“We live in a world of smells, where only the absence of smell is remarkable.” – R.W. MONCRIEFF
New York smell
Panic is almost the characteristic smell of the city streets in New York. – paraphrasing – JEAN BAUDRILLARD
Fleeting class distinctions
“Every human nose instantly smells the subtle scent of independence, the habit of command, the habit of always choosing the best of everything for oneself, the whiff of misanthropy, and the unwavering sense of responsibility that goes with power, that rises up, in short, from a large and secure income....
Miasmic intercourse
“Face-to-face interaction penetrates in a gaseous form into our most intimate inner being. The current Coronavirus outbreak surfaces a forgotten concept of communication that is deeply ingrained in culture: Face-to-face communication is a miasmic intercourse.” – CLAUS NOPPENEY
Cognitive impotence
“If olfaction were his most important sense, man’s linguistic incapacity to describe olfactory sensations would turn him into a creature tied to his environment. Because they are ephemeral, olfactory sensations can never provide a persistent stimulus of thought. Thus the development of the sense of smell seems to be inversely...
Deceptive powers
“Our eyes are not easy to fool. Smelling is another matter.” – LEWIS THOMAS
DIY Perfumer
“The only qualification I have is a school certificate I was awarded at thirteen … I am self taught and have become who I am through encounters with people and individuals and, of course, with their work. ” – JEAN-CLAUDE ELLENA
Smells inform about life and death
“Smells are not decodable. Nor can they be inventoried, for no inventory of them can have either a beginning or an end. They ‘inform’ only about the most fundamental realities, about life and death, and they are pan of no significant dichotomies except perhaps that between life beginning and life...
Evocative power
“Odors are at once evocative and suggestive, redolent with significance.” ION M. LEWIS
Temporary nature
“An everlasting fragrance is a paradox.” – THEODOR W. ADORNO
Smelling whiteness
“White privilege is not just ‘in the head.’ It also is ‘in’ the nose that smells, the back, neck, and other muscles that imperceptibly tighten with anxiety, and the eyes that see some but not all physical differences as significant.” – SHANNON SULLIVAN
Psychological irrelevance
“Taste, smell, as well as hunger, thirst, nausea, and other so-called ‘common’ sensations need not be touched on in this book, as almost nothing of psychological interest is known concerning them.” – WILLIAM JAMES
Rapport with the world
“Odours enable us to have an immediate and lively rapport with the world.” – CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS
Perfumer
“A perfumer is someone who masters the behaviour and the perception of volatile molecules by the nose and the brain.” – CHRISTOPHE LAUDAMIEL
Differences between smells are meaningless
“We do not discover the meaning of a smell by distinguishing it from other smells but by distinguishing contexts within which particular smells have a typical value.” – ALFRED GELL
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