Hippies and Cigarettes

I was on my way home from work the other day and as I was striding up the street I happened to get stuck behind some slow walking Hippies. Now this normally wouldn't be a problem, sometimes I need a reminder to take my time and enjoy the everyday things a little more; but it so happened that all three of these new century flower children were sucking back tobacco and tar from cigarettes. My usual response of instant irritation with being bombarded by toxins and the horrid smell of cigarettes was almost instantly overridden by a puzzling sense of incongruity. Here are three girls, dread locked, beaded, smelling of patchouli and chamomile (from what I gathered before they expelled the offending cloud of noxious gas) and decked out in hemp pants and organic cotton, fair trade t-shirts. So much about them screams flower power of the 60's and yet they're sucking on the very image of the vile corporation and capitalism. Could it be that in their nicotine bliss they are ignorantly unaware of the connotations of the small white stick in their hands? Are they that influenced by image?

These questions swirled around me in a foul cloud of second hand smoke as I slowed my pace to avoid stepping on their heals. It wasn't long before the stench overpowered my interest in the paradox and i slid my way in front of them. As the fresh valley air cleansed the tar from my lungs a new question entered my head:

Why are the Arts continually tied up with tobacco? And how can we divest our selves this black shroud?





This work by Ophelia3 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.