Smells and Bells

Taste is such an important sense, it’s a great way to connect with one’s culture, religion and traditions. It’s also a way to learn and connect with other people and cultural experiences. Peoples preferred taste and preferred foods is highly connected to one’s culture, traditions and regional access. For example, people from tropical islands are going to have more fish and fresh fruits in their diets while people from cold, land locked countries will have more meats and grains in their diets. The like or dislike of certain foods was an evolutionary way of keeping us safe from eating poisons. But this has since evolved into a more complex sense since then.  In the book “Religion in the Kitchen” Elizabeth Perez talks a lot about how food is highly connected to religion and traditions. She focuses closely on Afro-Caribbean religious experiences and how important the role of cooking is as a way to pray to their god or gods. on page 55 Perez mentions how writings and myths di...

Compared to the other senses, smell is not used as often as vision, hearing, or touch. Due to our daily reliance on the senses, we deem smell as a pretty unimportant sense but, it's a monumentally important tool in order to perceive the world. Smell is a very unique and nuanced sense; Green "The function of aroma is organized around contradictory characteristics as well, such as employing fragrance for utilitarian or pleasurable purposes and its own spatial relation of inside and outside," (141). Imagine spending the night at a friend's house and the friend does not notice that the entire house smells musty. Not only do people become acclimated very quickly to smells, but this acclimation may lead to most people not noticing the smell they emit. As a visitor to a cornucopia of smell, we notice the nuances of smell that a resident might not be keen to. Oftentimes I feel more or less comfortable in a house I am visiting depending if the smell is pleasant or n...

As a kid, I loved the smell of perfumes, but I never had any myself. In elementary school I hated "girly things" such as the color pink, perfume, concerns about my hair or appearance, but as I grew older I began to embrace the change that comes with being an adult. I don't know much about perfumes, and I'm sure there's science about it I could learn, but I usually go off of how pleasant the smell is to me, which I don't think is based on statistics.   "Eros Perfume Bottle" Last semester I went to Syracuse, New York to visit some friends, and we went to the mall where I picked out my first perfume. If I had to describe it, I would call it complex, mature, something that doesn't quite fit my image but I'm okay with that. In A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, she meets with a perfumer who talks about the mechanics of making a successful scent to then sell to the public. As a kid I didn't know what the big deal was; I ...

Based on the core concepts in The Aroma of Righteousness all involving smell for the most part, one would assume that my blog post would be about such. However, I already discussed smell in my last blog post so I need to discuss a different sense. While reading Deborah Green's explanations about the midrash, I developed my own interpretation of what could be a potential 6th sense and I'm going to give it my best shot at arguing it! When we last discussed the alleged "6th sense" in class we basically classified it as a type of feeling that one gets when they feel the presence of something inhuman or that isn't physical, like a connection with a different entity. We delved into how that type of feeling is associated with the paranormal, being anything that cannot be logically explained by the other senses. So while reading Green's descriptions of what the rabbis were analyzing, I consistently wondered how they were shown that their attempts to conne...

Fish Smell is an important yet often overlooked part of our experience with the outside world. Smells carry a world of meaning that is largely undescribed. Fish smells like fish; and anything that smells similar is said to smell like fish. In a strange way, we only describe smells based on other smells, hoping that whoever we are talking to knows the comparison smell. Even if people disagree on whether or not a scent is pleasant or repulsive, the scent itself is assumed to be uniformly understood. Meow What is one of the first memories of the zoo? For me, there smell was always a distinct memory. The smell of a zoo is distinct but I cannot truly describe it unless I compare it to a farm or other place with certain animals. Smell exists in our memories in a peculiar way, extremely vivid and easy to recollect, yet difficult to describe. While I can forget what the zoo, I went to looked like, or when I went there, I remember the smell. When I encounter that smell again, ...

In every culture, people associate smells differently. Through our society we learn about many spices and how they're used within our respective cultures. But it can be hard to grasp how other cultures percieve smells. Not only is it nearly impossible to describe smells, it's also hard to understand how other cultures associate scents. By Marco Verch (CC BY 2.0) In Deborah Green's Aroma of Righteousness she writes, “Not only was balsam the only spice actually produced in Israel and thus held in high esteem by the rabbis, many in the Roman Empire also thought it had the best fragrance; it was therefore highly valued by Jew and non-Jew alike. There is even less reason to associate the fragrance of cinnamon with the Bible. Cinnamon is mentioned in the Bible only three times (Prov 7:17; Song 4:14; and Exod 30:23), and never in reference to the Garden of Eden. It is thus unlikely that R. Aibu takes his cue directly from the biblical text. Rather, his association and its ...

I have never paid much attention to smell. To me it appears that the sense of smell is thought of as lesser sense or completely disregarded. Yet, Green and Ackerman would probably disagree with that statement. In The Aroma of Righteousness Green states that “...odor, whether pleasing or foul, enters almost every aspect of our lives—it’s subtle pervasiveness affects our attitudes and judgments…” and I often ignore this pervasive sense (or at least I thought I did) so I wanted to try and pay attention to my sense of smell for once. Olga Ernst 2018  © On Saturday morning (February 15, 2020) I could smell the freezing air, but does “cold” have a smell? Ackerman states in A Natural History of the Senses that “smells are our dearest kin, but we cannot remember their names;” so when I say that I can smell the cold, do we think of the same thing? When I think of smelling cold air I think of a fresh blanket of snow accented by a chilly morning wind, but perhaps someone else ma...

There is something that is intoxicating about the smell of someone you may not know. A woman that is other in the bible smells of spice and intoxicants, while a man smells of putrid meats. I cannot say that I am unaware of the way that one may smell to another. There have been countless times where I have been victim to the putrid smell of a random man on a bus. What fascinates me the most out of all of this chapter is the feminization of Israel and how many of the other nations that are masculine in nature and the polar opposite of Israel. The most prevalent example from the book that I can think of is Rome, in all rights the nation of Rome is the polar opposite from Isreal. The core of the matter is that Isreal is one of the first monotheistic religious nations, while Rome is known to be one of the most polytheistic nations before the Catholics took over. While there is the obvious statement that Isreal is the wife of God, it is also important to mention the infidelity of Isreal....

Smell is something most of us can perceive, however, most of us have a difficult time putting a name to a particular scent. We can all describe, with great detail and accuracy (at least, we feel that we are being accurate), what a scent reminds us of, or what it's like, but finding one definitive label is difficult for us. Diane Ackerman in A Natural History of The Senses observes that the easiest way for us to most accurately describe smell is by relating it to memory. Smells can trigger some of the most visceral  feelings and memories we have. And furthermore, those feelings and memories are a crucial part of understanding ourselves within the greater context of reality.  Imagine you're walking down a random street in your childhood hometown, you don't go by there often, but today you chose to take the long route to work which passes through the neighborhood. You pass by a bakery, but immediately, not upon sight, but upon smell, you know it is not just any bakery. It...

Out of all the experiences described in Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, one in particular many readers can probably relate to. In the subsection "Prodigies of Smell", Ackerman discusses how scents are associated with certain environmental factors and events such as the coming of storms.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/perry-pics/4881703714 "Other individuals have been able to smell changes in the weather, too, and, of course, animals are great meteorologists... Moistening, misting, and heaving, the earth breathes like a great dark beast.  When barometric pressure is high, the earth holds its breath and vapors lodge in the loose packing and random crannies of the soil, only to float out again when the pressure is low and the earth exhales" (Ackerman 44).  Ackerman dedicates a huge portion of this subsection to detailing how Helen Keller experienced the scent before a storm. People without the disability(disabilities) or challenges Kelle...

This is a sumset picture from the beach I am writing about.              In A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman often talked about how smells have a memory attached to them. While reading her examples I found myself thinking about some smells that have a personal meaning to me, whether that be a memory or a feeling of home. What I started to think about is the smell I miss the most while I’m at school and reminds me of home I came up with the smell of low tide aka the sulfur ocean smell you get sometimes at the beach. When I was in 5 th grade my family moved to Cape Cod from central Massachusetts, and I hated that smell at first. It would fill up the school bus as it would drive me to school or as we passed the marsh on my way to my grandparent’s house. The smell is so strong as I’m writing this I can think back to what it smelt like. As I grew up I found that I missed it when I would go away for vacation. Now that smell mean...

In some combination and proportion I can describe my childhood in three smells Fresh Cut Grass The aged pages of books and Gasoline The summers spent at day camp the weekends with my grandparents Gas to get us there falling asleep in the musty air A sunbeam shooting into the reading nook I wake to join my family they're enjoying the country air being lower to the ground the grass reaches my nose In the city the fumes and stenches the proportion of pot and piss remind me that I am close to home It's almost a substitute The gas stations are pockets where the air is almost as heavy as the city The gas feels tangible I keep up with my grandpa We return with doughnuts his musty Benz keeps the scent of the gas in the crackled bench seats we exit the car the grass I can still smell the grass and the gas on his old shirts

Mac n' Cheese Taste is a sense that is easily overlooked as mere preference. Taste is seen as more individual than the other senses. What you hear, see, touch or smell as opposed to someone else is relatively the same; even if you have different reactions to the stimulus. But that difference of reactions is a matter of taste; good taste or bad taste. Taste is specific to the individual and can appear so isolating; but it is also the synthesis of the senses. When we taste, how it looks, the aroma it gives off, the texture, and the sound it makes when we eat all. Looking at this food may conjure a vague taste but it would not enhance how it looks. However, if you ate this dish with a blindfold, you could still visual what it looks like by how it tastes. Taste extends beyond bringing the senses together, it also brings people together. In A  Natural History of the Sense s , Diana Ackerman says that “if language didn’t arise at meal times, it certainly evolved and became more ...

A Review of Diane Ackerman's "A Natural History of the Senses" Vietnam Famous Destinations While I have many problems with the language that is used in Ackerman's book, I have found myself coming to appreciate the message that is presented in the book. Throughout the reading, I have found myself thinking more about the incredible features that my own body possesses. While the overall material of Ackerman's work can be summed up in the three words, "horny old lady", she has a very intriguing way of capturing the reader's eye by adding in memories from her life to create more of a narrative to the book. Her romanticized writing style can either disgust you or lure you in further. Out of everything said in the book, what stuck out to me the most was the way in which she describes relationships with babies and their mothers. Diane writes how people in other cultures primarily those in less developed nations people carry their babies against the...

So many songs and poems wouldn't mention the idea of holding someone close if more than just how something felt was all that our sense of touch offered. Our sense of touch is sometimes overlooked because of how basic it might seem, but that is not the case. Touch goes so much deeper than that and can trigger emotions, warn of about our surroundings and is was very important in our growth. In Ackerman's book a Natural History of the senses she went into great detail about the research done on development and touch. For starters the one thing that really peaked my interest was how babies that lacked a human connection of touch did not mature in the same way that a baby who was touched by someone often. This was also true for baby rats and monkeys. However what I thought was really interesting was the fact a lot of touch was not needed. In the case of baby monkeys even if the mom was not able to hold her baby, but was able to hold its hand the baby monkey turned out fine. This goe...

     It was a cool and crisp autumn day back in September 2013. I just came home from school and was getting ready to go to Canobie Lake Park with many of my friends from school. At one point, I washed my hands with a white foamy soap that had a scent very strong. I get extremely vivid images and can even remember bits and pieces of conversations I had with other people whenever I use/smell this apple scented soap my mother bought from bath and body works. The moment I used that soap in the bathroom, the sweet and refreshing scent traveled through my nose and left a mark in my brain, enabling me to have very specific flashbacks each time I use the hand soap.      I find it very interesting how certain scents can bring back such vivid memories like the one I have with the apple scented soap. It shows to prove how powerful a smell can be, as it so easily is engrained into one's mind so they can remember events from that day for years and years. From Diane...

So to start off, I think A Natural History of the Senses is a bit dull. Ackerman offers plenty of insight and interesting interpretations of all of the human senses; however, I feel that oftentimes she will drive a point so far that one can lose sight of what the actual point was in the first place. Or, she will bore the reader with so many details that any power initially established by the point is then lost, as seen through her example about perfume companies and Sophia Grojsman's nose. Initially, I thought it very interesting that there is such a thorough process that goes into perfume-making, but by the end I had gotten lost in all the dialogue in her story that it just seemed boring. Dullness aside, Ackerman does interpret the sense of smell in a very interesting way that I hadn't considered before. Based on her take on how important smell is to savoring life to the fullest and how it basically emphasizes the other senses, I think it's safe to say she'd...

In the book, “A Natural History of the Senses” the author, Diane Ackerman, presents a lot of very interesting information about smells. One of the most interesting things to me that she brought forth was that when she was younger she smelt eucalyptus and now when she smells it as an adult, it always brings her this feeling of nostalgia over her. I have a very similar experience but with latex gloves. When I was a little older than one year old, I had open heart surgery to replace one of my heart valves. I don’t remember anything from this, but I had to get my fake valve replaced when I was eight years old. This I remember much more of, one of the things that I remember the most was the smells. One smell specifically, the latex gloves. Every time I smell those gloves in any context, I get this rush of emotions that I can’t explain. I loved being an eight year old and everyone came to see me when I was in the intensive care unit, but I also wanted to leave as soon as possible. This s...

Diane Ackerman's Natural History of the Senses, weaved with personal anecdotes and spades of literary examples does plenty to set of my Sixth Sense, the whole thing is a zany experience. There are some small and quiet, yet profound moments, my favorite is probably when she speaks of her memories of eucalyptus, out in the fields with butterflies, and back being a sick child, being smeared in Dr. Vicks. The idea of smell to memory association and how it can change and evolve was the part of the book I was most on board with, where the prose just come to Ackerman. And then there's the rest of the filler non-sense. There were whole pages that were just list examples of other writers weaving the senses into their  works, which just made me want to read those instead. Depending on how one would describe the book to a friend, it could either be a series of short stories based on the human reality and how we actually experience the world with literary comparisons and scientific r...