Sinister: Cigarettes and Nature and decency.

[Ruvi Simmons]

I am worried, I am deeply worried. I have been awake for about an hour and
am lighting my second cigarette of the day. The depths of my addiction are
quite troubling to me; it is seldom that I have ever met anyone who smokes
with the same vigour, dilligence and enjoyment as I. People I encounter at
clubs tell me they only smoke on weekends or nights out, others can time
their cigarettes like clockwork, while I, your prostrate profligate, am
perpetually at the beckon call of addiction. It raps on my window in the
night, bidding me to open it, squeeze a cigarette between my pursed lips,
light, and watch with rapt admiration at the plumes of blue smoke that
emanate from my mouth. I remember when I first started, aged 14 - I was in
Virginia, appropriately enough, where, as Tom Robbins once wrote, the stench
of tobacco permeates everything. I was visiting a girl, indeed, the first
and only girl I have ever loved and known (for I have loved many girl whom I
have never known but, no doubt, there will be time for more of that later).
She had treated me cruelly, although it was probably my fault, since I'm not
sure I loved her at all rather than the ideal of her I had carefully created
in my imagination. In the course of her foul treatment, however, she
introduced me to cigarettes. I had, it goes without saying, tried them
before, at the age of seven, when my father drunkenly gave me a puff. I
coughed and wretched and professed a loathing for the "cancer sticks" which
I thought would last forever. But, since nothing does and least of all human
declarations, my opinion changed. When I smoked a cigarette in Virginia, I
knew I was absolutely, irretrievably hooked. When my father picked me up to
drive me to the airport, I told him, and he responded with a tut that was
contrasted by reaching into his pocket to profer a cigarette. Whilst we were
waiting for our flight to board I sat in the smoking section of Dulles
Airport, which is more of a glass cube in which lies an impenetrable fog of
smoke, veiling the other inhabitants from view. I smoked three cigarettes
there, bought two cartons of Salems, and that was that. I have, of course,
tried to quit, but it has never worked. Whenever I read of someone who is a
heavy smoker, my instincts tell me to reach out for a nearby (it is always
nearby) packet, and have one in sympathy. Travey Emin smokes heavily,
Humpher Bogart did with a style and grace that is irresistable, as did his
beautiful, sultry foil Lauren Bacall. Hunter S Thompson always has a Dunhill
screwed into his cigarette holder, Oscar Wilde, in his beautiful essay The
Decay of Lying, wrote, "Let us go and lie on the grass and smoke cigarettes
and enjoy Nature". Since Nature can prove difficult to find in the city, I
contented myself merely with smoking while reclining on my bed. And when I
heard Auberon Waugh had died (I once sent him a letter, to which he never
replied; I hope the incident of his death was not connected, for it wasn't
such a bad letter), and that he was a confessed chain smoker, I lit one up,
just for him.

So who's to blame for this sorry state of affairs? My father, always ready
with a packet, and who bought me 5 cartons for Christmas? Hunter S Thompson,
that first light of debauchery that shone onto my young brain, made me want
to drink, fight, love, sing and dance in the night? Oscar Wilde? Humphrey
Bogart? Frankly, none of them. It is just, perhaps, the peculiarities of
people, their little foibles, tastes and desires. Everyone has them, and
they are not really of great importance; what is important, I have come to
decide, is decency and integrity. To live well, with kindness, dignity,
intelligence and passion, is the only thing worth striving for, perhaps more
now, in this modern era of conformity, easy options, affluence and
mediocrity, than ever. Thus, the worst crime is not one against social laws,
but one against oneself - to submit, to waste time, to give up, to debase
one's mind, to let oneself drift amidst sterility without expending the
effort to find something more. By comparison, whether one likes to smoke, or
drink, or abstain, or wear ugly clothing, or have bad haircuts, doesn't
matter. And, if you'll indulge me just one final quotation, I will conclude:
"I respect a man who has had to fight and howl for his decency, yes, for his
decency and his bit of goodness, much more than I respect the lucky ones
that just had theirs handed out to them at birth and never snatched from
them by...unbearable...torments, I..." - from Night of the Iguana by
Tennessee Williams.

I hope at least part of what I've written is comprehensible. I would take
the time to look over it but, alas, I am for once in a great hurry. I am
going away for the weekend to Devon to commune with Nature. That always has
the effect of inspiring me - to go away from the tumult of the city and out
where the nights are solemn, the days are beautiful, the surroundings have
the mark of ages, of the verdant majesty of unfettered life. I will,
however, at the back of my mind be looking forward with a little quiver in
the heart to the enormous backlog of e-mails that shall be lurking for me
when I return.

Ruvi.

PS. There may be no mention of Belle and Sebastian in the above, but, rest
assured, I still love.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
    +---+  Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list  +---+
    To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
    send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
    majordomo at missprint.org.  WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students"  +-+
 +-+  "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list"  +-+
 +-+       "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper        +-+
 +-+   "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000   +-+
 +-+       "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named       +-+
 +-+           Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000           +-+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+