fall harvest

Kigali kindly provides some relief for my leaf-longing. 

Autumn offerings from talented Nosy Interviewees: 

Jesmyn Ward's memoir, Men We Reaped, is out now, and it's every bit as harrowing, gorgeous, and essential as early rave reviews have suggested. Here's a scent-related fragment from Jesmyn's essay honoring the memory of Trayvon Martin, as well as her brother, Joshua: 

"I don't know if I imagined it or not, but his dog seemed quieter, subdued after my brother died, as if he spent his days wondering where his owner, the tall boy with butter yellow skin who smelled like coconut oil and hay burned fragrant in the sunshine, went."

Frequent collaborators Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney have a new chapbook, The Kind of Beauty That Has Nowhere to Go, available now from Hyacinth Girl Press. Here's one line from a suite of five smart, lovely poems you can read at Nailed:  

Don’t start thinking about how smells smell to anyone else. You’ll only start freaking out about the limitations of knowledge.

Kate Lebo has a very exciting year in store (and, woah, a gorgeous new web site! Perhaps you can meet Kate on her tour in support of A Commonplace Book of Pie) and her poem, Rhubarb, the Green Age will appear in the fall issue of Gastronomica. The first two stanzas: 

          What puckered honey was potted last fall,
          its rootball a muddy peach, split dead 

          center and buried to kindle a pair 
          of pie plants. What bitterleaf 

My nosiness most certainly extends into (perhaps excessive) interest in the contents of people's handbags (and refrigerators and medicine cabinets), so I was delighted to get a peek into Katie Puckrik's purse, and read the accompanying interview, which includes this ringing & tingling endorsement of Safran Troublant (a favorite of my own main squeeze): 

I love turning people onto the off-beat seductive powers of Safran Troublant by L'Artisan Parfumeur. With its saffron, rose, vanilla and sandalwood, Disturbing Saffron is an unusual variation on a gourmand. And sexxxaaaayyyy....hoo boy. Put it this way: in ancient Rome, the expression 'sleeping on a bed of saffron' referred to a long hard night of making whoopee. 

Rebecca Hoogs and Maggie MK Hess have beautiful poems in the Fall 2013 issue of FIELD. What luck that you can read two of these poems online! But FIELD clearly has very good taste in poets, so you may also wish to order the issue. (You'll get a bonus poem by Rebecca!) The first two stanzas of Maggie MK's poem, "Role Play": 

Let's be lesser known suns.
You love me up close and I'll love you
from over here. We'll be ok if our legs 

are strong against the horse. Oh, quick,
quick, he's getting away. Let's rub
our noses until we smell of home.

Not available online, but so worth seeking out, are Britta Ameel's amazing poems in the September/October 2103 issue of The American Poetry Review. Here is the opening of "Self-Portrait with Planet and Hypothetical," one of my favorite poems by Britta (one of my favorite poems, full-stop): 

Yes, my body, my boss, my blood, yes,
my sucking heart. The world radiates
forth in its phosphorescent slump. 

Nosy friends and former interviewees, please let me know if you have something to add to this fall bounty! 

Nosy Interview: Saskia Wilson-Brown

Saskia in NGC 2170: Celestial Still Life, © Ignacio Diaz Bobillo

Saskia is the fearless founder of the awesomely innovative Institute for Art and Olfaction. If you're in the Los Angeles area, you should definitely check out their events and stop in for an open session. No matter where you are, I recommend nosing around (how could I resist?) the IAO website and liking their Facebook page (they post great links!), and not just because I'm proud to be have their support for my nosy research in Rwanda. You can find and follow Saskia (and the IAO) on Twitter, too. 

What do you smell like?  
Right now it's Sunday night, and I think I smell like a day well lived: Sun baked skin, myriad bits of displaced leaves and grass, steer manure (unfortunately hard to remove), a smidge of 'Jeux de Peau' by Serge Lutens, and, inevitably, coffee and cigarettes. Every perfume I buy has to compete with a base of cigarette smoke. It's a unique challenge, but I like to tell myself it makes my life a little more Brigitte Bardot. 

So let's just say I smell like Brigitte Bardot (minus the steer manure: I sincerely doubt she gardened).

What do you like to smell? 
Other than the obvious pleasant smells like flowers and frying onions and such, some smells I've always loved are: Los Angeles after it rains (steaming cement, basically: strangely earthy), sandalwood, grapefruits, tacos, an art studio (oil paints make me nostalgic), chlorine, an empty ski run in freezing weather (solitude!), cigarette smoke after an especially long meeting, jet fuel, the nape of my husband's neck... 

What I always enjoy spending nose-time on is an unfolding idea. I've never had a hyper-developed nose like so many folks who are into scent. For me it's been an extremely strange process of learning how to identify and put words onto what I'm smelling. But the concepts behind the scents are what really get me. When someone is using scent as an art medium, and can use elements in a symbolic way-- when a perfume becomes an illustration of a concept or a story. So I guess I love the smell of a good story.

like rocks long for rain

Is it possible I learned the word petrichor from Tumblr? I believe I can thank Tumblr for both leading me to believe the lovely word referred to the scent of any and all earth after rain, and for teaching me that it's, more specifically, the smell of rain on dry earth. Petrichor, according to Wikipedia, is "the scent of rain on dry earth, or the scent of dust after rain. The word is constructed from Greek, petros, meaning stone + ichor, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. It is defined as 'the distinctive scent which accompanies the first rain after a long warm dry spell.'" According to Scientific American, "Petrichor was first described in 1964 by mineralogists Isabel Joy Bear and R. G. Thomas...As they defined it, it occurs when airborne molecules from decomposing plant or animal matter become attached to mineral or clay surfaces. During a dry spell, these molecules chemically recombine with other elements on a rock's surface. Then when the rains came, the redolent combination of fatty acids, alcohols and hydrocarbons is released."

Our street corner (before the rains) in Kigali 

Petrichor is on my mind and in the air so much lately, here in Kigali. When we arrived it was so dry and dusty that the insides of my nostrils, when I tried to blow them clean at night, would be sometimes clogged with the same red dirt from the roads. Now the rainy season is beginning, and the wet fresh smell rising from all those stones and clay after rain is one of the very best things about being here. If you've gotten an e-mail from me lately, it's likely contained a lament about how much I'll miss fall, my favorite season, all those smoky, caramelly, woolly, crunchy-leaf smells. Petrichor may prove to be my consolation. Though it's not salty, it has the same calming effect as sea air I've smelled and loved in New England and the Pacific Northwest. Everything in the air here changes after these heavy rains--the light, the weight, the sounds. Things turn dark green and then golden and the smell is close to chlorinated, but with none of the burn. I will long for autumn as I’ve always known it, but feel lucky for the chance to fall in love with this new (to me) season’s smell also, all that wet clean rock, all that dark rushing road. 

twitter sniffer no. 4

Everybody wants to know just exactly how good Oprah smells. Can it be true that she doesn't wear scents?

"This is a thing you must know: I don't wear scents. I just bathe." --@Oprah just now why does everything on my body hurt am i exploding
— Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) August 16, 2013

not ready to take sides but planetariums smell a lot better than aquariums
— Mallory Ortberg (@mallelis) August 14, 2013

"I love the smell of Irish Spring soap....[but] I might as well just say it—you cannot use it on your vagina." http://t.co/zd9DMB82Oq
— Into The Gloss (@IntoTheGloss) August 12, 2013

"This body was fresh, only about two hours old, and it hadn’t started to smell yet." Patrolling the border in Arizona http://t.co/5WNoxB4rED
— Guernica Magazine (@GuernicaMag) August 8, 2013

@kittaveli @anamanaguchi @leiaj my brother and i literally dubbed our happiest moments to be 'as good as the smell of theme park water'
— ‡ Will Wiesenfeld ‡ (@BATHSmusic) August 8, 2013

I smell like someone who should be in better shape.
— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) August 8, 2013

Best subway eavesdropping: 2 guys who work in upper management for the Yankees trying to solve the very real issue of away game bus smell.
— Rachel Syme (@rachsyme) August 2, 2013

I can smell fall in the air. Time to take out my tartan tams and tap some tinctured talc into them.
— Paula Pell (@perlapell) August 16, 2013

I'm going to miss that fall-in-the-air smell so much this year!

sun's up smells

Rwanda is making an early bird of me.

Mwaramutse neza from Kigali! The best things I've smelled here so far (besides my beloved tree tomato) include: herbs from the garden in our yard (basil, lemon dill, and cilantro), still-steaming rosemary rolls and sweet carrot bread made by my bread-baking marvel of a housemate, and the dirt roads after it rained. Here are some smells I've enjoyed reading about:

• Aaron Paul on his Breaking Bad co-star, Bryan Cranston's, smell: "To be honest, he smells like a freshly bathed unicorn on a summer day in Barcelona." 
• My friend Stephanie Santana's excellent close reading of We Need New Names: 

  NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel We Need New Names ends its first and last chapters with the same sensory detail: the alternately ‘dizzying’ and ‘delicious’ smell of Lobels bread. It is a smell that wafts through otherwise macabre scenes. In the first, a woman hangs dead in a tree and the smell is only imagined, as Darling (our narrator) and her young friends anticipate with delirious joy the bread they will buy by selling the dead woman’s shoes. In the last, it is a real, overwhelmingly delicious smell that accompanies the death of something that the children were looking for and wanted desperately to find. In the simple smell of fresh-baked bread we find joy, hope, death, desire.  

• I've been meaning to write something about the farts and hearts of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, but Willa Paskin said it all on Slate: 
  

  Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, TLC’s divisive reality hit about the antics of an energetic, self-identified redneck family, begins its second season on Wednesday night. To celebrate the show’s return, TLC has wedged scratch-and-sniff cards into issues of People and Us Weekly, and will prompt viewers to use them during the show’s premiere, possibly scratching to sniff bad breath, fish, rotten milk, a baby diaper, a fart, or maybe something more pleasantly aromatic—cheese puffs? The scratch-and-sniff is a goof that sounds about as enjoyable as eating the snot-flavored jelly beans from Harry Potter, but it effectively establishes just how the producers want us to feel about 7-year-old Honey Boo Boo and her family: that they are totally fun and totally gross. I’m with them on the former, but it’s the producers who are gross. 

•  Charles Baxter, on his writing routine, in the Daily Beast: 

  I work during the morning. I pace; I stare out the window. I sit with my head in my hands. If I can feel myself breaking out into a sweat, particularly from my underarms, and if I give off a noticeable body odor that even I can smell, I know the writing is going well.

nosy in (& about) rwanda

Kigali as seen from St. Paul's

Nosy friends! Two weeks from now, I'll be back in Rwanda. I'm headed there for ten months this time, and I imagine my already erratic schedule for posting Nosy Interviews will grow even more so. But I'm eager to gather new Nosy Interviews while in Rwanda, and excited to say I'll be collaborating with the way-cool Institute for Art and Olfaction to showcase the responses I collect in a meaningful way. 

So much fun, fragrant, & innovative work is happening at The Institute for Art and Olfaction.

My fondest smell memories of my last visit to Rwanda include the smoky green tomato leaf scent I wrote about here; the damp, resinous air on our hike to see the mountain gorillas, who were feasting on huge strips of eucalyptus tree bark; and the steaming veggie roundels served at Zaaffran. My least favorite smell memory is of the intense automobile exhaust in Kigali. Another strong smell memory that defies such categorization is that of the bodies preserved in lime at the Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre. That is a smell I will never forget, but should I mention it? Is it wrong to describe what it was like to stand in those rooms, windows wide open to the hills surrounding us, a song carried in on the slow breeze from the church on a neighboring mountain? What can I say? For the same reason it feels wrong to post a photograph, devoid of context, it feels wrong to say this one thing, what the rooms smelled like, and nothing else.

On our way to Volcanoes National Park to see the mountain gorillas

But it feels wrong to leave it out, too, to write only about how much I loved the tree tomatoes, how even the gorilla's shit smelled pretty good (all that eucalyptus) and not say also that there was a smell in those terrible rooms, and I stood there inhaling it, trying not to think about what it meant. It feels somehow depraved to speak of certain things in smell terms, but I don't think that's because it's disrespectful. Maybe a smell detail gives too much life to the things we wish to distance ourselves from: wounds, rot, death. 

Here's a Kinyarwanda (the language of Rwanda) word I learned (from my anthropologist husband, whose PhD fieldwork is driving our trip) today: 

guhumura: to smell good, to stay calm, to be consoled or comforted, to not be afraid

If a word can be a talisman for travel, for this project, I can't think of a better one. I hope to smell good, to smell deeply and well (even when my nose resists). I hope to stay calm in the face of challenges that arise from living outside of my comfort zone, like when I inevitably and inadvertently look/act a fool in my attempts to connect, and to not let fear--of seeming foolish, of being sad or uncomfortable, of threats real or imagined--keep me from staying open, asking questions, and sharing what I can with the people I meet, and with you. 

nosy recommends: natural deodorants (revisited)

I've previously expressed my devotion to the great-smelling, natural deodorant powerhouse Soapwalla. But after a while, it began to irritate my skin. What's a girl living in mega-muggy weather who prefers all-natural deodorant to do? Stay inside, stink, or rely on a few other favorites:

E Plus High C Roll-On Deodorant, Aubrey Organics
This deodorant caught my eye as it had the "Customer Favorite" designation at Cambridge Naturals, a local store that attracts its fair share of natural deodorant seekers. I like the smell so much that I will defend the hyperbolic language on the packaging: "Like the musical notes in a fine symphony, the herbal essential oils and natural vitamins harmonize in Aubrey's E Plus High C Roll-On." It is a harmonious smell! Whenever I catch a whiff of it, I find myself wondering what smells so good, as the fragrance remains slightly unfamiliar and changeable to me, even after near daily use for the last two months. It smells a little bit like an Aveda salon, mixed with the freshest section of the natural foods/crystal store, with floral and citrus notes that tread very lightly, and smell as cool as the roller ball feels.

The Healthy Deodorant, Lavanila 
This was my favorite deodorant before discovering Soapwalla, and it's back near the top of the heap these days. Both the Pure Vanilla and the Vanilla Coconut (my preferred flavors) have this minty, paste-like note that I find so satisfying. The worst thing about this deodorant is its product to packaging ratio feels like its 40:1, and a bunch goes to waste because of the poor design--extra-irritating when you are paying $14 for a stick of the stuff.

Deodorant Fresh, Dr. Hauschka
If you thought paying $14 for a stick of deodorant was nuts, steer clear of Dr. Hauschka's Deodorant Fresh Roll-On, which sometimes runs double that (though I've found it for $20). My friend Jenny was teasing me recently about my $40 deodorant habit, and in defending myself against what seemed like an absurd accusation, I failed to realize how close to the bone she was cutting! Looking at this lineup, it would appear my pits are prized skin real-estate. Dr. Hauschka's Fresh Deodorant, in its heavy, frosted glass bottle, does have a luxurious feel to match its price, and it smells very good and blue-green, with a faintly woody barber shop vibe that I think will be especially appreciated by those taking tentative first steps into the land of natural deodorants.

Weleda Citrus Deodorant 
I find this spray deodorant intermittently effective, and sometimes a bit too bracing (it's like Listerine for the armpits). Perhaps the key to success with natural deodorants is to keep switching them up. Even though it seems I've had my bottle of this forever, I like having it in the mix. I was disappointed, though, to dislike the rose in this deodorant line, especially since most of Weleda's rose body products are so pleasing to my nose.

If you have other natural deodorant favorites, I am clearly all ears and eager armpits. Tell me about them!

Nosy Interview: Marc Mazique

Marc in the Porpoise Galaxy from Hubble, © NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team

Marc and I were in a writing group together, in Seattle, along with Elizabeth, Cienna, and Steven. We met mainly at the Stumbling Monk, which I recall smelling of cement and wood and beer-wet napkin. I loved that place! You can help Marc's rad & radical musical group, Movitas Marching Band, make it to BAM! (Bands Agitate and Mobilize!) by donating here. 

What do you smell like? 
I smell like peanut sauce mixed with old books with yellowed pages.  

What do you like to smell?  
I like to smell peanut sauce mixed with old or new books, along with lavender. 

summertime pleasures

Smelling peonies at any opportunity is also recommended.

Nosy Interviewees are an inspiringly productive bunch! If you liked their interviews, here are some new ways you can enjoy their work: 

• Rebecca Hoogs's first full-length book of poems, Self-Storage, was published in April! 
• The paperback of Natalie Bakopoulos's novel, The Green Shore, comes out today! 
• Wilson Diehl's essay, "Yes, I Really Am Bisexual. Deal With It.",  appeared in the New York Times!
• Julie Klausner's new YA novel, Art Girls Are Easy, is out now! 
• The paperback of Alyssa Harad's memoir, Coming to My Senses, will be published one week from today! 
• Kate Lebo released a new zine, The Pie Lady's Manifesto, and it's available here!
• Emily Gould was a recent guest on Other People with Brad Listi. Listen!

Wow! So much summertime entertainment for your nosy brains. Congratulations and a (virtual) bouquet as enormous as the one pictured above (scenting up my parents' whole house last week) to each of you listed here. If you're a Nosy Interviewee with some good news, let me know!