Apples to Apples

Hey Everybody,

As you may or may not know, I recently moved to New York City, and I have some exciting news to report: New York City smells great - all the time! Whether you are strutting down Avenue A, hopping on the Fung Wah in Chinatown, or just plain hiding behind a garbage can ogling sunbathing girls in Central Park, an offensive smell is nowhere to be found. Clear to the horizon, no foul odor, as far as the nose can smell. It's really incredible!

nope, still good!

PS. Do you ever think about how at any given time, the smells you smell represent a rough chemical approximation of the sphere of air around you, about how your nose sucks up all these tiny particles of everything and like, nostril-licks them to see what they smell like, and then sends off the lab results to your brain?

Smells vs. Tastes

Many readers have asked me about the relationship between smell and taste. It's true that a connection can be drawn between the two, which I have illustrated in the following graph:


I hope this clears things up.

Outdated science

When I told my friend Tyler that I had been keeping a blog about smells, he pointed to an African talking drum sitting in the corner of his living room and said, "You should smell that drum." These drums have a compelling history: because one is able to alter the pitch with ease, a range of tones is available to the player. Speech-like tones and phrases can mimic those used in some African languages, and in certain cases, a drum can communicate language nearly as well as a human! Here's a snippet from a 1942 article on the subject:

The Bulu dialect of the African Bantu language can be drummed almost as well as spoken. Reason: it is even more a language of tones than official Chinese. Where the Chinese use four tones, the Bulus have five—two high, two low and one in the middle. So distinct are the pitches and rhythms of the language that sometimes a couple of people "too far apart to hear actual words call back and forth using only the syllables kiki in the tones of the words they would employ in ordinary conversation."

Whoa! Here's another:

A hungry man returning from a hunt may stop at a village four miles from home, send a message to his wife to come in from her garden in the jungle and feed him. Message in drum code: "She is better than the daughter of other tribes, she who stands there. Oyono must not join the fighting, I don't want Oyono to die. Come walk quickly, quickly, I feel hunger not small." Dinner will be waiting when he gets home.

All pretty neat stuff, except the drum smelled awful! Talk about old milk on your telephone mouthpiece!

In all fairness, the drum is partially carcass. I needed to know more about this nasty skinflap, so I read an article called "How to Buy a Goat Skin for your D'jembe." I was wary at first, as the title seemed to be the result of a "how to buy a ___ for your ____" Mad Lib. It was the real deal, however. Turns out that "Skins from Africa tend to smell, especially male skins." So there you have it, Tyler, stick to those X chromosomes the next time you are in the market for a new D'jembe skin.

Note to Consumers! pt. 2

Relief has finally arrived for all of us who would like to cash in on the much-regarded benefits of Omega-3 fish oil, but recoil at the thought of a dead herring crawling back up the rathole ten minutes later. Target Brand Origins Omega-3 Odorless Fish Oil Capsules will deliver the same dose of Docosahexaenoic acid without the unpleasantness! For those not in the know, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is the active ingredient in fish oil, which may as well be snake oil for the ailments it claims to cure: it supposedly reduces the effects of Alzheimer's, shrinks cancerous tumors, and it "has recently gained attention as a supplement for pregnant women, ... [with] improved attention and visual acuity" in infants.

Target knows they have a potential goldmine with this one, as is clear from the catchphrase in the cartoon bubble usually reserved for the "TNT" on a box of Roman Candles:

NOTE: Snake oil is also an actual Chinese remedy for joint pain.

the Sleeping Bag Challenge

I used to challenge my friends to the Sleeping Bag Challenge. The object was to enter the sleeping bag headfirst, then, when you reach the bottom, to turn around inside and make it back out headfirst. First one to fresh air was the winner. I remember thrashing around at the bottom of the sack, claustrophobic as hell, the air and skin becoming hot and moist with the creeping fear of getting stuck, which, as I grew older became a real threat*.

We've been in the middle of a two-week-long heat wave, or, in Austin, "May." It's 95 degrees outside (but it feels like 97). Last night, a sulfuric smell drifted down our street. I thought at first a sewer line had burst, but it was a bit too "eggy" and it didn't smell inside of the house. The night was breezy and the stink kept drifting in from the east. The cause is yet unsolved.

*The Sleeping Bag Challenge is not intended for mummy-style bags.

Note to Consumers!

Watch out for OFF! brand "Smooth & Dry Feels Comfortable Powder Dry Formula" bug repellent! Upon application, this stuff creates a dense sphere of extra-potent rubbing alcohol vapor. You might as well keep an open canister of tear gas in your breast pocket.


It smells pretty good when it dries, though.

Good Things Come in Groups of Three (legs)

Above the top-lefthand corner of my front door is a light. It's the low-wattage kind, the one that looks like it oozed out of a soft-serve ice cream machine. The light does a great job at deterring would-be burglars from acting out the following scenario:

1. break in
2. discover we own no gold, jewelry, tvs, dvds
3. not much in the fridge, either
4. punch holes in the walls out of spite

On top of keeping the security deposit safe, the light also acts as a watering hole for a smorgasbord of strange, huge, bugs. At any given moment one can walk outside at night and spy a giant locust, a grasshopper, a cockroach the size of a silver dollar, mosquitos, mosquito-eaters, june bugs, cicadas, moths, and the green anole lizards that feast on these delightful creatures. The other weekend we found this guy perched on the inside of the door frame:



As I proceeded to capture this insect using the "jar and postcard" method, I noticed a fresh cinnamon-like smell in the air. I gently nudged it into the jar (minding the antennae), carried the jar-with-bug into the kitchen, where my live-in girlfriend Alisha was, and asked if she was chewing Big Red. Negative. A whiff of the top of the jar and it was clear that this bug smells great.

Our first hypothesis was that it was a giant cockroach with the legs of a grasshopper. It was surprisingly hard to pinpoint the exact genus and species, even with internet searches such as "central texas cinnamon insect." Finally, we came across the profile of the Leaf-Footed Pine Seed bug (Leptoglossus corculus), a relatively harmless beast, considered a pest but not a threat in the Midwestern United States. They obtain their scent from the pine trees that they feed on, and reportedly smell terrible, spraying a foul stench of pine-tar on their attacker. This one must have been dwelling in my grandmother's potpourri cabinet, as I would gladly give it a home in a little dish in the bathroom.

Note: Cinnamon oil is a natural insect repellant, so perhaps this bug considered us potentially harmful insects.

Alisha and I were supposed to meet some friends at a nearby bar/coffeeshop/all-around-hangout, so we covered the top of our new friend's jar with wax paper, poked some holes, and took him along. We all sat in a circle, passed the bug-jar around to the left, and took hits off the top. If there was such thing as a smells-bong (working on it) I would gladly pack a bowl of this guy.

Here is the Leaf-Footed Pine Seed Bug at the Rio Rita Lounge, next to Texas's favorite, cheapest, beer, the Lone Star: