Airs, Waters, Places...Smells?

I think a lot about smell, as you might have guessed from my having written a magazine article about it for an offbeat quarterly. Today I find myself musing about odors, ritual, and sacred spaces.

It's no surprise that incense and its ilk are associated with religio-magical practices beyond written history. its ability to mark and recall deep memories is well-attested, and the entire practice of aromatherapy is based on its power to subtly alter moods at an almost pre-conscious level. Beyond sacred circles, geometrically-bewitching architecture, or striking acoustics, making a place sacred starts with making it smell different.

I realized this, as it happens, while waving a burning smudge of white sage around my campsite at dusk, muttering "repel ghosts," a meme-worm picked up from Basquiat via my art-friend Superchief Jeronimo. The phrase felt like the right thing to say at the time, but I had no intentions of a supernatural nature: I just wanted the damn mosquitoes to back off.

Once again, a published author (somehow).

The infamous Stasi smell-jars.

I'm very pleased to announce that I have a piece coming out in Volume III of THE STATE, due to be released on the 12th of December, 2012 at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kochi, India. Each issue has a different theme, and this issue is all about "the Social Olfactory;" 

My piece is called "Under the Iron Snout: A First Take on Olfactory Imperialism," and I promise it will include "Drug-sniffing dogs, fermented fish and mosquito repellent in Vietnam, the Stasi’s smell archives, People Sniffing, and strategies to survive smellveillance."

Investigate! Buy a copy! Tell your local artsy/intellectual/radical bookstore to start carrying THE STATE.