News for Nose

            There may be some question as to whether the world is ready for them, but odoriferous movies are here.

          Patrons of the art of motion pictures have already been exposed to Smello Vision and now before me is a handsomely illustrated brochure and a 20-page press release on the film “Behind the Great Wall” in AromaRama, which will be unleashed on L.A. audience this week.

          The 20 pages of mimeographed copy which proclaim this awesome event are heavily scented, even at arm’s length.  Offhand I’d say it’s somewhere between Boudoir and Striptease.

          Leaving no holds barred to get the message across, the brochure lists as the film’s Aromatic Personae (yup) such exotic fragrances as Streets of  Hong Kong, Fishing With Cormorants at Kweilin, Honky Tonk Odors, Rustic Barnyard, Tiger, Chinese Banquet, Sour Wine, Storm, Earth odor and Fireworks.

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          YOU SAY YOU’RE curious about a tiger’s odor?  Tell you what I’m going to do.  Reprint the explanation:  “The tiger in nature has an odor which is very distinct and which is authentically reproduced here.  It is the musk of the jungle tyrant.  Oddly enough, samples of this odor have had sensational effects when released in the presence of ordinary pussycats.”

          Having finished with the press material I slid it into the basket but the odor apparently will linger indefinitely and if someone with a suspicious mind comes into the room I’m dead.

          All I can say is, “Hold that tiger!”

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          ON ENTERING a Hollywood restaurant which is rather dark inside, a man named Frank noticed that a bright beam of sunlight was shining through a wall ventilator onto the floor, giving the area a kind of cathedral aspect.  He grabbed the arm of his companion, a fellow named Mac, and warned “Don’t step through that!  You’re liable to set off a series of hallelujahs!”

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FROZEN ASSETS

His bed is cold and empty

As he paces the midnight

                floor;

Shall he fire his avocados

When they’re 5 cents at the

                store?

                                –GINNY LENZ

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          I’VE JUST finished reading Richard Armour’s book “Drug Store Days,” a charming and funny account of his boyhood.  His birthplace was San Pedro and of this natal milestone he writes, “I was born in the early hours of the morning and had breakfast in bed.”

          In 1912, when he was six, his family moved to Pomona, where his father, a quixotic pharmacist, took over his grandfather’s drug store, founded in 1890.  A few years later Richard was a cog in this mad enterprise, first as a janitor, then as an apprentice suppository maker, delivery boy with a Smith Motor Wheel and as a soda jerk.  I read this part very carefully, as I too was once a soda jerk.  Of course, this was before the word had its present sordid connotation.

          But I found a glaring omission in Dick’s account of his career at the throttle of the carbonated water.&#
0160; He failed to settle a controversial point among us old soda jerks.  What about the maraschino cherry on a banana split?  Does it belong there atop the whipped cream or doesn’t it?  I say no because it detracts artistically from the effect of the snow-capped chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream, which should stand serene and alone, like the Himalayas.  Of course, if some jerk is volcano minded, I say let’s drum him out of the club.

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          IT WAS recently reported here that Marcie Yarmish, 7, had a deep yearning to become a dummy in the May Co. window.  Her mother didn’t dissuade her, guessing the phase would pass.  It did.  Someone gave Marcie some modeling clay and now she intends to become a sculptor.  The other day she made a male hippopotamus.  Her mother asked how she could tell it’s a male.  Marcie retorted, “Can’t you see he has flat heels?”