Ideas I want to get out before I forget them...

When I left class today my head was buzzing with different random ideas that I didn't now how to fit in to the conversation we had today.  For starters, I know we had the question about the smell of Orchids.  I don't know if Orleans tells us what the ghost orchid smells like but she does talk about the scent of other orchids.

Some orchids have straight-ahead good looks but have deceptive and seductive odors.  There are orchids that smell like rotting meat, which insects happen to like.  Another orchid smells like chocolate.  Another smells like an angel food cake.  Several mimic the scent of other flowers that are more popular with insects than they are.  Some release perfume only at night to attract nocturnal moths. p. 46.

So that was the answer to one of the questions we didn't get around too.

I've also had a question buzzing around my head.  In class it was mentioned that the full title of the novel is The Orchid Thief  A True Story of Beauty and Obession...but how can you have a true story about beauty?  We've been talking about this idea of truth and fiction and perception and I think beauty is a perception that can have no truth.  Beauty varies between societies and between individuals.  I don't like that she calls this a true story about beauty, it leaves me with this big question like "Beauty according to who?"