NEW C-VILLE COVER STORY: Eau de Charlottesville

As an undergraduate, I was taught in a neuroscience class that the brain habituates within 30 seconds to new smells. That is, within 30 seconds, the smell largely goes unnoticed. This is useful—it keeps your nose sensing out new pleasures or dangers while ignoring those already known, whether fragrant or noisome. In this week’s cover story, Andrew Cedermark takes us on a smell tour of Charlottesville. He re-awakens our noses to the city, describing odors to which we have become so habituated that they no longer register, reminding us how integral they are to the fabric of the city. His tour is very personalized, and no doubt each of us reacts differently to the many smells he catalogues (I’m apparently the only one in the office with a soft spot for the smell of Subway bread). But it’s an invigorating reminder of all the surrounding beauty and decay we usually take for granted. Read the cover story here, and don’t forget to leave comments.