Noses know

I've spent the last hour or so feeling randomly nostalgic about a particular period of my life. Well, not nostalgic, exactly, since it's not a time I look at with fondness, but unexpectedly reminded of it.

I've just worked out why. Last time I had on the jumper I'm wearing, I must also have been wearing a particular perfume. The jumper smells faintly of it, and it's a perfume I used to wear a lot at the time I'm remembering.

I find smell an unexpectedly evocative sense, and am regularly yanked to a particular memory because of some scent drifting past. Sometimes I find it difficult to place why the smell and the memory go together.

I wonder whether it's possible to associate them deliberately, and then use a scent as a particular 'trigger' to retrieve a memory.

Me? Cheating in the exam? Oh no. I always carry 200 small vials around with me...

Man in Black

... brought to mind after noticing Johnny Cash on zotz's playlist from last night.

You can find the video of Cash's cover of NIN's Hurt here:

http://www.losthighwayrecords.com/johnnycash/video/440063339_02_100k.asx

(or here http://www.losthighwayrecords.com/johnnycash/video/440063339_02_250k.asx if you like your streaming video chunky).

The song itself is great, and I think the video's well worth a look too.