Rain smells

[vaneramos]

Eramosa River Park after the rain





Joe-Pye weed


When the rain started yesterday, I went downstairs and opened the door. Drops hit like bullets. Traffic was stopped in the street. A young man in a black sports car had the window rolled down. At first I caught the citrus fragrance of late linden flowers. It was soon overwhelmed by the smell of wet pavement, reminiscent of basement crawlspaces with secret boxes.

It poured until evening. Then I strolled to the swollen Eramosa River. Moisture had aroused a complex of overblown summer smells. Resinous essence of wet maples filled the woods. In the park it mingled with the hay-like scent of scorched grass and something earthy. I scraped the bicycle path and sniffed gray clay, detecting nothing.

But from mouldering leaves under silver maples I dug up the sexiest smell of all—thick, rank and dark enough to hide in.

On Kingsmill Avenue an elusive floral sweetness halted my footsteps, but I couldn't spot the source. An ash tree stood overhead. I plucked and crumpled a leaf, but the smell was insipid compared to maples. Scratching the lichenous bark and sniffing my fingers produced a mushroom-like whiff.

How do black squirrels chasing around a tree smell to one another?





Waterspout 3


My scanner doesn't see greens properly. Or is it my monitor? Pushing toward yellow-green improves the colour reproduction somewhat, but the blue-greens still look blue. How does it look to you? And how can you possibly tell me? I'm not happy.

No, I'm very happy. Methinks these waterspouts are a fine, fun summer obsession. Water, fluid, plasma, magma, pulsing, erupting....

Water.

These addenda are brought to you courtesy of Smirnoff Watermelon Twist and cranberry juice.

My phone doesn't work either. But never mind about that.

xoxo,
Van

Comments

[wonderboynj.livejournal.com]

Rain smells, but not as good as you do I bet :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Depends on whether I ate garlic with dinner. You'll just have to see for yourself.

[wonderboynj.livejournal.com]

Well, now we may just have to fly you to NYC so I can sniff :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you're enjoying NYC quite a bit!

I would love to visit, but I don't think it will be within my budget for a while, especially after the trip with my kids this summer. I already opted out of going to Carnegie Hall with the chorus in February. It's still one of many places I would like to visit when the opportunity arises.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

I think the pics look just fine as far as I can tell.

What shades of blue/green are you using? Curious as your new waterspout3 prisma color looks wonderful and if you used a blue/green pencil, it looks blue to me. But I have a 1 year old LCD monitor and am using my old graphics card I bought in 2001 to bypass the original onboard video on the motherboard.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

For the large blue section in the bottom righthand corner I used "Peacock Blue", which has a sea-green cast to it, but it doesn't look at all greenish in the scan, at least on my monitor. I used a pale aqua band higher up the right side and to shade the lefthand eye of the waterspout; it also looks slightly greener in the original.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I actually like the smell of wet pavement. As mentioned here, it reminds me of basements, specifically the one in the house where I grew up; the water table was high, so we could only have a crawlspace, not a proper basement. Interesting things were stored there.

But bad smells are more prevalent in Toronto than here in Guelph. As a visitor I'm often struck by the faint but omnipresent background smell of sewage. Unfortunately stale urine and other unpleasant smells associated with street people are also widespread.

[painterwoman.livejournal.com]

Thanks for putting Will Brady as a "tributary"... I haven't checked out his space in a long time... We share similar morose thoughts around Christmas. I never thought how a squirrel would smell rain. It is raining here, thankfully... in the middle of HOT HOT HOT DRY Plano, Texas.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Wow, I have never stumbled across anyone else who followed Will Brady's writing before. I've corresponded with him for at least five years. Thanks for dropping by and commenting.

In case it wasn't rhetorical....

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

I'll attempt it. On both the LCD screen of my laptop and the LCD Monitor, from the pink curl on the left I see:
concrete grey
true blue
off-white
sage green
cornflower blue
pylon orange
medium navy (split)
hot pink (with lemon yellow shapes)
pecan brown
flamingo pink
walnut brown
steel grey
dull magenta
Bank of Montreal blue
pylon orange
powder blue
wedgewood blue
"natural blush" (the Laurentian colour)
light turquoise
lavender
slate blue

Re: In case it wasn't rhetorical....

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The colour I was most concerned about was "Bank of Montreal blue". That's exactly how it looks on my monitor, too. The original colour is Peacock Blue, which has a sea-green cast to it. The turquoise should be slighly greener, too. The colour is Deco Aqua. The other odd one is "powder blue"; It's actually Celadon Green, a greyish green. In the original scan it looked too blue, but after an adjustment in Photoshop it looks pretty close to the original on my monitor.

Most of your descriptions are astoundingly precise, but a couple are strangely off. The ones you described as "pylon orange" and "hot pink" are shades of red, but optical interaction with the complimentary blue probably makes them appear oranger than they are. The stripes you described as "lemon yellow" are actually bright green! I wonder whether my pushing the palette towards yellow-green had some delerious effects on these colours.

Thanks for your help. I really didn't expect anyone to describe the colours so precisely.

Re: In case it wasn't rhetorical....

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your help. I really didn't expect anyone to describe the colours so precisely.

No one ever expects the Pigment Exposition!

The ones you described as "pylon orange" and "hot pink" are shades of red, but optical interaction with the complimentary blue probably makes them appear oranger than they are.

I tried isolating them with white and black cardstock. They still seem to orange and pink, although the hot pink gets closer to cerise.

My gay gene set includes colour matching and colour names.

[thewindrose.livejournal.com]

I am glad you labeled the photo of the Joe Pye weed. I've got some growing on the bank of the lake at the cottage and I thought that was what it was - but it was nice to have confirmation.

I thought of you this weekend because Michael and I were sitting out in lawnchairs, enjoying a nice beer and listening to the birds. There are more birds at this cottage than anywhere I have ever seen. I was wishing you were there to have a beer with us and teach me how to tell which bird call was which.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

That sounds absolutely heavenly. I'm looking forward to five days at the cottage with the girls next week.