Kurt Andersen and the writer Chandler Burr explore the allure and mystery that smell has for us. Burr explains how physicist Luca Turin solved the scientific mystery of how smell works. Burr believes that we should build museums for the nose.

Perfumers generally design complicated scents to stimulate a fantasy or a mood, not to match any one particular thing. Christopher Brosius is a perfumer with a different approach: he bottles the smell of celery, a gin and tonic, thunderstorms, even snow. Sarah Lilley went ...

Keith Miller is a painter in Brooklyn and he says it's quite easy for artists to get wrapped up in the romance of how their materials smell-- from the buttery scent of oil paint to the sting of turpentine. Produced by Michele Siegel.

Smells can be hard to describe, but a good writer can transport readers by pulling them in by the nose. Adam Haslett, author of the short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here admires Thomas Mann's Death in Venice for its stench. Everything in the story, ...

Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for playing the writer Truman Capote in the 2005 film Capote. Robert Blake first made his name portraying the object of Capote’s obsession, convicted killer Perry Smith, in the 1967 film In Cold Blood. But filmmaker Doug McGrath explains to Kurt ...

Alabama native Kathleen Mock is celebrating her 20th year performing on subway platforms. Playing in the subway lets her work on her songwriting: she can sing the same verse over and over for a constantly changing audience. And it pays better than playing the clubs. Produced by ...