Once upon a week or so ago, your Statuesque and Erudite muse went questing for DIY supplies. Along the way she, that is to say, I, decided that what I really needed was a nice cigarette case in which to carry my creations around, instead of the semi-crushed empty packs that spoke only of hopeless longing and despair. I thought about it for a moment, and decided that the best place to find supplies and also a decent selection of cig cases would be in the Village, spanning from about West 4th Street all along St. Mark's Place.
A bit of background for those of you not from NYC -- the Village is a neighborhood in Manhattan which is split into West and East. West Village, traditionally (as of 10 years ago, anyway), houses well-off young business people, and is a hub of the Gay/Lesbian/Transgender community. Also, many and varied sex-shops. Seriously. You need a bright purple leather teddy with lime green feather trim and peek-a-boo nipple holes? Go to the West Village. The East Village used to have a lot of punk rock kids (I should know, as I was one of them), vagrant artists, tattoo shops, off-beat clothing stores, used record/movie stores, and its crown jewel, CBGB's. That's all gone now, and has been replaced with 'vintage' clothing stores, J-Pop restaurants, and one hell of a lot of hipsters who like the idea of living in a center of Punk Rock subculture, but can't stand the stench. Oh, and CBGB's was killed, and its lesser zombie self reanimated in Las Vegas. Fuckin' gentrification. Gone are the days when you could get an eighth of shit moonshine for under $5 without getting carded, take it to a community garden and get wrecked with some other people with silly hair and angry clothing, then sleep it off in the subway station. Not anymore, 'cause now there's rules and stuff. Oh well, the punk rock scene was at it's best in the late '70s and early '80s anyway. I wasn't involved till the the late '90s, whereupon it went all mainstream. Quicker than you could spit, little Avril Lavigne look-alikes took over, no one bothered making their own clothes, buying them pre-ripped, pre-studded, and pre-filthed, overpriced and funded by mummy and daddy's credit cards. Pathetic.
However, the one thing both West and East Village have in common are headshops, thinly disguised as tobacconists. Now, these shops come in all sizes and specializations, from the ratty little corner deli with a couple of pipes and some flavoured papers, to the shiny gleaming superstore boasting displays of bongs and intricate hookahs, with two dusty pouches of Top rolling tobacco, just to keep up appearances. I am, of course, excluding the street vendors, who hawk their illicit paraphernalia on a little collapsible table, and chat with customers blatantly about what kind of pot is best, but I'm only excluding them because they're not licensed to sell tobacco. All of these, including the street vendors, do have one thing in common: a small, grubby, hand-written note tacked up somewhere that says, 'for tobacco smoking use only.'
Now that you've got all the essential background information, I can continue my tale. I went to this section of the city in search of a nice cigarette holder. If you don't know what they are, I will tell you; they are metal boxes, shallow, hinged on one side so they open up like a book, with a metal bar or some elastic on the inside, so that the cigarettes you place within won't fall out. They come in different sizes and proportions, some long, some short, some thicker, some shallower. Plain or ornate, with silly decals or pretentious paintings. An old Altoids tin works also, and is more customizable, but sometimes it's nice to buy yourself something nice, which is precisely what I wanted to do on this particular occasion.
I approached the bored and rude art school dropout at the first store I came upon, which I thought showed great promise. This was one of the larger stores, that sold fifty different kinds of bongs, had a dizzying rainbow of hookahs, and a virtual menagerie of bowls shaped like dragons and piglets and unicorns. I inquired after their cigarette holders, whereupon the pretentious almost-human sighed, put down her Sharpie (with which she was painting her nails), and pulled a strange cedar box out from under the counter. 'What is this?' I asked, perplexed. 'A cigarette holder?' she contemptuously replied. 'But it only holds one cigarette, what the hell use is that to me?' I rejoindered. 'Ohh, you're talking about tobacco cigarettes, not tobacco cigarettes, right? Yeah, we don't have anything for your type here.' I happily imagined the glass menagerie coming to life and mauling her slowly as I exited the shop, certain that the next store wouldn't be quite so stupid.
The next store over, a smaller shop with not as large a variety of bongs and bowls, and with the added bonus of carrying hookah tobacco, was staffed by an Indian man who, at the moment of my entrance, was busy flirting with some tourist ladies. I looked around the shop, peered into the glass cabinets, and waited patiently to catch his eye, so that he'd maybe do his goddamned job and help out a valid customer. Alas, no luck. I interjected, across the inane prattling of those Ohio bimbos 'Hey, do you have any cigarette cases? To hold cigarettes?' whereupon he looked up, sighed, and handed me the same thing the talentless graphic designer had, a little painted joint hider. He even commenced to explain that, 'It is made of cedar, police dogs no smell, sniff sniff, you tobacco is safe, you no go jail. Good? Fifteen dollah.' When I tried to explain what I was actually after, his countenance went blank, and he shrugged as if confused, saying he'd never heard of such a thing. I left, once again, amidst daydreams of pain and destruction.
This kept on happening all throughout the East Village, and into a good part of the West Village as well. Large and small shops alike just automatically assumed that when I said 'tobacco' or 'cigarettes' I really meant 'tobacco' and 'cigarettes.' The italics, if you haven't realized by now, means marijuana. They all seemed confused and slightly put out when I finally got the point across that no, I did NOT mean marijuana, pot, weed, reefer, grass, or The Gange. I eventually just went home, empty handed and a hair away from immanentizing the eschaton.
A day or two later, I went to a tobacconist's on 14th Street, almost exactly between the West and East Village territories, since I did actually need to get some tobacco and a few other supplies (which are, as yet, a secret to you, my little ducklings), and what did mine eyes behold? A glass-fronted, well-lit, artfully-arranged cabinet, presenting an enchanting variety of cigarette cases. Entranced and hardly believing that this vision before me was more than stress-induced hallucination, I perused. I eventually chose one case, longer than wide, with an antiqued picture of a young lady in a white bonnet. It's nicer than it sounds. Elated, I purchased my parcels, and skipped off homeward. The very next day I passed by a flea market, and stopped to peruse its wares. Third table down, I found another glorious cigarette holder, square shaped, all silver and etched with a motif of flames surrounding an engraving of Baron Samedi. All for around $2. Score!
The moral of this story, then, my chickies, is that good things don't come to those who persevere and wait patiently for providence, but, rather, that good things come to those who are fueled by lakes of fiery hatred for their fellow man, and whose burning, searing rage flows out of them through soothing dreams of mass mayhem and chaos, sending tendrils of energy to the loom of the Moirae, tweaking the strings of destiny they weave to bring to the infuriated that which he or she so desperately and angrily desires. That's how I did it, and So Should You!
The End.
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