Fortune Cigarettes

There’s a Santa Fe tradition called Zozobra, in which old man gloom is incinerated, along with all his negative baggage. There are many other similar traditions aound the world. But here’s a way to bring that idea into your everyday life. Wouldn’t it be cool if when you smoked a cigarette you were burning negaive thoughts at the same time? I don’t smoke, but it would almost be worth it to ritually burn the things that bother me.

Enter cigarettes with extra printing on them, negative things that you conquer by burning them. You can buy the regular pack with random messages or you can custom-order with your own personal nemeses. Sure the custom ones would cost a lot more, but that alone might provide incentive to cut back, while making the occasional smoke a poetic act. There must be a brand of cigarette that markets to the black-beret crowd that would make a killing off this.

Plus, it would be a kick to write the ill-fortunes.

Things I Need to do Before I Leave Prague

With my departure date approaching quickly, I’ve started to think about all the stuff I need to do before I go, the things I can’t do elsewhere or things that are especially Prague-oriented. The list in my head is getting longer so I thought I’d best write it down. Then I thought that even better, I could share it with you all and you can watch as items are checked off, and even make suggestions about things that should be on the list. Here goes!

  • take a 1.5 liter bottle and get it filled up at a wine store
  • take a 3-liter bottle down to a vinyard in Moravia and get it filled up
  • DONE! – go up in the telecom tower
  • go to black light theater
  • DONE! – go to a hokej game
  • DONE! – get Bili Tigri hockey jersey (and maybe vomiting slug jersey)
  • Have a beer at the BBC health club bar
  • DONE! – Drink Kofola
  • Go to a Svejk bar

Good thing I started writing this stuff down, because already I can’t remember most of them. I will add to this list as I think of things.