AMATEUR vs. PROFESSIONAL SMOKERS

It's a sad fact that most smokers don't know how to smoke.  I don't smoke myself  because I don't want to get cancer, but I hate to see a good cigarette wasted by the neglect of amateurs. It's the uncomfortable feeling you get when imagining a thoroughbred horse pulling a milk wagon.

Here (above) the cigarette is held at such a drastic angle that the tobacco is fuel-starved, and fails to produce interesting strings.  Not only that but the smoke in her mouth is pushed out in a vague and artless haze, with no attempt to give it shape.

  


You have to give this smoker (above) points for trying, though she too is an amateur. She senses the potential in the smoke but doesn't know how to shape it. She just lets it roll out and do whatever it wants to do.



Now HERE'S a professional! The cigarette is held level, producing living strings and nebulas. The puff produces robust, philosophical shapes depicting...depicting what? Maybe ghosts at war with each other. 

Nebula's (above) are fun, but they use up the cigarette really fast. Better have lots if you're going to smoke like this.

This is a funny way to smoke because the favorite resting place for a nebula is the head of a near-by non-smoker.



A true genius (above) at work! She launches the tumultuous Four Horseman of the Apocalypse under a canopy of morphing jellyfish strings. What does it all mean? The smoker invites us to ponder.

Cigarettes are so eager to please.  Sometimes they'll go into overdrive, creating mysterious dramas and tragedies for us when we're not even paying attention.



Here the professional experiments with a haze that unexpectedly produces menacing tentacles.

Notice the interesting dramas which are unraveling in the strings. Note too, the intriguing "smoking gun"-type smoke emerging from the back of the cigarette. 

Some smokers don't puff much. They're content to hold the cigarette still and watch the strings unravel slowly and languidly. Others hold the cigarette still but will deliberately avoid looking at it. It's enough for them to know that the strings are there, unwinding and creating characters and stories that will last only a few moments then experience unchronicled death. 

Let us end this with one more glimpse at the professional smoker (above), gloriously creating stories in the sky. Here the nebulous haze ejected from the mouth meets a stone wall created by the updraft carrying the strings. The nebula, having no place to go, collects into itself all the haze behind it, which it attempts to re-form into a great drama. Above it, a second nebula, also trapped in the strings, attempts to carve out a life for itself. "I want to live!" it seems to say, but it's futile life is soon snuffed out.  

Fascinating!