Thanks Udhay. As someone who is trying to "crack" smelling, mostly in the wine area, I loved this article
But my favourite paragraph on smells comes from Mahmoud Darwish on "What is Lost." <https://pen.org/mahmoud-darwish-what-is-lost/> Is Cairo really the smell of mango and ginger though? Shoba -------------------------------------- https://shobanarayan.com/ On Sun, Sep 29, 2019 at 10:34 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > Send silklist mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/silklist > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of silklist digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. How to smell (Udhay Shankar N) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 08:53:20 +0530 > From: Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]> > To: Silk List <[email protected]> > Subject: [silk] How to smell > Message-ID: > < > cabrrnsuff39es_q9oggylh8-xzcthyzhwkv__as2pxkku5c...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > (It?s the last part of 2019, and I am sending what I think is my first HTML > mail to silk. Will wonders never cease?) > > > I saw this very interesting article on ?How to smell > <https://agentyduck.blogspot.com/2018/08/how-to-smell.html>?, which I > append below. The parts that rang most true to me are: > > > > 1. > > You?re actually smelling something all the time, you just need to remind > your nose about it. > 2. > > Smell professionals don?t necessarily have a better sense of smell than > you (although some most certainly do) ? they just have a vocabulary to > talk > about it. > > I also recommend the blog <https://www.firstnerve.com/> of Avery Gilbert > <http://averygilbert.com/>, along with his book What The Nose Knows > <https://www.amazon.com/What-Nose-Knows-Science-Everyday/dp/1505442877/>. > > > Thoughts, especially from the various fragrance aficionados here? > > > Udhay > > > https://agentyduck.blogspot.com/2018/08/how-to-smell.html > > > How To Smell > > *Most of the ideas in this post come from the book* Being A Dog: Following > the Dog Into a World of Smell *by Alexandra Horowitz, which is my favorite > nonfiction book I?ve read in a long time. She, in turn, took much of what I > discuss from Kate McClean, an artist who makes sensory maps of urban > environments. But this is certainly my own take, and the instructions as I > present them are at times in conflict with what I think each of those > people would suggest.* > ------------------------------ > > Smelling is a skill. Unless you make perfume for a living, you probably > don?t know how to smell. Here are what I consider to be the basics of good > olfactory practice. > > 1. > > Assume that everything has an odor. Assume that every single physical > object around you emits volatile compounds that you, personally, can > detect. This may not be true, but that doesn?t matter. Pretend, for now, > that it is. You?ll learn faster this way. > 2. > > Practice good sniffing. First and foremost, good sniffing means putting > your nose right up against the object you want to sniff. Maybe you?re > more > comfortable picking things up with your hands and holding them a few > inches > from your face ? most of us are ? but that?s poor form. Most odorous > compounds are heavier than air, and your nose needs to be where the > molecules are to ingest them. Plus, when you pick something up, > especially > a small bit of something, you?re going to be smelling your hand. So > pretend > you?re a dog. Get down on your hands and knees, if you have to, and > bring > your muzzle right to the object, until you can feel its surface with the > tip of your nose. Then close your eyes, and sniff. > 3. > > To dislodge more of the smelly snuff, try a sharp exhalation through > your nostrils right before you sniff. If you watch dogs sniffing, you?ll > see that they do this all the time. It makes a surprisingly large > difference. > 4. > > You?ll also find more smells by scratching things first, rubbing them, > or otherwise disturbing their surfaces. > 5. > > Associate with what you smell. I recommend narrating your thoughts, > either by speaking or by writing them down. Let your mind wander, and > don?t > worry about making any sense. Nouns, verbs, and adjectives are all fair > game. So are images, sounds, and dance moves. Treat the smell like an > inkblot test. Take a sniff, and say whatever comes to mind. Give it at > least ten seconds, but thirty is better. If you haven?t named five > things > the smell reminds you of, you?re not done smelling it yet. > 6. > > Maybe it?s not clear to you that you?re smelling anything at all. > Doesn?t matter. *Everything* has an odor, remember? You?re having an > olfactory experience of some kind, even if you haven?t recognized it > yet, > so just start associating. You?ll learn about what you smell as you go. > 7. > > ?Good? and ?bad? are not smells. They?re mostly predictions about > whether something is safe to eat. When you judge that something smells > ?good?, just pass right by that thought, and keep on associating. Same > for > anything that smells ?bad?. If you get stuck at this step, reach for the > specific (un)pleasant associations that come to mind while you?re > smelling > the object. > 8. > > Don?t worry so much about which things smell like which other things. > For example, maybe you?ve just sniffed unwashed socks, and thereby > invited > a familiar compound into your olfactory system. During its stay, you > happened upon an association with parmesan cheese. There really is a > chemical similarity between your socks and parmesan cheese ? namely > butyric > acid ? but what matters is not that the two items smell similar. What > matters is that the experience *reminds you* of parmesan cheese. If > you?re always searching for the known relative of a smell, you?ll miss > all > the scents you?ve never named before. Recognize that ?parmesan cheese? > has > come to mind while smelling, and leave it at that. > > < > https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NnHlJpIe1yM/W2pE0UT6AGI/AAAAAAAAP1c/dvKo9zkJc48VKb6Z-ibmXa-DEDvviTCYQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180727_141527.jpg > > > Smell Walks > > Now that you know the basics, try going for a smell walk. A smell walk is > just a walk, but instead of looking at stuff all the time, you relate to > your environment primarily through scent. Here are a few more tips for > smell walks in particular. > > 1. > > When you arrive at a new location, take note of the background smells. > 2. > > Elicit three smells per location. > 3. > > While moving, watch out for momentary smells. > 4. > > Bring a bottle of water. Your nasal passages need to be a little damp to > catch the particles. > 5. > > Bring tissues. Some of the particles will irritate your nose. > 6. > > Bring friends! > 7. > > When there?s an especially interesting smell, invite others to share it > with you. > > I really enjoy smell walks. They feel indulgent and exciting to me, and I > love watching the constant discovery and surprise of my friends when I > bring others along. There?s a lot of intimacy in smelling. > > I?ve done enough smell walks in my neighborhood that I think I can probably > estimate my location to the nearest street corner (maybe better) just by > smell, if I?m within a few blocks of my house. I think my nose is about as > good as average, based on my experiences taking people on smell walks. If > that sounds unlikely to you, you?re probably drastically underestimating > how good you are at smelling. Humans have much better noses than they tend > to think. > > Scent is so neglected in human experience. I think it?s largely because we > walk on two legs, and use our hands to examine things. We just don?t spend > much time down where the smells are. > > It makes me sad, because there?s a whole world of olfactory experience > that?s never instantiated. If I ask someone about their day, people will > tell me what they saw, and maybe what they heard, but almost nobody tells > me what they smelled. > > And if someone *does* mention smell, it?s almost always because something > smelled either disgusting or delicious. The world is so full of smells, of > so many kinds, but hardly anybody notices. I?d like it if more people > engaged with the world through scent. > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > silklist mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/silklist > > > ------------------------------ > > End of silklist Digest, Vol 117, Issue 11 > ***************************************** >
