Go with your nose in the wind to smell the cigarettes in your mouth. This was the main idea of this in-depth tobacco survey on brunettes smokers, Rouletabille style in The time. Unfortunately, nothing went as planned. For the nose in the wind, first of all: covered with an FFP2 mask, he does not smell much more than a misty breath. Then for the cigarette in the mouth: the unconscious who still dare to grill one in the public space are rare. No more success by going back to the source: at Celtic, rue de Belleville, in Paris, the boss moves away to show her cigarette stand with a wide gesture: “Brunettes, we don’t do any more!, she says. No one was buying it from us anymore, so we stopped selling it. I still had one customer, and I ordered them for him, but, three or four years ago … [Vous aussi, vous avez cru deviner la fin de cette phrase ?] he changed neighborhood. “
Where have the brunettes smokers gone? Have they all changed neighborhood? On Leboncoin, some collectors sell Gauloises or Gitanes collectors: ashtrays, posters, old blue rectangular packages (replaced in 2017 by neutral packages of standard size, without the white scrolls but with blackened lungs) … But bargain hunters are not smokers . Saju6153: “It would have been a great pleasure to answer you, but it’s been a long time – over twenty years – that I quit smoking, overnight. My cigarette collection then also stopped. “ A Gypsy Package Holder: “Alas no, I don’t smoke. “
Cigarettes with erased beaks
Until this miraculous SMS from another online second-hand dealer in his spare time: “Unfortunately – or fortunately – I am not a smoker. I’ll give you the contact details of a friend who has smoked for almost sixty years. “ This is how Jocelyne Hubert, 78, opens wide the door to his apartment at 14e arrondissement, a few hours later. The Italian-style coffee maker sputters, the walls are overflowing with books, “Rhum Saint-Gilles” is displayed on the coffee cups. In the kitchen, Anna Karina blows the smoke of her cigarette on the poster of Live your life (Godard, 1962). The former teacher, white hair, red glasses, places on the table an ashtray, a key ring and an old package, all signed Gitanes. There is even a watercolor depicting the blue package. “My mother ran a café-bar near a barracks in Rennes, a garrison town. The soldiers were supplied with cigarettes, “troops”. Those who did not smoke sold them to us at low prices, to us kids. I was 15, I wanted to do the same as boys, wear jeans and smoke brunettes. And then, I was already very fond of the cinema, and the films of the time made the cigarette an argument of seduction: look at Lauren Bacall… ” A brunette smoker’s life begins, accompanied by the great French intellectual and artistic figures.
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