Kitsch Everywhere

It has always been there to see, of course, but I was just struck again the other day how many stores and delis around here have "kitsch" ( cheap and tawdry and lowest common denominator taste) items for sale around here, even though this is such an "upscale" area.

The local Rite Aid, where I took this shot, has a whole section filled with all kinds of figurines and other objects that are--well, you could call them whimsical and cute etc. but they are all pretty much in the "kitsch" category when you think about it.

Some delis in particular have stuff like this, including such outdated items as weird cute ash trays for sale. ( Guess more people than you realize still smoke, they just do not do it in public much any more. Wait a second, just the other day I passed about four of five people in quick succession on Second Avenue who were all puffing away on cigarettes. One was a much older woman, not badly dressed at all but with a rather haggard face, up on raised area above the sidewalk that was part of the Kips Bay Plaza Apartment complex. 

She was puffing away with grim determination on a windy day and was indeed like a small smoke stack...

I saw a young intern at my clinic not so long ago ( I now go to a clinic for older people) who, when I told him I had quit smoking some years back, actually asked me if I would tell anyone I knew who still smoked why they had to quit. He seemed upset as he said this, as if he was running into older people all the time who probably just told him, " I'm too old to quit now," or something. 

Fact is, I don't know anyone well who smokes-- whoops, I DO know one man in my building, he looks much younger than he is still is, who is an integral part of our Tenants Association. Every once in a while he ducks into the courtyard behind the building Community room to puff away furiously for a few minutes.

I would never think of telling him, "Hey, you ought to stop smoking." I mean, he knows that. And I, like Mark Twain, quit smoking hundreds of times before I was able to finally stop for good --going to Nicotine Anonymous and using Nicotine lozenges is what made all the difference for me. My group had some great people in it, some of whom had not smoked for up to ten years or so, others who had just started smoking again after three or fours years off of the evil weed ( I know that pattern all too well). 

Listening to how addicted these people felt resonated very strongly with me and the shared resolve and support I felt there helped me more than I can tell you.

Oh yeah, I paid no attention at all to all the mystical "higher power" aspect of our meetings...I am more interested in what someone like Paul Tillich has to say than in the watered down semi religious stuff they use at Nicotine Anonymous.