...and what's even worse, smoking!!
Miss [Florence] King on smoking: "It's this: I think suicide qua suicide is weak and shameful, but maybe, if I just keep smoking, I can hasten my exit from this Walpurgisnacht called America and escape the mephitic cultural collapse that Nice-Nelly conservatism is powerless to stop.
"This is probably wishful thinking in view of my family's medical history, but it points up another benefit of cigarettes we no longer hear about: consolation. Even the word is gone from the language now, but it was what came through in World War II newsreels showing weary soldiers and refugees lighting up. In their most despairing moments a cigarette was all they had, and increasingly I feel the same way.
"There goes my chance at Keynote 2000, even if I work on my perkiness and arrange to rent a baby."
I often worry whether they censor/edit these old classic war movies.
I love Florence King. The more politically incorrect she is, the better I like her.
I understand the importance of consolation. That’s why I like tea, the beverage that “soothes, but does not inebriate.”
But I occasionally like beverages that inebriate, too.