GQ Calls L.A. Smelliest Place on Earth

Photo of a jasmine flower by snopek via Flickr

No doubt you woke up this morning, threw open your front door to inhale the scent of jasmine, like in a Joan Didion essay, then closed the doors and reached for your bottle of whiskey, the fumes going straight up your nose like they once did to Charles Bukowski.

According to GQ, it's these types of scents that make Los Angeles the smelliest -- not the stinkiest, but the smelliest -- city in the world. And it's these romanticized literary notions of L.A. that inspire our dubious distinction. Writer Chandler Burr opines:

L.A. is one of the most bizarre places on Earth, and it has an equally singular smell. The clear, alluring track of its scent is arresting. There's the ocean breeze from Santa Monica that can travel as far East as Silver Lake; a dry desert air that comes West over Downtown and South Central; the astringent balm of eucalyptus, pine, honeysuckle, and jasmine from the hills; and car exhaust from catalytic converters, which is, in its strange industrial way, beautiful. It's like the jolt of a drug: shifting, comforting, cool like a blanket. The lonely smell of the marine layer burns off and you get this flashy perfume of hot asphalt, engines, and sun block that you can find nowhere but in L.A.

Are we one of the most bizarre places on earth, or does something about the juxtaposition of the city that's home to both the Oscars and Skid Row just make writers want to wax poetic? That's a question for the ages. In the meantime, why don't you get out there and stick your face right under your tailpipe, knowing that you are inhaling the most intoxicating fumes on the planet.

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By Jessica Pauline Ogilvie in News on February 2, 2012 10:00 AM 0 Comments

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Chandler Burr

I'm Chandler Burr, GQ's scent writer (I wrote the piece about the smells of cities), and I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't get the nuances that Penelope, rjhemes, and J did. I forgot sage, I forgot pine (which is just ridiculous; there are great pine scents in L.A.), and most of all I didn't put the pedal down on the orange blossom and jasmine. Codexborgia, your olfactory experience of driving in L.A. is exactly what makes me, and has always made me, completely obsessed with Los Angeles. Mesmerized, skipped-heart beat obsessed. I usually stay with my friend Steve on Laurel Ave when I'm there, and I went out one morning to get the car (the *car, OK? super-exotic for me; I live in NY and I never touch automobiles except in L.A....), and climbing a No Parking pole was an exquisite, delicate green vine of scented blooming jasmine, still wet with dew. L.A. Talk about a magic kingdom.

Jessica Pauline Ogilvie

Hi Chandler, thanks for your response! As you can see, many of us Angelenos have powerful scent associations with our fair city as well. Glad you put it on the "smelly" radar.

Guest

Starting out life in a canyon in Malibu, it was the smell of sycamore trees. In Santa Monica it was mint, oleander, oranges and the ominous night-blooming jasmine. And there was the musician boyfriend in his beautiful, decaying Hollywood apartment, early March, just one March, and the vines of the day-blooming jasmine wound around the chain- link fence of the parking lot, thick and dense, and the scent rippled up like a mirage, making me thirsty for more. I buy a new vine every year to replace the one that dies in the winter freeze because I never want to forget how it felt to be young, free and drunk on jasmine.

PenelopeS

Starting out life in a canyon in Malibu, it was the smell of sycamore trees. In Santa Monica it was mint, oleander, oranges and the ominous night-blooming jasmine. And there was the musician boyfriend in his beautiful, decaying Hollywood apartment, early March, just one March, and the vines of the day-blooming jasmine wound around the chain- link fence of the parking lot, thick and dense, and the scent rippled up like a mirage, making me thirsty for more. I buy a new vine every year to replace the one that dies in the winter freeze, because I never want to forget how it felt to be young, free and drunk on jasmine.

J

....or the smell of pine trees in Brentwood, mixed with that intoxicating burning wood aroma, mixed with the gentle breeze of the ocean. Heavenly.

rjhemedes

I would add in the native sage brush from the hills. When you are walking or hiking near or at the hills like Griffith Park, if the breeze goes the right way, you can smell the sweet scent of sage permeate the air - especially the day after it rains.

codexborgia

Case in point, last night I met a friend for dinner in Silverlake, the smells of Eucalyptus, car exhaust and ocean breeze were in the air, drove back home to the Valley at 10pm and somewhere about the 134/170 interchange I was smacked by the distinct smell of night blooming jasmine with an ozone like quality of the the dry desert like Santa Ana winds...MAGIC!

PicoPhreako69

Yes, yes, and ohHELLyes.

I'm so old I can remember when in the early summer and early fall, when there was a lot more "open" (read: not-yet-built-over-by-houses-and-condos-and-apartments-and-strip-malls) land covered by orange groves, you would smell nothing but orange blossoms in the evening.

Talk about intoxicating---!!!

Ezra Horne

I wish I could have smelled it then.

E.

that could have went horribly awry, but it did not suck as much as anticipated. good job, writer at GQ.

also; "...knowing that you are inhaling the most intoxicating fumes on the planet."i lol'ed.