We’re Olfactory Failures,Naked Poison II (2002) and Other News
On the Shelf
Crepe de Chine perfume ad, 1937
- A woman has been sentenced to read Malcolm Gladwell.
- Speakers of English may be unusually ill-equipped to describe smells. Our language lacks, for instance, a word meaning “to have a bloody smell which attracts tigers.”
- At the intersection of art and commerce, poets sell potato chips. Poets sell iPads. Poets sell jeans and family vacations.
- “We will likely make great selfies—but not until we get rid of the stupid-sounding, juvenile, treacly name. It rankles and grates every time one reads, hears, or even thinks it. We can’t have a Rembrandt of selfies with a word like selfie.”
- Live like your forebears. Adhering to Ben Franklin’s rigorous schedule allowed this young man to “pick out a pretty fly outfit,” among other efficiencies.