commentation, olfaction and art

Yeah! Hooray! It’s working! I have comments! Thank you my darling commenters.
I love good conversation. There’s nothing like it.

In response to Kristin, the jasmine is already out. Do you remember the path leading from the Shrine of the Bab toward Hazionut, which is lined in jasmine? Well just at the entrance of that path there is a bush that is heavy with clusters of jasmine. This morning after dawn prayers I stuck my nose into the bush and took a deep breath on your behalf. Then I remembered that I don’t actually like jasmine, at least not at such close quarters. I find it overwhelming. My preference is for orangeblossom, roses and lavender. Funny.

The Exerimentarium in Copenhagen had an exhibition on smells, and there I found out that some people are genetically unable to smell musk, and determined that I am one of them. I wonder how many other smells that applies to. It happens often that someone in a group smells something that the others don’t smell. Do we all walk around in parallel olfactory worlds?

In (partial) response to Anna, I think that within a framework of values it is possible to distinguish between good and bad art. Or at least to say that art differs in the extent to which it is aligned with those values. Of course this is a very subtle thing, because the messages in art can be so layered. [I hated “Breaking the Waves” but when I discussed it later with friends, I could see the biblical allusions in it, as reversed and disturbing, and in my opinion ineffective, as they were. But some of my friends were quite touched by them.] Aside from the messages there is also the aesthetic side to art, but even then I think ideas about beauty, sincerity, elegance, or whatever else might themselves be part of a set of values.

Maybe the idea that we can’t have good or bad art is really a reflection of the fact that all the artist and audiences in the world don’t have a single, clear, shared set of values.