Comments on: OLD SPICE: who would have guessed?

By: Jed

Jed — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:45:36 +0000

Thanks, Marcella, for your comment. Being on top of that mountain right now might temper the 99 degree temps we experienced all day while driving to Roanoke, VA. Bring on the Chapstick!

By: Marcella Chamorro

Marcella Chamorro — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:08:24 +0000

This is a great point. It’s happened to me with recalling the scent of ChapStick while skiing with my family twenty years ago. There’s a particular color ChapStick that never ceases to bring me directly back to that family vacation, that feeling of being so cold at the top of the mountain, etc. You make a great point in that harnessing these senses, these memories, etc can fuel writing in a way much more powerful than by using just our minds or other conventional idea-means.

By: Jed

Jed — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:11:06 +0000

Thanks for all your comments. Glad this post was helpful.

There is also a negative scent: White Shoulders for women. It sickens me. I once knew a woman who wore it to cover her smell of alcohol. I could tell when she entered the building without ever leaving my office. I passed a woman the other day who was wearing it, and I could feel the perspiration break out on my forehead.

By: Tweets that mention OLD SPICE: who would have guessed? — Jedword -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention OLD SPICE: who would have guessed? — Jedword -- Topsy.com — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:27:18 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Julie Roads , Paige Worthy and Jan Richards, Mark Sherrick. Mark Sherrick said: RT @writingroads Great read about writing from the senses, from a non-twitter writing friend. http://ow.ly/2eKPd [...]

By: Judy Seymour

Judy Seymour — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:56:21 +0000

I always think of my dad when I see Old Spice……now I realize I need to also
“take a whiff” and allow myself to really go back over 50 years!

By: odondon

odondon — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:17:02 +0000

My father, too, used Old Spice, and your post brought back fond memories of times long thought gone forever.
Though I myself don’t use it, it is a key opening those chambers of memory often buried with years of guilt, years of rejecting, years of failing to come to terms with what might have been, what should have been, and the regret that goes hand in hand with having not done something.
For my tastes, the sense of smell is the one that triggers off memories most powerfully – the memory of my granny making bread, baking apple tarts, with exactly five cloves each – God as if it was yesterday, but instead it’s forty years ago.

And there was a perfume for girls, a heavy, musky, almost overwhelming perfume, whose name I’ve never known, but a scent I’d recognize blindly anywhere and any time, since a boyhood dreamgirl used it, and I was madly in love. If I close my eyes it’s as if we were sitting together on the park bench in the evening, whispering sweet nothings, as the cliché goes, all lovey-dovey.

Thanks for reminding me, and hopefully others, that we have a range of tools available both as humans and as writers, not that these are always mutually exclusive, of course, that can transport us any where we like in our own lives.

By: betty

betty — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:00:16 +0000

I really enjoyed these thoughts … and the noticeable (aromatic!) freedom that came with them. I, too, have heard Koestenbaum speak. He has a way of helping one to “unlock” one’s own conventions and to “re-approach” with fresh angles. He’s, in a word, ENERGIZING (to me, anyway). And the notion of Old Spice coming back to you in all these ways just as it seems to be making a comeback in today’s world — like some sort of sensual bridge from past to present — is TRULY RICH!!

By: Julie Roads

Julie Roads — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:29:33 +0000

I’d say you’re well on your way (not ‘there’ yet because this is a process and what would be the fun in having already reached your destination?). When I read your posts, I experience the ‘mind’ as the sixth sense—as you make me ‘think’ in a way that has a great amount of view, texture, sound, taste…and of course, scent.

And, my dad used to wear Old Spice, too…back when I was little. Since then, he’s become a connoisseur and has about 20 fancy and delicious bottles on his bureau…but I’ve always remembered and cherished that original and super-manly scent.