65 replies to this topic

[ticklemyiguana]

Face it. Your nose is your least appreciated of the traditional five senses. You use your ears all the time, you just need your sense of touch, for like, everything. Your eyes? You're here in front of a monitor, goodness. You eat x times a day, and even though your nose plays a huge part in that, all you do is think about your tongue, and maybe how it feels. For shame.

 

Other than maybe, maybe the use of taste, it's also by far the most intimate - which is kind of why bad smells suck so hard. I mean, you're taking chemicals emitted from your environment and breathing them in to your body.

 

Let's take a moment to appreciate the fact that your sense of smell is a way, just like your eyes through electromagnetic waves/radiation or your skin through the electromagnetic force itself, or your ears through rapid fluctuations in fluid pressure, for your brain to sort out what exactly it is that you are in. Your tongue, is, uh. A way for your brain to sort out what exactly is in you.

 

But your sense of smell, through the binding of chemicals that float around in the air to receptors in your head, tells you so much more than most of us appreciate. Probably it goes unnoticed so often because in our day of modern hygiene and sanitation, it's primarily reserved for pleasantries, but all that time, your brain is telling you "ok this is safe. This is safe. This is safe. This is safe. This is safe."

 

So for just a moment, let's appreciate our noses by thinking about their favorite things.

 

Chipotle. The pepper, not the place. Good god. Practically an aphrodesiac.

Lime. Just thinking about it puts a special feeling in me.

Iron. Lets face it. Blood has a nice smell to it. That's iron.

And. Of course:

Spoiler

 

I'd also be very interested to know the context of your nose. Where's it from?

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 15 January 2016 - 03:19 PM.

[hellc9943]

The smell of napalm in the morning.

[nepacaka]

r u drnk?

[ticklemyiguana]

no

[Amidatelion]

A storm from the Atlantic. 

 

Cold lightning, crackling through salt-sea air. The sweet promise of rain; real, whip-your-skin-raw rain. The quiet promise of a threatening wind; the whispers before the shattering howl that brings choking sand. 

 

Grits bubbling on a gas stove.

 

The nose-twitching hint of rotting seaweed, destroyed by too-rough waves; errant lightning bursting swollen bladderwrack. Salt, clinging salt, dusty stuff that clings to limestone rock long after the storm has passed.

 

A hurricane.

[Elite_is_salty]

My girl's perfume it's so good holy fuzzy bunny

[Nept]

[ticklemyiguana]

(incoherent screaming)

Second to Lagavulin in my preferences. A very sound choice if you're aiming to spend a lot of money getting very drunk.

[crockrocket]

I can't smell.

Edited by (TDM)crockrocket, 15 January 2016 - 07:08 PM.

[Nept]

I can't smell.

 

But you do smell.

[ticklemyiguana]

I can't smell.

HAH. No wait why that sucks.

 

 

nerd.

[crockrocket]

But you do smell.

A friend of mine likes to say that I don't smell good and I don't smell well

[crockrocket]

HAH. No wait why that sucks.


nerd.

Not really, I've never been able to smell so I'm not missing anything

[ticklemyiguana]

Not really, I've never been able to smell so I'm not missing anything

no but why

[crockrocket]

no but why

It's called anosmia but I've never actually got it looked at. Usually it's due to a severed olfactory nerve, but since I've never been able to smell I figure mine just never developed.

Trying to conceptualize smell is like trying to picture a new color.

[ticklemyiguana]

It's called anosmia but I've never actually got it looked at. Usually it's due to a severed olfactory nerve, but since I've never been able to smell I figure mine just never developed.

Trying to conceptualize smell is like trying to picture a new color.

Actually it shouldn't be terribly difficult - speaking in terms of relative difficulties of conceptualizing senses that someone hasn't felt before at least - an.. uh. unlikely endeavor . Your sense of taste and sense of smell share very similar receptors, and your brain processes them in very similar ways. It's like tasting air, just more intense. If I were to describe taste to someone without an ability to do so, I would likely tell them food tastes like it smells, just more intense.

 

Of course, you having lived this whole thing, I doubt I'm presenting you with new information. Brains have a real hard time imagining things in terms that they haven't experienced.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 15 January 2016 - 09:13 PM.

[crockrocket]

Actually it shouldn't be terribly difficult - speaking in terms of relative difficulties of conceptualizing senses that someone hasn't felt before at least - an.. uh. unlikely endeavor . Your sense of taste and sense of smell share very similar receptors, and your brain processes them in very similar ways. It's like tasting air, just more intense. If I were to describe taste to someone without an ability to do so, I would likely tell them food tastes like it smells, just more intense.

Of course, you having lived this whole thing, I doubt I'm presenting you with new information. Brains have a real hard time imagining things in terms that they haven't experienced.

I guess conceptualize wasn't the right word. I've heard that explanation of smell many times, but trying to imagine what that would actually feel like? Incomprehensible

[OdinTheWise]

the smell of bacon sizzling in a pan, with biscuits and gravy . mmmmmmmm......

Edited by OdinTheWise, 15 January 2016 - 10:11 PM.

[Pleasure_Mortar]

I love the smell of burned jet fuel. 

[Miscellaneous]

I love the smell of burned jet fuel. 

 

Is there an ongoing argument as to whether said jet fuel can or cannot melt steel, specifically in the beam category?

[asipo]

does my own fart count? 

[MomOw]

I love the smell of jet fuel leakage with a hangover after drinking too much vodka

[Elite_is_salty]

Jet fuels melts steel memes?

[Elite_is_salty]

Did I mention that I'm vegan?

[Pleasure_Mortar]

I forgot to mention how much I hate the smell of unburned jet fuel.

Get Jet A-1 on your hands and forget enjoying a snack that doesn't require silverware for the next couple of hours.

[PoopSlinger]

Bacon.

 

2-Stroke  with klotz

[Bergwein]

The smell of a bar that's hardly ever ventilated.

The smell of your significant other without perfume or deodorant.

Fresh coriander and savory!

[LaurenEmily]

Your tongue, is, uh. A way for your brain to sort out what exactly is in you.

 

I laughed.

[MomOw]

I forgot to mention how much I hate the smell of unburned jet fuel.

Get Jet A-1 on your hands and forget enjoying a snack that doesn't require silverware for the next couple of hours.

 

lol, maybe you prefer JP-5 ?

 

And do you use mobil jet for your french fries ?

Edited by (KDR) MomOw, 16 January 2016 - 10:31 AM.

[Cytor]

gasoline, especially at the pump

[Pleasure_Mortar]

lol, maybe you prefer JP-5 ?

 

And do you use mobil jet for your french fries ?

never worked around miliary aircraft. but i guess there's not much of a difference.

[coldform]

sourdough bread, when it's proofing.

 

onions and garlic frying in butter.

 

the acrid smell of ozone from an arc welder.

 

I thinks its kinda weird, but I also like the smell of WD-40. not straight sniffing the stuff up close, but the aerosol in the air when I use it.

 

My first memories of Arizona involve driving down a rural canal access road on a regular basis, and knowing how far I was from home due to the presence of the smell of artificial banana flavoring. I only smelled it when I came through the particular spot, right on the west edge of town. never smelled it when heading out, but I smelled it when I was heading back home.

 

also, freshly cut alfalfa on a summer night...

 

The fields were in a constant flood state, so it felt like being outside but with air conditioning.  great place to get lost and drunk with a woman.

[n3onfx]

The smell of rain.

 

To be more exact, it's called Petrichor (yes as stupid as that sounds there's a specific name for that smell. The word itself sounds pretty weird as well) and it's literally a mix of oil released by plants into the soil to protect their seeds and an organic compound called geosmin that is emitted when a certain bacteria dies. For some evolutionary reason our human nose is extremely sensitive to that geosmin smell, probably something to do with finding water sources in dry lands.

 

Rain near a city park or in the countryside smells fuzzy bunnyng amazing, nothing as soothing as watching the rain start to fall and taking a deep breath.

[DeeRax]

My favorite smell will probably always be the smell of a camp/bonfire.
Fire (Or smoke I guess) in general  (As long as burning hair isn't involved).

Also:

Baking bread
Damp soil/rain(As neon said) (Especially in a shady spot in the mountains)
Pine/fir trees (especially cedar)
Most herbs and spices
The ocean
Some fine loose leaf tea
The world's finest weed

Edited by (TDM) DeeRax, 16 January 2016 - 11:55 AM.

[ticklemyiguana]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Pleasure_Mortar]

My favorite smell will probably always be the smell of a camp/bonfire.
Fire (Or smoke I guess) in general  (As long as burning hair isn't involved).

Also:

Baking bread
Damp soil/rain(As neon said) (Especially in a shady spot in the mountains)
Pine/fir trees (especially cedar)
Most herbs and spices
The ocean
Some fine loose leaf tea
The world's finest weed

same here! I love the smell of pine trees in the summer heat.

[gArphEus]

A glass of good Armagnac.

The scent of it.

The 1st sip.

Another sip.

And another, while resting in a hanging mat under creaky pine trees at the beach, where the flood washes tons of seagrass and shells onto the coastlne, and the warm wind adds a salty smell 2 the scene,  while the cicadas sing their endless song...

 

4 Christ's sake, i have 2 get back there so badly...

 

Damn you, reminding me of all this, while i'm stuck here in Darkland, where it's f4ckin cold, raining 24 / 7, and the sun is just a fading reminiscence... ;)

[coldform]

Dammit tickle. You do know that sense of smell has a primordial link to memory?

We're all stampeding Down nostalgia lane...

[ticklemyiguana]

Actually yeah. I was sort of hoping for that. However my request that the noses be tied to context, location, DOES NOT SEEM TO BE BEING FOLLOWED.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 16 January 2016 - 02:47 PM.

[Pleasure_Mortar]

Ok here it goes.

 

Jet fuel. airports, flying, freedom, happiness, beautiful proud machines, heat on the tarmac, power, safety - gives me a kind of tingeling. There's no moving vehicle where I feel more relaxed than in an airplane.

 

Pine trees. summer, heat, calmness, a great place to be, time to relax

 

Cedar. traditional archery, craftsmanship, warmth, easiness.