Sunday, October 8, 2006

Cigarettes and similes

Love is like a cigarette. You know you held my heart aglow between your fingertips. And just like a cigarette, I never knew the thrill of life until I touched your lips. Then just like a cigarette, love seemed to fade away and leave behind ashes of regret. Then with a flip of your fingertip, it was easy for you to forget. Oh, love is like a cigarette.
"Love Is Like a Cigarette," Richard Jerome and Walter Kent, 1936 (transcribed from the 1936 Duke Ellington recording, with singer Ivie Anderson)

Seventeen years ago today, I smoked my last cigarette.

Related posts
Cigarettes and similes (David Sedaris on Kools)
No smoking
Thank you for not smoking

comments: 5

Lee said...

OK, after the Lombardo translations - I've just splurged on both the Iliad and Odyssey - you've convinced me finally to tackle Proust after a gap of at least a quarter century.

Michael Leddy said...

Wow! The number of people I know who are reading or thinking of reading Proust keeps growing. I just heard from a former student who's going to get Swann's Way.

How far did you get last time, Lee? The Guermantes Way (3) was tough going for me for a while. Now I'm getting close to the end of Sodom and Gomorrah (4).

Lee said...

Shame-faced: only Du Côté de Chez Swann in French, when studying in Paris.

Also, apologies - now I see I've commented in the wrong place.

Michael Leddy said...

I'm planning to stumble through at least some of the original at some point. I have a friend (who is not French) who's reading the French, just a little every day. Are you going to go at it in French again?

Lee said...

French, but with a good English translation as prop. My French is not what it used to be. Otherwise, I'll be buried with the uncut pages...