[james500]

Oh, thank God! I was worried that the Times was becoming irrelevant and out of touch with most Americans. Whew...

[digger48]

I can tell you right now that the New York Times stinks.

[rlmorel]

Must...have...tape...to...keep...my...eyeballs...from...rolling...back...in...head...

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Guess he can write articles about fixing up that old pickup truck when he's not writing about perfume. Should work out real good.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

This will really bring their readership and stock price roaring back.

[Seeing More Clearly Now]

Even those who stink begin to smell their own decay. Covering up the smell is just what one would expect from the New York Times.

[43north]

Perhaps s/he could go to Tehran and report on President Yabadabadoo's exclusive use of Eau d'allah Armpit Sweat cologne... I hear its made by the French, au naturaellment.

[TheSpaceCoyote]

Makes one wonder how many ways perfume could be described on paper. I don't know what's sadder, that the NYT felt that this is what readers want or that the AP wrote a story about it.

[motzman]

"Chandler Burr, a magazine writer and author, will debut in the Aug. 27 issue of the newspaper's style magazine."

"Burr will be replacing outgoing Perfume Critic Chanandler Bong" (below)

[TheSpaceCoyote]

[OldFriend]

After a long day of disgruntlement on my part I have to say this is the best article to read prior to shutting down the computer. I will get to sleep with a smile on my face, knowing the world is now safe...the Slimes has a perfume editor!

[Gordongekko909]

What gets me is that the NYT is hiring anyone right now.

[don-o]

Why did this have to be on my Birthday? Aug 27?

justdamn

[Revolting cat!]

"Fabulous!"

[FlingWingFlyer]

The girlymen down at the Slimes are FINALLY getting into something they have some knowledge about. This is right up their alley.

[martin_fierro]

Get a load of this.

[Dionysius]

Is Chandler Burr
... a him or her?
It's hard to say
... with names today.
But if it turns out he's a guy
...don't shower with him at the Y.

[em2vn]

I would love that gig. Think of all of the free baseball tickets that could be scored with the outbreak of mens' scents being marketed under players names.
NFL can't be far behind. The NBA I could pass on but it just might be part of the job I would have to suffer through.
NASCAR can't be far behind. I'd hold out for F-1 tickets if I could.
Sweet job.
Where do I sign up?
Could you imagine the scent, RUSH? I hope it would smell like fine cigar smoke for the day and fine cigar tobacco for the evening.

[Cicero]

What are the odds that Chandler Burr was Pinch Sulzberger's personal beauty consultant before he was offered this important job?

[AZLiberty]

Laugh at NYT if you will, but Chandler Burr is the author of a great book, The Emperor of Scent, about a great scientist (and perfumer), Luca Turin. Turin bucked the tide of conventional wisdom about how the sense of smell worked. Smell scientists previously thought that smell worked on a kind of lock and key principle: that the nanosensors in the nose had certain shapes and when a molecule fit into the sensor then the corresponding scent would be evoked. Turin convincingly demonstrated (to some, including me) that the sensors worked on spectroscopic principles, measuring the frequencies of vibrations of molecular bonds in the molecules presented to the sensors.

I highly recommend the book. The Wikipedia article on the Vibration theory of olfaction says that there is evidence both for and against the theory. This article on Turin's theory compares the spectrographic theory of olfaction with similar theories of color vision and hearing.

My intuition is that there is not just one mechanism that explains smell. The human visual system has at least 19 distinct levels of computational transformation that convert patterns of light into recognition of objects. Smell may not be as complex, but it's probably not as simple as vibration detection.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Scents but no sensibility.

And the stock price shows it. In fact, the stock prices bears a strong resemblance to what I reference in my tag line: a Slinky™ going down a stair.