Walking back to work today after lunch, I passed by the back of a locally famous seafood restaurant. Covering the usual plethora of restaurantly odors (garbage, old mops, bleach) was a heavy blanket, a cloud, nee a THUNDERHEAD of the smell of bacon. What is it about this lowly meat that makes it such a great foodstuff? And the SMELL!
And that got me to thinking about smells. Our noses are really amazing things. Pulling scents out of the air, unraveling layer upon layer of aromas to be processed by our olfactory sense. And then there's the nose to brain interface, you know, that weird thing that happens when a smell jogs some latent memory -- for me there are many:
- the smell of a kitchen where coffee is brewing and breakfast (usually including eggs and the aforementioned bacon) is either sizzling on the stove, or has recently been consumed
- the smell of a carnival -- cotton candy and cheap perfume
- brownies baking
- grilled steak on a summer evening
It's amazing that the brain can actually transport you back to a place you remember based on a smell. Or, as in my case, make you want to run to the nearest deli and order a BLT when you've just eaten half a pizza for lunch!
Then I thought about some of my favorite animals - dogs. A dogs sense of smell is approximately 1000 times as acute as a human beings. 1000 TIMES. What must that be like? We've followed Uncle Marv into the bathroom Sunday morning after a Saturday night out at the beer garden....now think -- 1000 TIMES!!!!
We wonder why dogs are constantly sniffing around their environment, why anytime somebody is walking one of them, they are constantly circling trees and fire hydrants with their schnozzes to the ground. It must be overwhelming for them.
So, how come, when one dog 'meets' another, the first thing they do is put their nose up the other dogs' ass?!?! Does having such a powerful sense of smell allow for such discernment in odors that things that smell bad to us (I'm making the wild leap here and assuming that a dog's ass doesn't smell good....who knows, maybe I'm wrong) actually smell good?
And what exactly does define a good smell? I mean, sometimes I'm stuck in an elevator with a man or woman dressed very nicely and the perfume or cologne they are wearing, while smelling expensive, absolutely reeks! You know the smell I mean, like sweat collected from the ass crack of a wildebeast! On the other hand, sometimes the stuff these people wear smells great.
Personally, I've always wondered whey somebody (Lauren, Chanel, etc.) didn't make a perfume or a cologne that smelled like frying bacon. I'd buy it.
And that got me to thinking about smells. Our noses are really amazing things. Pulling scents out of the air, unraveling layer upon layer of aromas to be processed by our olfactory sense. And then there's the nose to brain interface, you know, that weird thing that happens when a smell jogs some latent memory -- for me there are many:
- the smell of a kitchen where coffee is brewing and breakfast (usually including eggs and the aforementioned bacon) is either sizzling on the stove, or has recently been consumed
- the smell of a carnival -- cotton candy and cheap perfume
- brownies baking
- grilled steak on a summer evening
It's amazing that the brain can actually transport you back to a place you remember based on a smell. Or, as in my case, make you want to run to the nearest deli and order a BLT when you've just eaten half a pizza for lunch!
Then I thought about some of my favorite animals - dogs. A dogs sense of smell is approximately 1000 times as acute as a human beings. 1000 TIMES. What must that be like? We've followed Uncle Marv into the bathroom Sunday morning after a Saturday night out at the beer garden....now think -- 1000 TIMES!!!!
We wonder why dogs are constantly sniffing around their environment, why anytime somebody is walking one of them, they are constantly circling trees and fire hydrants with their schnozzes to the ground. It must be overwhelming for them.
So, how come, when one dog 'meets' another, the first thing they do is put their nose up the other dogs' ass?!?! Does having such a powerful sense of smell allow for such discernment in odors that things that smell bad to us (I'm making the wild leap here and assuming that a dog's ass doesn't smell good....who knows, maybe I'm wrong) actually smell good?
And what exactly does define a good smell? I mean, sometimes I'm stuck in an elevator with a man or woman dressed very nicely and the perfume or cologne they are wearing, while smelling expensive, absolutely reeks! You know the smell I mean, like sweat collected from the ass crack of a wildebeast! On the other hand, sometimes the stuff these people wear smells great.
Personally, I've always wondered whey somebody (Lauren, Chanel, etc.) didn't make a perfume or a cologne that smelled like frying bacon. I'd buy it.
Comments
I also remember someone telling me , it might have been you , that some breeds of dogs are bettr as guard dogs because of their hearing. They know how the heartbeats of everybody in their packs sound (the rythmn) and they can hear when there is a heartbeat that shouldn't be there . . like an intruder.