Scent in a New York Minute

One of my favorite things about New York City is the smell. I can go through a lifetime of scents in a 60-second span of sidewalk. I have a sensitive emotional olfactory trigger and I highly believe in the power of pheremones. New York City is constantly secreting intoxicating pheremones from glands of steel and cement and culture. It's all of these things separately and at the same time: gasoline, three day old trash bags, cinnamon, grilled chicken, perfume that makes you want to melt, new shoes, hairspray, urine, wet dogs, old books, mopped floors that never dry, rubber, fish heads, musk, more musk, pastries, cigars, and lights.

You know, like the way a lightbulb smells if it heats up a bit of dust that has gathered on the surface . . .