The apostle Plato / not quite synesthesia

[garran]

Seen, unexpectedly, on one of those mutable church signs:

THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING.
--SOCRATES

...which made me think that a church revering Socrates would be pretty interesting. There's certainly enough scripture.

Does anyone else, on having brought to mind the particular scent of some absent and lovely person, ever find that their natural next impulse is to want to call up that smell in their mp3 program?

Comments

[garran.livejournal.com]

It feels like progress!

I agree with Rachel; more generally, it's much harder for us to have nuanced control over smell, or to record and reproduce it with any precision. Probably also in part that humans seem instinctually driven to communicate visually and audibly, but don't really have any natural capacity to communicate with smell.

Also, if you're trying out music and come up with a really discordant sound, it's a lot easier to take with equanimity its effect on the atmosphere - not to mention to stop it - than if your perfume goes bad. So it seems like experimentation is kind of discouraged.


-Andy H.

[meta4mix.livejournal.com]

Have you folks ever seen the movie "Harold & Maude"? ^____^;

Depending on a person's diet and physiology, there exists the potential for almost constant experimentation with discordant smells. Though the dog usually hogs all the credit.

Also, there exists Perfumery.