The smell of truth?

In Room with a View, Eleanor Lavish, a silly independent woman journalist replete with the features of the lady novelists George Eliot once decried, dashes about Florence looking for the true underbelly of Italian authenticity. Believing the Italians to be close to the earth (IMHO a common representational flaw in all of Forster's "Italian" novels), Miss Lavish mistakes dirt for culture, discovering "true Florentine" smells amongst bull droppings and carrying about a pair of Mackintosh squares to protect her from any contact with profane elements of nature, like grass and Italian coach drivers.


Entertaining as Miss Lavish's antics of repression might be, MightyIsis finds the idea of "true smells" to be a bit distressing... well, outside of restaurants and botanical gardens, perhaps. For example, the "true deli smell" of Katz's (See "send a salami" below) is lovely, if a bit too meaty for vegetarians. Even the somewhat institutional aromas of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Cafe strike a better note, somehow.

Which brings us to Philadelphia, the site of a few smells that were truly...smelly. The "genuine" smells of Fairmount Park, which appeared to be having a problem with a rather pungent form of green scum mixed with garbage, were rather offensive in a "make-your-Nestle's-Toll-House-ice-cream-sandwich-less-good" sort of way. Later, M Maus noted the aromatic qualities of the region frequented by horse-drawn carriages while standing close to "The Signer," a rather nice Philadelphia landmark near the old visitor's center and Carpenter's Hall. (Of course, now that the Constitution Center has life-size statues of the actual signers, this amalgam [these are brilliantly explained in the opening of Parenthood] of various signers seems a bit superfluous, but I digress). In response to this smell, MightyIsis and M Maus had a brief discussion of EM Forster and repaired to Bookbinder's for better genuine smells and some lovely chowders and bisques...they also have a rather nice sushi and an interesting style of adorning the lobster cocktail (yum!)--authentic lobster parts.

And smells are not the only "authentic" items at Bookbinder's--they have pictures, lots of pictures, and a far more impressive array of stars than even Katz's deli. Of particular note was Pope Pius XII, who seemed fairly grim looking for a man about to partake of Bookbinders' cuisine (such a facial expression seems impossible after that lovely food), featuring in a glossy color photograph just across from the ladies' room.

...or perhaps he had come in from smelling some authentic Philadelphia horse droppings....