleged to have been made by the owner of a well-regarded perfumery. This owner also recently published a video on the matter. I am not going to mention names, but I am sure many in the fragrance and incense community are already aware of the situation. I’m seeing a lot of anger…
It’s been a while since I’ve written about incense making; to be honest, things have slowed down a little. It’s been pretty hot in Chicago lately—I find that my sense of smell is dulled as the temperature and humidity rises. Unfortunately my apartment is very poorly insulated, so I’ve been burning, testing, and experimenting less as a result. The heat hasn’t put me off entirely though; here’s what…
In my last entry I noted that I was trying to be a little less salty this year, and I’m pleased to say that it’s paying off. I’m also trying to tackle some of the value judgments / statements that pop into my head by reminding myself to phrase things in a more productive way. For example, I recently had a discussion with my brother in Vietnam on how my moral nihilism aligns with my veganism.…
Anyone familiar with my blog will know that I like to write about incense. A reader wrote to me some time ago asking about what sticks I’ve been enjoying lately, and it occurred to me that it might be a nice thing to have a “now listening” type feature on my website, so that fellow incense heads could get a sense of the types of incense I like. After all, while I write plenty of incense reviews,…
Update: Boy Vienna’s 11:11 sticks have since also been reviewed on rauchfahne.de . Boy Vienna is a brand from fashion designer and multi-media artist Afaf Fi Seyam that has been receiving attention on TikTok and Instagram for its incense cigarettes. As opposed to the tobacco variety, these “cigarettes” are designed to be lit and allowed to burn like an incense-stick; they are not to be inhaled. I…
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a fantasy RPG in which you play as Ged Gerd Gerald Geralt, a super masculine generic-white-man protagonist who grumbles everything he says like Batman. Hopefully you like Geribald, because you don’t get to customize him in any way. You’ll control Gabriel from a third-person perspective, awkwardly hovering over his right shoulder as he trudges around wherever it is that…
I’m forever keeping my eyes peeled for brick-and-mortar stores in my city that sell decent incense, particularly Japanese incense. As such, I was delighted to discover Five Elements Home in the beautiful Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville. On my first visit to the store, I darted right past the beautiful imported Japanese ceramics and textiles to the incense section. My taste in incense is…
In June of 2024, I purchased Pikake Jasmine of Yi-Xin Craft Incense’s floral Faces in Bloom collection. I was immediately impressed with it, but I was suspicious about how the Jasmine fragrance was achieved, and so wanted to see if the fragrance diminished over time before penning a review. I am happy to report that, close to a year later, Yi-Xin’s Pikake Jasmine remains as impressive as ever. The…
Content Warning: Misogyny; Mention of sexual assault. Over his storied career, Till Lindemann has been given a lot of grace. Both he, as a lyricist, and the Neue Deutsche Härte powerhouse he fronts, have made some questionable decisions over the years. Many of these missteps might perhaps be chalked up to the era, such as the unfortunate fat-suits in Rammstein’s Keine Lust music video. We might…
If you haven’t seen this going around the internet, you might be spending too little time on the indieweb ! The blog questions challenge asks bloggers to talk about how and why they do what they do. Here’s mine. Why did you start blogging in the first place? # As is common among those with ADHD, I’ve long felt that I have quite a lot to say and not enough people in my life who have the patience…
Some time ago I as I perused the incense display of a nearby Whole Foods, hoping to see the Shoyeido sticks that once graced the shelves, I noticed a range of Indian-style sticks, their otherwise matching packaging in a variety of colors. Listed prominently on each package was the text: “Incense of Auroville.” This caught my attention. Auroville is an intentional community I’ve had a passing…
Looking around the internet, you could be forgiven for thinking that Scribus is dead. These days, FLOSS [1] developers debate the merits of merge requests in public chat rooms, track bugs through GitHub issues, and announce releases through widely-circulated blog posts or sleek landing pages. In contrast, the Scribus developers work seemingly cloistered far away from popular modern conveniences…
You might seen my recent toot about the fancy new “How Much of a Linux Nerd are You?” quiz on my website. Some time ago, I realized that I missed taking fun internet quizzes and decided to implement a quiz system on my own site that would allow me to easily make fun quizzes to share. Here’s how I built it with Eleventy . The plan # First, I had to decide what sort of quizzes I wanted to be able to…
The German neue deutsche härte group Rammstein is known for many things. From their controversial lyrics (NSFW) and legally dubious stage antics (NSFW) , to their over the top live performances , one thing the group is certainly not known for is conventional merchandise. Far from the usual assortment of posters and t-shirts, the band’s merch has ranged from medical supplies to kitchen tools ,…
Update 2025-06-24: You can buy the final extruder, replacement nozzles, and accessories from outside of China via SuperBuy . For a side by side comparison of some of the extruders, see this picture and this picture : the aluminum and stainless extruders are near identical in diameter, but the aluminum model is shorter. Given that hobbyist incense making hasn’t exactly been all the rage since the…
Trump has been inaugurated ; Elon Musk is performing Nazi salutes in public, the U.S. is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement , the White House Spanish-language pages have been shut down , whitehouse.gov now features some sort of onanistic hyper-nationalist movie trailer , the federal government is officially hostile to transgender people , the Trump administration has ended birthright citizenship…
Smoke was the first breath of early civilization, its rising plumes a synonym for human presence. This byproduct of life-sustaining flame has been constant companion to our evolution as a species, changing not only human lives, but human bodies . As the ubiquity of smoke rendered transparent to our ancestors’ noses the once harsh notes of burning plant matter, there must have been a sense of magic…
Update 2025-10-01: See the /incense page for additional resources. While I like to post incense builds, I haven’t yet posted on exactly how to go about turning raw ingredients into Japanese style incense sticks. Here’s a 1,000 mile overview of the process to accompany a video I recently uploaded to my new PeerTube instance on that very topic. For more info, you can check out IncenseDragon on…
Plant resins come with varying amounts of water-soluble gum content. Beyond the temperature-reducing aspect innate to resins in combustible incense, these gums can further affect how much of a given resin you can include in a build. As anyone who has burned resins on charcoal can attest, with resins high in gum content, the burning gum can introduce off-notes. Gums also serve as binders in incense…
I’ve been meaning to add an image gallery feature to this website for ages, and I’m happy to finally announce that I’ve done it! If you’d like to see my very first image gallery in action, here’s a gallery of PopTart memes I’ve collected . If you’re a massive nerd and would like to read about how I implemented this feature on my Eleventy website, read on. Note: this is a fast and loose description…
For my younger readers: much new music is mixed in such a way that it sounds good on tinny (and tiny) smartphone speakers, often at the expense of sound quality on better audio systems. The songs below are not. If you can, please listen to these song snippets through a good pair of wired headphones, earphones, or speakers for the best experience (it’s true: wireless sounds worse). You won’t want…
Update 2025-11-21: I actually got rid of of all web components on this site because they were heavy, unnecessary, and didn’t render in folks’ RSS readers. Currently, I’m using plain old HTML for this, rendered by Eleventy from a convenient shortcode. Fresh from my text editor comes a neat little web component that packages the native HTML <audio> tag inside a <figure> with a song name, title, and…
About a month ago I moved just up the street, so to speak. The last time I moved, I had the cash to hire movers, but this September it was down to me and whatever poor saps I could cajole into helping in exchange for a warm fuzzy feeling. I will remain eternally grateful for my good friend and business partner Davey’s help in making numerous van runs, as well as driving the U-Haul and schlepping…
Here are a few new (and not-so-new, but good to know) features I’ve built for my humble website: A Sitemap for Humans # I now have a (human readable) sitemap , linked in the footer of each page, for easier discovery of the pages that aren’t listed in the menu at the top, such as colophon , and privacy pages, which are now separate from the about page . I haven’t automated this yet, mainly because…