7.02.2005

smoking streets


New York smells in the summer. It smells like the garbage from the MacDonald's, the wastewater from the drains, the exhaust from the buses, the dogs, the people. It is a noxious miasma. I don't know why people here don't wear those white gauze masks like they do in Asia, where actually the smell is much nicer with the smoke of cooking fires and the scent of flowers balancing that of open sewers. In New York, I'd rather smell the cigarette smoke that hangs above nearly every corner than the gutters. Especially since I'm not smoking at the moment. Inhale. Exhale.
Reason to have a virtual cigarette: It beats the odiferous reality

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're not smoking but I am, at least as of midnight Friday night. One blonde stops and another starts. Balance, I guess.

What are you doing for the fourth?

Claudia said...

Dunno. Guess I have to go to the East Side. Tantamount to visiting purgatory. Have four (?) houseguests needing fireworks. Ideas?

Anonymous said...

"i can't quit smoking because i live in the city. It would be like, 'sniff, sniff.' 'Oh, what's that, honey?' 'Oh, i smell unrine!' 'Sniff, sniff.' 'oh, it's getting stronger!...oh look honey it's a dead guy covered in urine!' 'Geez, we never would have found this if we didn't quit smoking!'"
~Bill Hicks

Anonymous said...

You are not smoking? What?
Why? Have you fallen for all that smoking is no good for you propaganda? How can you write in this blog? I am at loss and luckily was sitting or I would have fallen off my chair. Please say it isn't so!