Got a light?

Smoke socials were a form of social entertainment in late-19th and early-20th century Australia. Groups, usually exclusively male, would gather together, light up their smokable object – cigarette, cigarillo, cigar, or pipe – and while away the evening in tawdry conversation. The tradition didn’t survive, obviously.

High on the fumes of that same spirit – one that mixes the high and low, the informal and illuminated, the reasoned and delirious – this newsletter casts a street-level upon the content of 21st-century life. Spanning work from Melbourne, Paris and New York, Smoke Social swans in from the periphery of the Culture and tries to make it cohere.

What to expect from this column: words-on-the-street, long-form criticism, musings. What not to expect: scholarship, naïve optimism, the word “problematic.” Got a light?

The easy part

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About the author

Elroy Rosenberg is writer and layabout from Melbourne. He lives in New York. He’s 25. elroyrosenberg.com