Smells and Bells

I have been craving cheesecake for the past week. Its been a constant in this crazy preparation for finals, always in the back of my mind, distracting me from my work. Its become a recognized thing, because its all I have been talking about. The general sentiment is something along the lines of  "Elise, you need to shut up about cheesecake", but its an important feeling at this time, so I will not just leave it alone. Anyways, yesterday, I drove some of my stuff home so the moving out process would be more manageable on Saturday. I requested a home cooked meal, but did not specify what food I wanted. The whole family is home, and we all sit down and enjoy a nice dinner and conversation before I head back to Wheaton. As the meal commences, my mother stands up and says she has made something for dessert. Out of nowhere, she whips out a homemade cheesecake, and I lose my mind. "Mom, you don't understand what you have just presented me with. I literally  have been talk...

A truly overwhelming sensory experience? Holi. This celebration of color and the coming of spring was truly an experience for all the senses. The colors were visually intense obviously, and the powder flying through the air was a sight to see. The powder would get in your mouth, leaving a foul taste, and the smell was very distinctive as well. People were throwing cold water at each other, and someone dumped a bucket over my head, instantly pulling my attention towards the feeling of the ice cold water running down my back. You could hear everyone yelling and laughing as they chucked this multi colored powder at each other, until it all had been used up, and everyone was a mess of different colors. Some people had been so covered in the powder that the colors all molded together to a brown, while others had bright splashes of pink and purple where they had clearly been hit with the color. Then, some people swam in the pond, although I did not partake in that. Even though my hair...

Everyone's perception of the world is different. We know this, but it can be easy to forget sometimes. I was reminded of just how different our realities are today by my roommate during our trip to the art gallery. As a side bar, the first thing I thought of was The Deepest Touch, and the discussion of the cultural shift away from handling museum artifacts, and towards the visual experience of the art. Some of the pieces were clearly texturized, but I could only look at them from a distance, instead of connecting with the art on a physical level. Despite this, the visual experience was beautiful. I was stunned by the creativity of my peers and the sheer talent around me. The exhibits were beautiful and thought provoking, and you all should go. Anyways, my roommate and I were looking at one of the pieces, and there were people in front of us, so we were hanging back a little. I was curious as to what the motivation of the piece was, so I was reading the write up next to it. All ...

I spend a fair amount of time on the New York Times website. Its just a fact at this point. Instead of Buzzfeed, which I have previously been addicted to, I spend large quantities of time reading obscure Op-Ed articles. Imagine my surprise when I found and article that actually quotes Constance Classen, the author of The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch , although this article focuses on smell. Sensory perception is extremely dependent on culture. English speaking cultures are astonishingly poor at naming odors, a fact that has been agreed upon for the past thirty years. Smells like cinnamon, lemon, and rose are tough for Americans to name, while colors are extremely easy to distinguish between. However, when researchers visited foraging tribes on the Malay Peninsula, they collected different results. These individuals were nearly as good at identifying smells as they were at identifying sights. This reminded me of JBK and Betsey Dyer's article that we read earlier in...

I have received one professional massage in my life. It was while I was on vacation in the Galapagos, and it was a part of the cruise deal we got. I am a notoriously stingy person, so the idea of shelling out money for a massage is tough for me to deal with, because I feel like I can spend the money on something physical and substantial instead. The massage therapist speaker, however, made me revisit this idea. I was pretty nervous before the massage actually, which was pretty funny. I had no idea what to expect, I was afraid the woman wouldn't speak English and then I wouldn't know what to do, or that I would tip an incorrect amount due to the cultural differences. My mind was going a mile a minute. In hindsight, this was a giant waste of energy because the entire purpose of the experience was to relax, but once I walked into the room, the anxiety dissipated. I walked in and laid down on the table, and this kind old Ecuadorian lady began her work. I was surprised to find t...

In Rolf Nelson's lecture today, we discussed synesthetic perceptions, a topic we have touched on many times previously. I think our fascination with this topic is because synesthesia is a concrete example of how our perception can differ from other's and from reality. But who is to say that one reality is correct over another, especially when perception is so flawed and changing?  In Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India , perception is used as an intense form of worship. We learn of sight as a connection with others and the divine. The act of looking at a depiction of a deity is a way of linking oneself with that god, and vice versa. Essentially, I see the god, and the god sees me. This exchange is vulnerable and opening, and Hindu culture and religion equates this sight with honesty. The Brahmanas state that "the eye is the truth" (Eck 9), because the god sees the authenticity and reality of a person. Eck presents that "In India, as...

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending WheaTalks, Wheaton's version of the famous TED Talks. I must admit, I expected to be bored out of my mind during the two and a half hours that followed (I went to support a friend who was giving one of these talks), but I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself. The topics were fascinating and I was so impressed by our peer's intellect, but the last talk, Professor Morris's talk, made me think of this class immediately. Professor Morris discussed how we, as humans, are becoming increasingly dependent on technology, and, in 2035, if technology continues to develop at the rate that is has, computers will be more powerful than all human minds combined. In fact, we are merging with our technology, sometimes in dramatic ways. Neil Harbisson was born completely color blind. He sees the world in grey, but, with the help of technology, he has expanded his perception of the world so he can recognize colors. He had a camera surgically fixed...

I spent a large portion of spring break recounting Sam and I's adventures in Providence when we watched JBK's Purimspiel. While my first impression of the experience was a combination of shock and hilarity, after having some time to think about it, my perspective on the evening changed. What really sticks with me is the reading of the Purim story before the Purimspiel itself. Everyone sits inside the synagogue for an hour and a half and attentively listens to the Hebrew reading of this story. Now, I have no prior exposure to Hebrew, besides the handful of Bar Mitzvahs I attended in my youth. However, to my surprise, I still got a lot out of this story. In our class, we are primarily exploring the experiential dimension of religion, through the lens of the five senses. I found that the act of experiencing this religious custom had its own peace associated with it, even with the chaos that accompanies Purim and the foreign languages that I have no knowledge of. I ...

I found Dr. Herz's lecture to be fascinating from start to finish. I was particularly intrigued by the experience of smell and taste, as demonstrated by the jelly bean experiment. I was shocked by my inability to label the flavor of the jelly bean without smell. Now, I have experienced this phenomena before with head colds, but the instant wave of a named flavor that hit me when I released my nose was much more powerful than I expected. This got me thinking about the experience of flavor as a whole, and I started thinking about when people stop and appreciate the complexity of it. And I thought of wine tastings. According to 'A Sensory Users Manual', there are four elements to flavor, two more than Dr. Herz addressed. These are smell and taste, but also texture and sight. I agree that smell and taste are the most essential pieces, but there is some truth that the texture and appearance of the food/wine affects our experience. The feeling of a wine, like the temperature and ...

Diane Ackerman discusses the trees changing color and why we see this as a part of her analysis of vision in The Natural History of the Senses , and this section of the book really captured my interest, as I have always found color to be extremely intriguing. I had a childhood friend who was red green colorblind, and I could not wrap my head around his inability to distinguish between these two colors that seemed so different to me. In my mind, if I could see them, how could he not? Since then, I have realized that in fact our individual perceptions of the world can differ wildly, but as a child, it seemed so unlikely that my friend and I could see the world so differently. In class on Tuesday, we discussed color and the mechanism of how we see it. Essentially, we see whatever color an object is not, whichever color is reflected back instead of absorbed. We also briefly touched on the association between colors and emotions, which prompted me to think on this further. For example, ...