Matches

[poliphilo]

I like matches. Ailz keeps saying we should buy packets of lighters because it would work out cheaper but I resist. Lighters just don't do it for me. They don't smell as nice. They smell of gas or petrol instead of - well- whatever it is matches smell of: sulphur? phosphorus?  And they don't sound as nice either-  clickety-spurt instead of rasp and flare. Matches may be a modern invention, but they have a touch of the primeaeval about them. A little stick with flame at the end- it 's not such a leap from there to the bonfire at the cave's mouth. 

Comments

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Agreed!

while there's a lucifer to light your fag

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I love matches. You can't do tricks with lighters. Cartoon characters don't prop their eyes open with lighters.

Re: while there's a lucifer to light your fag

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Very true- a box of matches is not just a handy thing to have around, it's also a wonderful toy.

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's so true! Everyone makes fun at my collection of matches. Even when I was a smoker, I loved the taste of that first drag when lit by a match. It was never satisfying from a lighter. Now I usually just light candles or incense, but it's the same--so much more satisfying to the senses.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never smoked. I think my love affair with matches goes back to the bonfires we used to have when I was a kid.

Now, like you, I use them for candles and incense.

Sound and Smell

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

I was channel surfing the other night and ran across a scene from a thirties musical where a couple were sitting under an umbrella in the rain at night. He was holding the umbrella and singing and she kept lighting matches one after the other for light. At the end of the song, the umbrella lowers, implying a kiss and the film segues to 'The End'. It was just perfect.

I hadn't thought about matches in a long time. The sound and smell are associated with cooking (what else?) and remind me of all the old gas ovens I've lit over the years. These days, I have an electric stove and I just realized I don't have any matches in the house.

This is my long-winded way of saying 'I'm with you'...

Re: Sound and Smell

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Gas cookers- and bunsen burners- and gas fires- and coal fires- and bonfires-

Ah, the nostalgia.

[oakmouse]

I'm with you.

I used to belong to a lodge that used those dratted butane torches to light the candles and incense, and to another lodge that used matches. Matches win every time.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's no mystique to a butane torch.

[seaslug-of-doom.livejournal.com]

I wish they were still called lucifers.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah,yes. Lucifer is a wonderful word.