I am confident that most of us are stringing life together one moment at a time without a significant game plan or goal to outline our actions’ progression. Nothing is holding the seams of it all together, and for that, I am partially thankful and partially disappointed. Life is a never-ending chain of circumstances outlined by the rough shading of our intentions. It is often epiphanic and can be downright demoralizing when it is not doing that. To fill the anxious timeline we subscribe to, we have invented jobs meant to tether together the deflating raft of what we have come to term as a society, perhaps the most illusory of all ideas. After all, where would all that energy go if we were not busy tinkering, hidden from view, believing our actions, often turned toward the second most illusory idea of progress, can be effective machinations toward that same unseen and undeclared goal?
We believe we are builders and that on the timeline of history (a potential third illusory invention), our progressive excess somehow turns society toward incremental continuation that will be remembered for posterity. Oh, how we cling, for otherwise, the abyss, the callous and degrading notion of nothingness at the heart of it all, would register and reign.
What we do with our moments de-tethered from the manacles of invented progressive work ont the historical timeline is up to us. There are the moments associated with the body, such as eating, shitting, sleeping, fucking, and family rearing, but the core moments alone with ourselves are something we avoid, lest the abyss become too bright or close. Some specific actions or activities act against this consistent hum of droll living as a worker bee. They are the right-angled tectonic joints connecting the sticky web of the everyday. Showering, for example, no matter which time of day one ritualizes the activity, is a prescription for having time alone to think.
It used to be that way for ablution, but technology has gotten in the way of using that moment for oneself, previously used to reconnect and think without obstruction about the self and life. Even shitting has been monetized by the algorithm. When we are showering, it offers this narrow moment for which the body and mind are calibrated, though much of showering itself, as an action, goes without much thinking put into it, allowing the body and the mind to work together, untethering the mind to wander. How many times per day do we have these moments in which the mind can wander without taxation? Of course, this is why they invented meditation. In turn, they invented apps to get between the person (user) and their experience (borrowed labor).
One of the more significant applications for being with oneself is conversely damaging. Unlike showering or pondering our existence over a bowl of cereal in the morning, smoking offers one of the few moments of respite in which the individual can be alone in the busy world. Unlike many other minor actions, it is a public act in which one can navigate the self. And though it is a sport with dwindling returns, I want to champion something about smoking that goes unheard most of the time, and that is the endeavor that smoking gives to the self. It is one of the few times a person can be alone with their thoughts. The smoke break is one of the most coveted times of the day for a smoker as it allows, similar to meditation, the user to clear out thoughts and recalibrate the world. It sets things right, even though we know it to be a damaging habit.
In this paradox lies the rub. To have time for oneself, the user must interface with time, work, and the world in a physically damaging way. One must increase the risk of a heart attack or cancer to orient, calibrate, and reconfigure the day. They tell us that the strain smokers put on hospitals and health systems is sincere, and I do not dispute this. However, I would not be surprised that the ancillary intention for reducing a population of smokers down to the last man is also to foreshorten our ability to have unfettered access to our thoughts. I want to champion smoking and the smoke break in as much as I think it is physically damaging, but mentally aiding. We should smoke more, have more time to ourselves, and be less chained to the program. I dabble in nicotine from time to time, and from the point of view of having time to one’s self, I 100% think smoking and the smoker’s code of quiet is fantastic. The smoker’s code suggests a solitary way of going about the world. You may ask for a lighter, but after that, you shut the fuck up and move a few feet away and allow the borrower and yourself alone time. I wish we could implement this on society at large, even if smoking is removed from the equation.
In the history of books on the subject of smoking, there are many. There is even a category called Tobacciana that covers a wide range of tobacco-related objects and literature. In terms of the history of the photobook, the category narrows, but there are a few volumes that deal with the topic. My first encounter was Lucy Sante’s No Smoking book, published by Assouline, a very underrated title about people…smoking. It comes in a package that mirrors a large oversized cigarette carton replete with gold foil that closes over the book. It is a gimmick but a fun one.
Regarding monographs, Ed Templeton’s Teenage Smokers 1 and 2 are well-known and sought after. Hans-Peter Feldman’s Smoke is a book with appropriated imagery on the matter. Thomas Sauvin’s Until Death Do Us Part is a more recent archival book on Chinese vernacular photography of the subject. Obliquely, Crackle and Drag by T.R. Ericson is very much worth mentioning, as is Chase England’s Alive with Pleasure, and no less significantly are the plethora of great smoking photographs, too broad a field to investigate in this post that add to the literature between the medium of the photobook and the medium of smoking.
Umihara Chikara’s petite book of photographs, Smoke, published by Book Dummy Press, illustrated with 16 pictures of Tokyo smokers on their breaks or smoking in public, adds to the gamut of books about the sport of tobacco. It has a slight volume and is minimally designed by Yoichi Yamada to have a significant effect. It is refined, simple, and gets the point across. The photographs are beautifully shot, perhaps in a short time during high sun, so the color is saturated and makes the images quite alluring. When I look at the pictures, I am reminded of fellow artists Mikiko Hara and Keizo Kitajima (A.D. 1991). Umihara’s photographs are reduced and elegant, purporting no extraneous pomposity or whimsy. They are observational and fill the assignment with just a few images. I highly recommend this book for smokers and non-smokers alike.