HOW SMOKING HAS CHANGED

I don't believe in smoking...it's obviously bad for you...but I do believe in being honest about whatever benefits it does bestow.

Maybe I should say "used to bestow," because those benefits have largely disappeared now. I don't think new cigarettes are the same as the ones our grandparents smoked.

The new cigarettes produce a vague haze. Their smoke has no shape or character.

Older cigarettes, on the other hand,  produced a clinging anaconda capable of wrapping around the smoker's head.

The smoke was stringy and artistic. The cigarette produced evolving pictures all by itself,  even when the smoker wasn't trying.

I'm guessing that filters are the problem. In filtering out some of the tars and nicotine you filter out the giraffes and porpoises the tobacco wants to sculpt.

Losing the nicotine and keeping the strings must have been a daunting technical challenge for the cigarette industry. And how do you keep the flow of filtered smoke aggressive and energetic, the way smokers like?  How do you get the billowing that some smokers like?

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe filters are innocent and it's the tobacco itself that's been tampered with. After all, that industry took a hard hit for producing second hand smoke. Maybe new strains were developed that deliberately produced diffuse smoke.

I don't know.

THE PROPER WAY TO SMOKE

I don't smoke but the subject interests me, maybe because it strikes me as odd that cigarette smokers don't seem to enjoy it very much. Cigar and pipe smokers enjoy it. Look at them: they have magazines, clubs, internet sites...all sorts of fan outlets. What do cigarette smokers have? Nothing. No clubs, no magazines...zip. They seem to smoke just to satisfy an urge. Why is that? Why the difference?

I think it's because current cigarette smokers don't know how to smoke. They only know how to create mist, and there's no fun in that. Real smoking is almost a lost art.

Pushing a shapeless mist out of the mouth like the two women above is not smoking. It's...I don't know what to call it..."evacuating." Smoking implies that you enjoy watching and manipulating the slowly unraveling thing called smoke.

And why wouldn't you enjoy it?  Unlike mist, smoke tells stories. The smoke above, for example: I see four little ghosts happily nibbling on a spinal column til two of them disappear, sending their friends into a panic. Moments later this scene might be replaced by cats attacking a school bus or Indians eating pies. Smoke puts on a show for you, while mist is just...well...mist.

I blame the ascendancy of mist on Flappers from the 1920s who, to judge from photos, didn't have a clue about the art of smoking, but I could be wrong. Maybe the decline of true smoking coincides with inhaling, which I'm guessing began in the 30s or 40s. Inhaled smoke turns into vapor. When you blow it out, it's just formless mist. It has no strings, no crawl, no shape, no imaginary animals or ghosts...it's just a haze. That's a pity because tobacco smoke is capable of so much more. It was just never meant to be inhaled.

Cigarette smokers who inhale like to think that they're superior to noninhaling smokers, but actually the opposite is true. Inhalers have limited imaginations and only smoke to be sedated. People who don't inhale are the real sophisticates. They're intellectually engaged in what they're creating. They enjoy the mysterious drama that unfolds infront of them.

Sometimes I wonder if the whole antismoking movement would have had the same zeal if smoking had prevailed over mist making. My guess is that smoke particles are larger and heavier than mist particles. They tend to cling to the area around the smoker, and fall to the ground at his feet. Mist on the other hand, fills the room and becomes part of the atmosphere that everybody has to breathe, whether they like it or not. Maybe the antismoking people are really just antimist.

Don't get me wrong...I don't advocate smoking. It's just too dangerous, even when it's done right. But if you're determined to do it anyway...well, geez, at least make an effort to enjoy it.

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!

THEORY CORNER FOR WOMEN: HOW TO SMOKE

MS. CRABBITER: "Hi girls! This is Semolina Crabbiter, head of the fashion division of Theory Corner for Women! I'm just thrilled because Uncle Eddie OK'd an invitation to Helen Girly Kratz of 'Neopolitan Magazine'...and she actually accepted! Here she is to enlighten us on the subject of feminine smoking."



KRATZ: "Thank you, Semolina, and Good Evening, ladies! I'm here to introduce you to the fine art of feminine smoking.



KRATZ: "You'll find that the hardest thing to learn about smoking is lighting the cigarette. I hate to say it girls, but there's no girly way to do this. You're putting fire near your face and tradition demands that you show the proper irritation."



KRATZ: "Once the cigarette is lit, you are in possession of a powerful instrument for turning heads in the room. It only remains to learn how to hold it."



KRATZ: "Here's a favorite grip of mine, called 'The Elegant." It's for light smokers, who still want to be seen."



KRATZ: "For the adventurous, there's the 'Baby in a Craddle.' "



KRATZ: " 'Baby THROUGH the Craddle' is an acceptable variant, as long as the cigarette is held loosely."



KRATZ: "For Heaven's Sake, never hold the cigarette in the infamous, male 'Shovel Grip."



KRATZ: "It's hard to believe, but they actually put the shovel up to their mouths and suck on it, like this. Disgusting!"



KRATZ: "I actually saw a man hold a cigarette like this once!"



KRAVITZ: "But enough unpleasantness...thank goodness we women are naturally dainty. Nature wants us to hold our cigarette as high on the fingers as we possibly can...way, way up there in the cloud-covered peaks at the tippy-tops of our fingers."



KRATZ: "I always try to cultivate an air of mystery when I smoke."



KRATZ: "I'm afraid that it's necessary to bend the wrist way back in order to look casual when conversing. For an adult with rigid bones, this can be quite painful, that's why I recommend teaching girls to smoke early, preferably when they're three or four."



KRATZ: "Well, that's it, ladies! Now you know the basic grips. Now get out there and SMOKE!"

TONY CURTIS SMOKES

I've had a pretty busy day today so forgive me for putting up a skimpy post. Here's some doodles I did while watching "The Defiant Ones" on TV a couple of days ago. Tony Curtis smokes up a storm in that film but I couldn't draw fast enough to get

most of it.

Anybody know of any films that contain good smoking scenes?