Ceci n'est pas une pipe
![René Magritte. La trahison des images (The Treachery [or Perfidy] of Images), 1928–29.](http://www.srwild.com/images/193.jpg "René Magritte. La trahison des images (The Treachery [or Perfidy] of Images), 1928–29.")
This blog is only a few months old and I’m already doing reruns—sort of. A few years ago I made a feeble attempt at blogging. While digging through my archives, I found a disk with all the previous versions of srwild.com and the three blog entries I posted.
August 24, 2002
I was at a convenience store, buying a pack of smokes. The cashier asked for my ID. I pulled it out of my wallet and handed it to her. The photo was taken when I had longer hair and a beard—it looked like a redheaded mugshot of Charles Manson.
She examined my ID, then me, then my ID again. “Is this you?”
“No. It’s a picture of me.”
“Wh… wh… what do you mean?”
“Nevermind.”
Reading this reminded me of a another tobacco-related performance I did last summer while walking home one night. Up the street, a group of college kids were hanging out in front of a house. The loudest girl saw me and the cigarette I was smoking. I can always tell when someone is going to ask for a cigarette because it happens all the time.
“Excuse me. Do you have a cigarette?”
I looked at the cigarette in my hand. “Yes,” I replied, and walked past them.
She paused for a moment. “No, I meant do you have a cigarette I can have?”
I turned around, walking backwards. “No,” I said, turned back around and continued on my way.
I stole this from a friend of mine, whenever a panhandler says, “spare change?” I always say, “No, thank you.”
2 Comments
caleb d. said 598 days ago:
Nice. It’s easy to forget how elastic and fun and potent language can be if you just shift the cube a degree or two. Might just have to start smoking again.
I’ve been re-running old posts this month myself. But fear it’s had a negative impact on traffic, even though I’ve tried to pick entries that won’t seem dated. Guess that’s what I get for dressing up laziness as an anniversary celebration!
S.R. Wild said 598 days ago:
Exploiting the elasticity of language is a little hobby of mine. I’ve heard of people smoking because it’s cool or relives stress, but to play with language, that’s a new one.
I’ve been meaning to post this for quite sometime and seeing the reruns on your blog reminded me to do it. I’ve been a lazy blogger lately. I go through phases where I post a lot and then post very little. Someday I find my blogging sweet spot.
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