Anti-Smoking Craze Makes Our Founding Fathers Cry
October 29, 2008
Smoking Quote #5: Butts on the Floor
I busted out of the place in a hurry and went to a saloon and drank beer, and said that for the rest of my life I’d never take a job in a place where you couldn’t throw cigarette butts on the floor. I was hooked on this writing for newspapers and magazines.
– Jimmy Breslin
October 28, 2008
You Don’t Wanna Be Like Us
As the city gets colder and fall inches toward winter, standing outside to smoke a cigarette becomes a lot less relaxing. Instead of enjoying the nice weather as a break from my office building’s stale air conditioning, now I can’t wait to finish my cigarette and retreat into the warm heat of the lobby.
And when the air gets frigid, a smoker sometimes can’t even tell if the smoke in front of his eyes is an exhaled puff or just his hot breathe.
A little girl walks past the building and sees a row of smokers huddled inside their jackets, breathing puffs of grey smoke into the air. As if in imitation, she purses her lips and forces her own cloud of “smoke” into the air to mingle with ours.
A fellow smoker standing next to me shakes his head and says, “You don’t wanna be like us, honey.” Then he takes another pull from his cigarette.
The little girl looks at us, frowns, then skips away to join the rest of her family at the corner.
September 18, 2008
Smoking Quote #4: The Perfect Pleasure
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
– Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
September 16, 2008
Bang and Rumble
It starts raining suddenly one afternoon while I’m walking towards Grand Central on 42nd Street. In the misty haze, I walk east with my face aimed to the sidewalk, both to avoid the chill of the rain and to watch my step around the murky puddles forming in my path. Waiting for the light to change at each consecutive street corner forces me to stand in the open rain, with no umbrella and none of the shelter sometimes provided by those heavy, gray stone midtown buildings that seem anchored to the street. Just wind, rain, and the occasional splash of dirty water from passing cars.
I take refuge under some scaffolding at Fifth Avenue, and light a cigarette while I wait for the rain to ease. Crowds wearing black overcoats and carrying black rain-slicked umbrellas continue to pass me on my corner. Wet feet leave prints on the pavement. I’m content to stay here for a while now that I’ve found a dry bit of sidewalk.
I share my dry corner with a street performer, a drummer banging away on his shiny silver kit. The drummer and his array of drums seem almost as permanently fixed to the spot as the surrounding architecture. But he is in constant motion, producing a continuous bang and rumble for passersby to enjoy — or ignore — as he encourages their donations to the bucket at the foot of his bass drum.
As I stand to the side, with my cigarette burning against the wetness around me, people stop to watch and listen. Maybe it’s only as a diversion to get out of the rain for a few moments, but it appears that when they move on, their heads are held a little higher above their shoulders as they walk back into the rainy mist.
When my cigarette is finished, I will have to join them.
