The Purpose of Noses

Noses, though most notable perhaps for their role in the film The Fifth Sense, serve many functions in daily life. Example: Noses are like hats for mustaches. It would be weird to see a mustachioed individual (and here and shan't assume that mustaches should only be worn by men) without a nose. Picture Voldemort with a mustache. Weird, right?

Well, on Friday my friends, Tom and Jen, and I had planned a busy day of roaming about a few markets in London and going to the Tate Modern with Amy that evening to see what the art world is into these days. In the morning we headed off to Spitalfields Market first, which is open every day and has craft stalls, old records, and some clothing. It was relatively uneventful, save the mustache necklace I found that was a bit too gaudy for my taste. Between that and the mustache ring I found during my first week in London, I am led to believe that mustache fashion is very big right now. The strange looks I receive when I wear a mustache out on the streets of London seem to contradict that. Clearly, I just don't understand fashion.

After Spitalfields Market, we walked our frozen asses down to Borough Market, which you may rightly remember I already visited during my first few weeks here. We wandered around for a while collecting free samples, but ultimately wanted lunch. Small scraps of bread with various types of olive oil, slivers of cheese, and bits of brownie would not suffice given that we had already walked several miles.

As we started to look for lunch in earnest, the scent of warm cheese hit my nose.

Fun fact: I love cheese. Did you know there is a website called cheese.com? There is. I've visited it sporadically since the fifth grade. You can search cheese by texture! Amazing, I know. But anyway, I am a fan of almost any dairy product, particularly cheese.

"I think I smell raclette," I announced to Jen and Tom. They were unimpressed. I'm going to say it's probably because they don't know what raclette is, but perhaps they do not find sniffing out familiar cheese scents all that spectacular.

Moments later, I had proved my skill. There was a stall selling raclette cheese over potatoes with cornichons and pickled onions.

Look. Some onion people from the Tate Modern. I felt the need for  picture. There were so many words.

"It's the food of my people!" I yelped excitedly as I stared down the melting cheese.

Perhaps I should explain: raclette cheese is part of a delightful Swiss dish also called raclette. This joint name of dish and cheese often proves confusing when I try and explain the cheese phenomenon that is raclette to people.

"Oh, so there's a grill on the table and then you melt the cheese and put it on potatoes. Okay. But what kind of cheese?"

"Raclette cheese. That's the name of the cheese."

"So the cheese is raclette, too? I've never heard of that."

Well, no. It's not super well known. But it is delicious. Which is why I bounced into the queue as Tom and Jen went off to find their own lunches. I don't think they quite understood that I was excited in my nose's ability to sniff out particular types of cheese and in the prospect of eating raclette for lunch.

My nose proved less useful at the Tate Modern. There was an odd bit of art that was simply a large rectangular mirror on the wall. I did not go to look at it. Some woman was fixing her hair in front of it as her significant other stood behind her. So, I could have had my nose become part of art, but I didn't. Mostly because I don't see how that counts as art. Clearly, I understand art as much as fashion.

But I did enjoy the above onion people. They're from an artist called Marcel Dzama, who I actually enjoyed, mostly because he draws weird pictures. Like tree people!

After leaving the tree people behind, I discovered a side room at the Tate Modern that invites guests to draw various things on little scraps of paper with prompts. I choose their surrealist option, which asked me to draw something from my dreams. I once dreamed about an eggplant with chlamydia that was used to neuter pets, which I didn't know how to draw. So I just drew an eggplant with a face.

Yeah, I'm exhibiting my art in the Tate Modern. Not a big deal.

A few years ago, my family grew an eggplant in our garden that had a bump on it that looked vaguely like a nose. We put my mom's glasses on it and had a grand time. My eggplant drawing reminds me more of that than of chlamydia, which I guess is good. So here we find yet another (perhaps very obscure) purpose for noses: helping people not think about chlamydia.