Perpetually IN – Cigarettes and Babies

So if any of you are distinct followers of this blog, you might know that I have a tendency for a smashingly swell idea for a regular series of articles that will blossom my writing career into something beyond the eloquence of a graffiti-less toilet wall…and it lasts one article.

One article, and then the rigour-mortis of arrogance and anxiety kicks in; wherein I’m so gifted a writer that I don’t need to prove it just yet, which is handy because I’m terrified it’d be no good.

I feel this one will last though, largely because it’s an interesting subject to focus on, largelier because I’m willing to devote one summary sentence before calling it a success as a matter of insistence and promptly moving on to insisting furthermore that “largelier” is a word. Of course it is; I’ve used it twice in one sentence alone.

The subject of focus will be perpetual fashion – that which is inherently ‘IN’ and irreversibly hip.

Do you recall the scene in ‘The Social Network’ in which Mark Zuckerburg ponders on how fashion is never finished? I didn’t, until I thought of these following few, bare, barely-articles in which I agree that, certainly, fashion is never finished; but it is for some things.

Like cigarettes and babies.

As Chandler Bing said: “Smoking is COOL!”

And there’s some on-the-nosemanship right there.

Smoking will never be out of fashion.

Whilst there are certainly manners in which smoking is not-cool, of course. Such as a when it’s grubby, withered knuckles and filthy tips shaking and stutteringly willing out some last form of devoted elegance as the rizzla wraps the tobacco and the dry tongue comes trembling out to seal the dirty deal before setting the whole ensemble on fire and then it starts raining. Oh wait – that’s still pretty cool.

Of course, dying of cancer or emphazema is as awful as can be expected; but that’s only related to this. Another article will come regarding whether or not dying of cancer or emphazema is cool (early insight: not cool. Tragically dying of any disease, preventable or not, hasn’t been fashionable since ‘Philadelphia’).

Humphrey Bogart in ‘Casablanca’ said it best as he wordlessly tapped a cigarette from its pack, tapped it again to ensure the tobacco was surely impacted well, placed it between is oft-watched, oft-listened to and thankfully rarely oft-smelt lips, lit the branch (otherwise known as ‘setting it on fire’ – also perpetually IN) and then performed the part of a lifetime; confidence set ablaze by the team-work back-up of tar, smoke and fire.

Very primeval; but I guess that was early film history.

Breathing smoke is inhuman and not possible; so we do it.

The ultimate accompaniment; that branch of flaming danger hanging from the lips like a gunslinger’s piece yet also perched, pinched, with the poise and whatnot-knowhow of a magician taking your attention and sneaking your watch; smoking is cool and I haven’t even begun to discuss how it acts like a phallus and is therefore inherently impressive (early insight once more; erect penises have been fashionable since day dot. Flaccid; well, I’ve got some tales to tell).

Smoking is cool, yes; tragically.

It’s a three-pipe problem Watson!

Yes, the pipe is cooler. Partially because it is a habit that comes with a skill – just trying smoking a pipe without the insight of one who knows better – and mostly because my Grandpa used to smoke one (along with Holmes) and he used to smoke Old Shag.

A class that I miss, especially since my Nana banned in from the house.

Babies, however, are the point of all life in the human sphere (when we get to the nitty-gritty of it). Whereas the self-destructive definition of us as a species that is so self-involved yet also dangerously and adorably curious is a true picture of the folk of Earth; all that ‘human ingenuity that brought fire to the cave and saved the world oh-so coolly’ pales like a haunted and freshly laundered wedding dress in comparison to babies.

Babies were our ‘point’ prior to the species.

They make everything look better, including your outlook on life and especially the photo-plastered inner-wallet of that gruff chap who never says much but turns out to have a baby and is immediately more pleasing. A guy with a cigarette in his wallet doesn’t have the same impact on the public in the lunch line.

Babies are the new and original black.

Give a man a cigarette and he’ll look cool for 84 millimetres, give a man a baby he’ll look cool until he hands it back; which he should do if he’s a genuinely cool guy. The coolest guys will put out his cigarette before receiving the baby.

Put a baby in a suit. It’s cool.

Put a baby in animal furs. It’s cool too.

There’s little a baby can be put in that it doesn’t carry-off tremendously with much aplomb.

What doesn’t a baby look cool in?

Boats.

I’m not certain why, but a baby in a boat does not look cool.

Why don’t’cha just go figure?

I’ve focused on babies looking cool here; but that by no means equates to being ‘fashionable’.

But babies are still eternally fashionable; people just won’t stop with reproductive output.

Then again, it’s not as though babies are original.

That idea’s been had, a fair few millennia ago, and still…see them go – flaunted about and rightfully praised as the greatest accessory known to humankind and the very soul and individual origin of the it too.

Plus babies know all the classics of fashion; gurgling, crawling, toddling and tumbling, dungarees (it takes a man better than me to be able to work well with dungarees outside of a professional capacity) and the ability to simply be watched, nerve-wracking and utterly, utterly affirming of whatever one is currently pondering upon at the time.

Babies are IN.

Article complete. Cigarettes and babies are perpetually IN and I hope this series of articles with continue to be too.

Next time? I’m thinking vaginas and the Irish.

All the best,

Sam

(P.S. An interesting note on to cigarettes and babies as being perpetually IN; they are both enjoyed post-coitus, albeit one 9-months later)