Nathan Upchurch
Nathan Upchurch
I write about incense, life, music, tech, vegan cooking, and other things I find interesting.
August 2026
Top Words
- incense
- review
- reviewing
- making
- wild
- world
- build
- eleventy
- lately
- tunes
All posts (78)
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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