The Sights and Smells of Home
by ted2112 HSM team writer
“I wanted to capture the, the sights, the sounds, the smells, of a hard-working rock band on the road. And I got that. But I got more, a lot more. But hey, enough of my yakkin’. Whaddaya say, let’s boogie!”
— Marty DiBergi, “Spinal Tap”
In my line of work, I travel a lot. I have been lucky enough to see most of the country. Not just the big places, but those little, out-of-the-way places as well. I have always been amazed at the uniqueness each of these places has to offer, so for me, Home is right up my alley. I’m a bit of a rambler, and in Home you can explore to your heart’s content. Every month there is more to discover, and if a place starts getting too familiar, you can simply go to a new and unexplored place to tickle all your senses.
Well, almost all of your senses. A few are missing. We can’t smell in Home. Maybe they left it out because of the lack of bathing and laundry options. You can’t count on every avatar to use deodorant.
All kidding aside, Home is a place that excels in the visual and auditory departments. Each new space, both public and private, is getting better and better at creating a realistic environment for us through those two senses. But frankly, there is almost nothing they can do about that other major sensory organ — the nose.
Back in the 50’s and 60’s, the motion picture industry fooled around with the idea making a few movies with Aroma-Rama and Smell-O-Vision. But these were just cheap gimmicks that were more about sales than really trying to tie in all your senses. The only real survivors of that failed experiment are scratch and sniff stickers and some theme park rides — multi-sensory rides that use 3-D technology, and then add scent in spray form to heighten the experience. As for the stickers, well, they’re just stickers that kind of smell. And as fun as these things are, they’re not really all that accurate a representation of real-world odors.
Certain places, to me, just have a certain smell. For example, Hawaii smells like flowers, sun tan lotion, mud and diesel fuel. New Orleans smells like fried food, beer and mold. Boston’s Fenway Park has an amazingly distinct smell of hot dogs, fresh-cut grass and salty air.
So let’s imagine we had the technology to transmit odors through the Internet, and pump them out through your TV. What would be the smells of Home?
I like to imagine that the scent of the Sportswalk would be a mix of Fenway Park and New Orleans: salty air, with fried food and beer mixing it up with mold and cut grass. I bet the Mall smells like perfume and those cleaning products they use to make mall floors so shiny, with the faintest hint of restroom disinfectant. Even though it hasn’t been installed, I can smell the all-you-can-eat buffet in the Casino already. You sit among the faint sound of distant slot machines, surrounded by the heady atmosphere of roast beef and steam-table fried chicken, mixed with bitter half-burned coffee and the bland chemical sweetness of sugar-free pie — so tasty! And how about the Tropical Escape personal space? Sea and flowers, yes. But does sunshine have a smell? Why stop there? Does happiness have a smell? How about excitement?
Just imagine the possibilities, if that missing element could be added to our sensory smorgasbord in Home. Well, not all the scents would be delightful. I bet the Dead Quarters smell pretty awful. And don’t even get me started on the spaces that existed before indoor plumbing, like Great Edo of Nippon. The new Home-Grown Labs arena would be locker-room sweaty. But whether the smells are good or bad, it would be a really amazing thing to have in Home.
Smells Like Sea Water and Oranges
Does your mind recreate a smell? I’m sure it does. I know a housing development in Florida that smells like very pungent salt water and oranges. It’s right next to a port that exports millions of Florida oranges to the world, and every day there are endless crates of oranges waiting to be loaded onto waiting ships. The Harbour Studio has always reminded me of this development, so to me salt water and oranges is what the Harbour Studio smells like.
Another example is the Midway. For me, it has the smell of carny food mixed with grease and hay and wrapped in a summer night — kind of like my local county fair. I feel these smells must live somewhere in my brain, and get recalled in Home when I see something similar. How about you? Do you bring in your own personal smell bias into Home? What does your Home smell like, and is it something you even notice?
Realistically, I don’t think smell will ever be an option for electronic media. Can you imagine a smell controller in the menu of your TV set, right next to color and brightness? Or hit Start in your favorite video game to invert you X and Y axis and Smell saturation level? You would refill the scent cartridges when they got empty, like the little bottles in color ink-jet printers. You wouldn’t want to run out of tobacco smoke scent in the middle of a Humphrey Bogart movie! But maybe it’s good this is an impractical fantasy, because who would want to sit through a diaper or Lysol commercial if we could smell it?
So I think it’s up to you and me to bring the scents of Home alive for ourselves, in the privacy of our own minds. Whatever your imagined smells may be, I hope they are good ones. But hey, enough of my yakkin’. Whaddaya say, Smell ya later, let’s boogie!
December 2nd, 2012 by ted2112 | 4 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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Fun read Ted! The rain forest in Hawaii smells like earth, rain and flowers. I think that if Home smelled it would certainly have a wide variety of scents in it.
Our sense of smell is primarily an primeval one, that we largely take for granted now -- if at all. I dare say most of the smells we smell now are subconscious. But it’s an interesting idea to try to incorporate it into the games industry. Saying that, games like the AC series probably benifits a LOT from not having this extra option. I mean, Jerusalem during the crusades? Or worse, Acre right after its sacking -- no thanks, I’d rather not smell that. Heh, infact NONE of the AC games would do well with smells -- Venice during the Renaissance? Rome’s Viaducts and streets? And I’m willing to be the entirety of Constantinople just reeks LOL!
But Home is a bit different, I’d probably avoid places like Edo, Resistance Cafe or even my EU “crack den” -- watch out for the horse poo!!! But I’d end up attracted to places like S2 Racer, Motorstorm and the WipEout spaces for that heady sublime intoxication of motor oil and fuel heh.
Nice read Ted, got me thinkin’.
Scents are definitely powerful memory-simulators. This time of year, the ubiquitous smell of Christmas trees always sends me on a whirlwind memory riff. And thinking about Christmas brings back the sensory memory of the Christmas tree smell.
Now I’ll have to start thinking about what all my favorite Home spaces smell like. Great article, Ted, and very thought-provoking.
Great article! Now next time I go on Home, I am going to try to get a feel for what I smell!
I agree with you about the Midway smelling like carny food, but I also think Pier Park would smell the same way. I also agree about Tropical Escape smelling flowery! I was thinking the Dream Yacht would smell like fuel (from the boat), salty sea air with a hint of fish. The Bowling Alley would smell like well….a bowling Alley! Also outside of the Hollywood Hills home may smell like chlorine from the pool!!
I think smells take you back to a place. I am a huge Disney World fan and sometimes when I am out I say, “I smell Disney”. They have a bunch of 3D films that use smell and I love when that happens.
So, next time I am on Home, I will take time to smell the roses!!! Looking forward to figuring out what I would think each place would smell like!