James Lileks writes that "Prince’s new perfume debuts tomorrow":

It 's called “3121,” which is either some mystical secret message or his ATM PIN. It’s billed as “xquiste” and “xotic,” and it’s probably as xpensive (hah! See what I did there?) as the rest of the perfumes on the market. Americans spend $2.8 billion on fragrances per year, which seems a little low. That’s about 3,953 bottles.

There was a time when people applied cologne with a paint roller; you’d get in an elevator behind someone drenched in Giorgio, and your eyes watered like Salieri listening to something Mozart dashed off on his lunch hour. There was something so proudly corrupt about that smell. It was like the aroma given off by a bonfire of costumes worn on “Dynasty.” It went out of style, as they all do; when I was tending bar in a college joint, half the guys appeared to have exchanged their blood for Drakkar Noir, and now that’s out. I’m not opposed to scents, and I’m partial to a little Bay Rum in the winter; smells like you’ve just come from an old-style barbershop where the men read Esquire and speak in terse, Hemmingway-esque sentences. But I never finish a bottle of anything. Don’t know anyone who has, either.