Smell & Tell | Inside the Writer's Study (A Mystery in Seven Scents)

Une collaboration visuelle avec l'intelligence artificielle qui n'a donné lieu à aucune « hallucination » grâce à Nano Banana ; un phénomène pour le moins rare. Cela n'aurait pas été possible sans les principes mathématiques du cubisme et écouter la musique d'Angine de Poitrine tout en donnant des consignes à l'IA (vivement recommandé). Et voilà! Apologies if I butchered the French language; I'm a non-French Michelle.

EVENT

What: Smell & Tell | Inside the Writer's Study

Where: Ann Arbor District Library (D/T Branch, 4th Floor)

Evening: Tuesday, September 8th, 6:00 PM-7:30 PM  

Daytime*: Wednesday, September 9th, 1:30 PM-3:00 PM                                  

A study door in the museum is left ajar. Curiosity gets the best of you, and you decide to enter the room. The first thing you notice is a cloisonné box sitting on top of a meticulously organized desk. The room is immaculate. Everything is in its place except for the box. There's something different about it. 

You lift the lid and discover seven glass vials. The wood-lined box smells familiar, but you can't quite place the smell. The atmosphere in the room speaks to your senses as you consider whether to open the vials and smell them. After all, you weren't exactly invited. 

It's then that you notice a small note card beneath the vials that reads, "Each of the seven vials contains a specific memory from this room. Take good care of them and allow them to breathe once in a while. When you're done smelling them you'll understand why." 

With an invitation like that, how could anyone refuse? Especially you, dear reader. Step into a writer’s study for an evening of olfactory intrigue as we evaluate the essence inside each of the seven vials on fragrance blotters and solve a mystery. 

The Smell and Tell series of art+science programming is led by Michelle Krell Kydd, a trained nose in flavors and fragrance who shares her passion for gastronomy, sensory evaluation, and the perfume arts in Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling.

Notes & Curiosities: 

Daytime Smell & Tell events at the Ann Arbor District Library are new in 2026. The addition was sparked by growing interest in Smell & Tell programming across ages and life stages in the Ann Arbor community. Smell & Tell debuted at the library in June 2012. It's been many trips around the sun since then.

Smell & Tell: The Smell of Mummies

The Smell of Mummies takes place at the Ann Arbor District Library
on Thursday, November 14, 2019, from 6:30-8:45PM. 

Several ingredients used in the ancient Egyptian ritual of mummification can also be found in today's luxury perfumes. Sound gruesome? Take heart. This isn’t fodder for conspiracy theories, but it’s definitely inspiration for the inevitable question. If aromatic materials used in perfumery were also used to send mummies into the afterlife what on earth do mummies smell like?

Are you imagining the smells of a dead body in the process of mummification when considering this question? Stop those thoughts immediately and put on your Sherlock Holmes hat! We’re in it for the science at Smell & Tell so Michelle Krell Kydd went to the Kelsey Museum of Archeology at the University of Michigan to smell mummies. Sounds strange, alluring and slightly macabre, but when the “Nose of Ann Arbor” needs answers she literally sniffs them out.

Kydd took her fearless nose to the basement of the Kelsey Museum and was escorted to a temperature-controlled room where she encountered a mummified a falcon, a mummified dog (that was really a fake mummy made from jumbled children’s bones), and a human mummy. At the end of her quest she was overheard telling a Kelsey Museum staff member, “Damn the mummy powder drinkers and the Victorians with their lust for the aromatic dead.”

When the Ann Arbor District Library asked Kydd about the smell of mummies she had this to say, “Mummies don’t smell like decomposition, but they don’t smell like Chanel N°5 either.” We’ll smell beautiful natural extracts used in mummification that are also used in modern luxury perfumes at this Smell & Tell program. Simulacra of Mummy a perfume inspired by the smell of mummies at the Kelsey Museum, will also be experienced.

The scent flight for The Smell of Mummies includes: N° 1: Lotus of Nefertem, N° 2: Hatshepsut at Punt, N° 3: Mut’s Kyphi, N° 4: Egyptian Jasmine, N° 5: The Embalmer’s Jar, N° 6: Simulacra of Mummy, N° 7: Victorian Sham, and N° 8: Allamistakeo’s Cigar. If you don't know who Allamistakeo is and consider yourself an Edgar Allan Poe fan, visit the Poe Museum website and learn about Some Words with a Mummy. Warning: What you learn may alter romantic notions of Victorian culture, should you harbor them.

The Smell and Tell series of art+science programming is led by Michelle Krell Kydd, a trained nose in flavors and fragrance who shares her passion for gastronomy and the perfume arts on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. The Smell and Tell series celebrates it's seventh anniversary year at the Ann Arbor District Library and is ongoing.

Notes:
Smell & Tell events are listed on the right hand page of Glass Petal Smoke and removed after an event takes place. Complete information for specific public programs, like The Smell of Mummies, will be posted in the blog for reference over time.

The body of work for Smell & Tell programming, which began in 2012, reaches the 100th program mark at the University of Michigan with the introduction of Sacred Scents, an exploration of religiously significant scents from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three Abrahamic traditions. The event, which is designed for University of Michigan Students, debuts on November 7, 2019.

Smell & Tell: The Smell of Mummies
Date: Thursday, November 14, 2019
Time: 6:30-8:45PM (early arrival recommended)
Location: Ann Arbor District Library (Downtown Branch)
Address: 343 South Fifth Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
Phone: 734-327-4200
Admission: Free as Smell & Tell is sponsored by AADL
Link to Event: https://aadl.org/node/397485