Pipe Pulpit

Finally Attended A Club Meeting

2011-09-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

I finally had a Wednesday night free and was able to attend the monthly meeting of The Christopher Morley Pipe Club at the newly renovated Pen and Pencil Club. Terrance took some photos which you can check out on our Facebook page. Here's one of Abbey, one of our two women pipe smoker members and me. I'm smoking the nose warmer cob stuffed with Burley Flake #1. Always a pleasure to see all the folks.

Mini-Stems

2011-09-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

Time flies! After writing so often this summer, I have really fallen of the wagon for awhile. So it goes in the blogosphere! I have been awaiting the arrival of a pocketful of mini-stems that I ordered custom made from Dave at Walker Briar for a number of my corn cob pipes that do not take the standard replacement stems that Dave makes for run of the mill cobs. In particular the three Morgans that I was able to get from Missouri Meerschaum, as well as two or three other pipes that they outfit with the smaller stems. They arrived today and I am thrilled with them.

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Meanwhile, as the busy time of the year begins for me, my time for leisurely pipefuls has dwindled. So I am carefully avoiding opening up too many tins of tobacco. I am presently working through my present and all time favorite C&D Burley Flake #1. I think I'll open up something new and interesting for a change when I finish this tin. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile some food for thought compliments of Briar Files
Among the sages who Emerson sought out on his visit to Europe was the notoriously reticent and difficult Thomas Carlyle. He called on Carlyle one evening and was given a pipe, while the host took one himself. They sat together smoking in perfect silence until bedtime, and on parting shook hands most cordially, congratulating each other on the fruitful time they had enjoyed together.

Check Out My Cellar

2011-08-21T00:44:00.000-07:00

I discovered, by way of A Pipe Smoker's Cognition blog an online site for keeping track of my tobacco cellar, called Tobacco Cellar.com. Don't click the link yet, as I haven't had time to put my stuff in there yet, but I will add the link to my links list and by mid-week it should be filled in.

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That's me again, this time enjoying my latest and best homemade corn cob pipe! This one is definitely a winner!

Add Your Own Caption

2011-08-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

This picture appeared on the The Briar Files blog with the admission that the author did not know what it was about and an invitation to caption it. I have done so. Check out the blog and enjoy.

Look what your Latakia did to my mustache!

Pipe Smoking and the Life of the Mind

2011-08-18T08:44:00.001-07:00

It has always seemed patently obvious to me that pipe smoking is not only the hobby of intelligent people, but actually contributes to people's intelligence. This interview of Bertrand Russell on Pipesmagazine.com supports that assertion.

PENNSYLVANIA MEERSCHAUM UPDATES:

So pipe number one burned out. Pipe number two looks great but doesn't hold much. Pipe number three burned out. Pipe number four, which I made yesterday, will be the test. First of all, I went to the market and bought a better, wider piece of corn. White corn, in fact, which I've been told is stronger than yellow. I'm much happier with the width of the bowl and made the length larger as well. Everything came out as desired. All that remains is to smoke it...a few times and see how she fares. Either way, I'm out of the business for awhile, but it has been a fun diversion. Meanwhile, I ordered a couple of more Morgans from Missouri Meerschaum, just to be safe.

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Pennsylvania Meerschaum 2

2011-08-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have taken another stab at corn cob pipe making. I think you'll agree that this second attempt is better than the first. I worked a little harder at it, used somewhat better tools and a surer hand to shape and finish it. I think it looks right smart. I'll take it on its maiden smoke this afternoon.

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when I will break open a new tin of tobacco, Burley Flake #2. There are now 4 numbers in this series. Burley Flake #4 contains Latakia, which is not a preferred taste of mine so I haven't decided whether or not to try it. But Number 2 is the only one of the other three expressions that I haven't tried and I'm anxious to compare it to its compatriots.

UPDATE

The pipe smokes well. The walls are thicker than the first and I think there is less chance it will burn through, though the chamber is narrow and the pipe holds less tobacco. But I'm getting there.Considering I didn't give a lot of thought to purchasing the corn in the first place, the next step is to look for corn with a wider pit in order to carve a larger bowl.

The tobacco is pleasant. A good straight burley with a nice touch of the Red Virginia to make it interesting, but not as interesting as the perique makes Burley Flake #1 and #3. All told I think #1 goes on my favorites list while the others go on the occasional list.

Nautilus Pipe

2011-08-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

I hope this is not a violation of blogging ethics, but I couldn't resist. I came across a new blog called Tobacco Days and I couldn't resist not only mentioning it , but reproducing these incredible photos. They are of a pipe called the Nautilis by Michail Revyagin and really speaks for itself.

Check out the whole story at Tobacco Days!

Presenting Pennsylvania Meershaum

2011-08-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, it inevitably is the dream of every serious pipe smoker/collector to carve his own pipe. I've tried on several occasions, purchasing ebuchons, the ubiquitous Pimo instruction booklet and a few tools. My first attempt was truly terrible. My second was smokeable but not much better aesthetically. I do not have either artistic or mechanical talent.

None the less the bug persists! Buoyed by the previously mentioned YouTube video I found demonstrating a step by step approach to making a corn cob pipe, Sunday I bought an ear of corn and a sheaf of bamboo sticks and got to work.

Yes folks, I made my own corn cob pipe today. And I think it came out pretty well, if I must say so myself!

SO HOW DOES IT SMOKE?

Like a dream! I actually couldn't believe it, but it smokes cool and easy and, dare I say, better than any of my store bought cobs.

The Missouri Meerschaum Morgan

2011-08-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

I was very pleasantly surprised today when I received my newest pipe from Missouri Meerschaum. It is the Morgan, a proto-type/experimental shape that is not yet displayed for sale on their web site. Marilyn, the sainted lady with whom I have been communicating, suggested it as an alternative to the nosewarmer that I was looking for before we determined that, in fact, I had purchased the nosewarmer from Walker's Briar Works and not Missouri Meerschaum. It is perfect! I love it! It is probably no more than an eighth of an inch longer than the Walker nosewarmer and the bowl is not as high but it is a wonderful nosewarmer type pipe. Of course it doesn't have the acrylic bit of a Walker but I bought extra bits and this shouldn't be a serious problem. For the price differential between the two I can buy lots of extra bits!

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I want to direct your attention to the post where I mentioned the blog Firecured. Check out the comments where I learned that the blog is actually written by Michael from Maryland and not Pearce from Ireland. Thanks for the correction, Michael.

The "New" Medium

2011-08-03T15:28:00.001-07:00

Its not that I'm a luddite; far from it, I think. But I do have a predilection for written as opposed to aural/pictorial communication. So while I have been very good at scouring web sites and blogs about or related to pipe smoking, I now learn that I have entirely overlooked the vast amount of pipe communications available through youtube. As recently noted, I have become a member of the Pipesmokers blogging community (which you can access by clicking on the tobacco tin to the left) and I've been trying out the different fellow bloggers therein listed. So today I tried a blog called Firecured where I found the author featuring a youtube video he made. Not only did I watch and enjoy it, but I suddenly realized that there was a whole community of pipe smoking youtubers. The author of Firecured is called Pearse and he is from Dublin. His youtube channel is called "dubinthedam.

So I began to investigate a bit and found Requim Pipes, a video channel run by Gustavo from Portugal with some wonderful tobacco reviews.

Check them out and do some of your own investigating! From the number of other "channels" that I saw having to do with pipes I may be at this for a while and will occasionally report my findings.

Mystery Solved!

2011-08-03T09:05:00.001-07:00

When I sent my photo of my corn cob nosewarmer to Marilyn at Missouri Meerschaum she rightly recognized the stem as coming from Walker Briar Works but still could not claim the bowl as one of theirs. Of course, I knew that the acrylic stems that I use on my corn cobs had come from Walker's, but I'd forgotten that in this particular case, so had the bowl! I checked the web site and, lo and behold, mystery solved. I ordered a second nosewarmer to have as a back-up and also confirmed my interest in receiving Missouri Meerschaum's Morgan, an experimental shape, to test out. So much to look forward to in the coming days.

In addition, while buying a re-supply of Burley Flake #1 and #3 at Holt's I noticed that they now also had Burley Flake #2, which I haven't had a chance to try out yet. bought a tin and its on my waiting list.

The Mystery Of The Corn Cob Nosewarmer

2011-08-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

We are back in the city. We actually came home Friday, which was a much better idea. We. Were able to get everything put away, relax and ease back to work today. One of my modest goals for the day was to find another corncob nose warmer waiting for me upon my return. I had gone online last week to order one at Missouri Meerscham and couldn't really find what I was looking for. So I ordered miniture corncobs and they were waiting for me at the office today and they were definately not what I wanted. So I called Missouri Meerschaum to look into it

They had no idea what I was talking about. They were exceedingly nice and helpful as could be, even looking up the records of everything I've bought and still couldn't figure it out. Instead they are sending an experimental pipe, not shown on the web site which might be satisfactory. But the mystery remains. What did I purchase last year? So I emailed a picture of my pipe and perhaps they'll figure it out

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Meanwhile I'm back at work and had a post luncheon pipe at Holt's. Could be worse.

At The Brew Pub

2011-07-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

Our time in the Poconos is beginning to draw to an end. We leave on Sunday. Amazing how quickly a month passes.

Today we went back to Barley Creek Brewery, where we had dinner the other night and bought a growler of their Rescue IPA beer. We wanted to take the tour of the brewery and get a free tasting. We were not disappointed. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The beer was good and the lunch was even better.

Coming home I was really ready for a pipe. Smoked another bowl of Triple Play in my Peter Heeschan blowfish. Perfect!

After a dinner of bar b que lamb chops I am relaxing with a bowl of Burley Flake #1 in a corn cob and listening to the Phillies game.

Another great day.

Pipe Pictures

2011-07-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

A magnificent morning. The heavy, all day rains of yesterday wiped out the extreme heat and humidity of the past few days and I am enjoying my morning tea and a bowl of Burley Flake #1 on the deck with the temperature in the high 60's and what feels like no humidity. I thought I'd take a summer time picture to offset all those winter pictures I post during the year.

And speaking of pictures, I was browsing around the web, reading the NY Times as I do each morning and read an article about Matthew Brady, the great chronicler of the Civil War. There was a link there to the National Archives collection of his photos of the war and among the first I clicked on yielded this picture of Allan Pinkerton and his men, the spies of the Union Army. Pinkerton is the one in the background relaxing with his pipe!

Hope you enjoy this beautiful day!

UPDATE

Much as I hate to have too many tins of tobacco open at one time, I decided this morning that I'd had enough of either Burley Flake expression and so I broke open the tin of G.L.Pease's new plug tobacco Triple Play. If you check back you'll find my reports of his first plug attempt, Jack Knife. You'll find that while I liked it, I didn't love it. More importantly, you'll find my lack of patience with the process of cutting and rubbing the tobacco. Partly, I now realize, this may be a result of the particularly moist nature of the plug. Be that as it may, I have to admit that I'm still not sold on the need to slice and dice before smoking. That said, I love Triple Play! I'd forgotten that VaPers are still my favorite tobaccos I've been experimenting with so many different blends lately. And this is among the best VaPers I've had in a long while. I'm not a very expert tobacco reviewer, but if you check out this review on Pipesmoking Magazine you will find a very thorough job with which I fully agree.

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Summer Reflections Continued

2011-07-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Three straight days of posts! My apologies, but it helps the time pass pleasurably. As I mentioned, I've been doing a good deal of reading. In addition to the four serious novels that I've read, I've managed a couple of good mysteries and a few books of poetry and criticism. All of this reading has been accomplished on my Kindle! I have probably 200 books at my disposal with this wonderful device. Up until recently I found that the Kindle's only drawback was the generally popular nature of its content: tough to find books of more limited interest, like serious Judaica, philosophy, poetry, criticism, or pipes. That has changed. I have with me some fairly esoteric "volumes" in each of these categories, including the last which was the most recent surprise. Browsing for books about Pipes, Pipe Smoking, or Tobacco I found "In Search of Pipe Dreams" by Rick Newcombe. I was leery. Given the fact that this book was advertised as containing many photos I wondered how it would come through in the Kindle edition. So I ordered a free sample, one of the best parts of the whole Amazon set-up, and was pleasantly surprised. Granted the photos would look better in color, something I'm sure future Kindle editions will be soon able to handle, none the less to someone who grew up in the era of black and white TV it wasn't half-bad. So I downloaded the whole book and have been reading it desultorily when I'm out on the porch for my daily bowls full. More importantly, it is very good. Well written, passionate and though a wee bit dated as the author himself admits in introductions to the individual essays, no less informative for that. Obviously, Rick's particular passion for the "Great Danes" and his contribution to introducing their work to the American market is front and center in the book. Reading about the Chonowitsch's and Ivarsson's et. al. one learns a lot about the evolution of the contemporary pipe scene, and simultaneously cannot help but be envious, knowing that owning any of these pipes are out of the reach of the likes of me. Pipe Dreams, indeed.

While not strictly speaking on topic, I can't imagine that the subject of whiskey is too far removed from the hearts and taste buds of most pipe smokers. While here, last week my son and son-in-law and I traveled to the Tuthiltown Spirits for a guided tour of the distillery. We were the only one's on the tour. Had a great time, tasted some great whiskeys, and bought a bottle home.

Blogging With Bloggers

2011-07-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

An unusual follow up to a post only a day later. With the kids gone and three weeks of rest under my belt I'm game for a bit of loquaciousness. I've had a bit of time to catch up on other pipe/tobacco blogs and web pages, which has been fun, too.

In that regard you may have noticed the tobacco tin-like button on the top left of the side bar. I've joined what I take to be a nascent attempt to unify pipe/tobacco bloggers into one community. If you click on the tin you will be taken to a site featuring a variety of bloggers that you may not have come across before. I certainly hadn't. As one of the first projects of this community we've been asked to click on the tin ourselves and find our listing among the blogs listed and then scroll to the blog listed below our own and introduce it on our own blog. Got that?

Well, always willing to help out, I discovered in this manner Pipe Reflections whose post on Frog Morton tobacco was a lovely reminder of what has now become a classic blend. In addition to describing some of the virtues of the tobacco, the blogger takes us on a bit of a journey through the iconography of pipe smoking frogs. Now, I had never thought about this phenomenon! The truth is that the frog often appears in literature and its accompanying pictures as a pipe smoker. Is this good or bad? Interesting question. I suppose it depends on your view of frogs (and hopefully has nothing to do with their increasing rate of disappearance!) The point is, the blogger does what a good blogger does best: start with the subject that we are all somehow connected by and then takes us to some place we didn't expect. Great blog! I recommend it and will add it to my link list, though now that you can click the Pipe Blogger button that is probably not as necessary anymore.

One word of critique: As I've discovered lately on a number of other blogs there didn't seem to be any "about me" section or if there was I didn't find it. I like knowing something about who is writing; where they live, what they do, how old they are, etc. Are pipe bloggers hiding from something? Let's share real identities, not just virtual ones.

It's Never Too Hot To Smoke

2011-07-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

Just for the record: for those of us for whom winter presents nearly insurmountable impediments to enjoying a pipe, you'll never catch me complaining that it's too hot to smoke. Sure, you may sweat a bit, but take a cool drink outside, light up and think about what it was like sitting in the backyard in December and enjoy the smoke.

That said, let me just say that my schedule the last two months of the academic year was overwhelming and all thoughts of blogging went by the wayside. And for the last three weeks I have been ensconced in my Pocono hide away, yes, enjoying an evening smoke regardless of the heat, usually with a nice cool Manhattan and a book. I've been here for three weeks, two and a half of which my children and grandchildren have been here also. It has been great getting to spend that much time with the little ones. And I still managed two read four novels. Now they are gone and Annie and I have about ten days left to ourselves. I expect to get even more reading done and smoke a few more pipes each day than the evening pipe I've allowed myself after the kids have gone to bed.

Started off smoking C&D's Burley Flake Number 3. I loved number 1 so much I thought I'd try the others. Couldn't get number 2 before I left town. Number 3 is every bit as delicious as number 1, but way stronger. When I say a tobacco is difficult for me to finish a bowl because it is too strong, my friends know that that's gotta be one strong tobacco. So much so that it is not possible to use as an everyday smoke. After a really big meat meal its ok, but otherwise, watch out. I decided to let discretion be the better part of valor and went back to number 1 for the majority of the time.

Tutorial

2011-05-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

It has been a long hiatus between posts. Life is like that sometimes. Since my last complaints the weather has finally changed over to Spring for real and smoking out in my backyard after dinner has become a regular occurrence again. Except for the overly wet nature of these weeks and the similar forecasts for next week, I really can't complain.

I am almost out of Jack Knife Plug and will be buying some more along with G. Pease's latest plug as soon as it is available. Meantime I've returned to Exhausted Rooster for a little while. All is well.

The reference in the title of this post is to the fact that my students at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College are holding a student auction next week and I've determined to auction off a pipe smoking tutorial for four students. I'm planning to get Holt's to donate some corn cobs and a couple of ounces of a variety of tobaccos for each student and hold the tutorial, if they allow, at Holt's lounge. I'll teach proper filling, puffing, cleaning and say a few words about the range of tobaccos and send them on their way. I've let the student organizers set the starting bid for this and we'll see what comes of it. Stay tuned.

Jack Knife Redeux

2011-04-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

I. like most of us, live in two worlds. I do so comfortably. I have written four works of theology, mostly with an old fashioned dip pen and a bottle of ink. At the same time I am wedded to my smart phone, read most books on kindle or my phone and am entirely comfortable with twitter, texting and facebook. So into which world could I fit Jack Knife Plug? I would like to say that I could whittle away a small amount of tobacco as needed to fill my pipe. But the truth is, with my hectic schedule this simply wasn't going to happen. Each time I reached for a pipe the thought of having to simultaneously reach for a knife and tease out the tobacco for a smoke was simply impossible. I always reached for something else. But dammit I wanted to smoke this tobacco. So I broke down this Sunday evening when I had a little time, and cut up the entire plug and put it back in the tin as a vaguely ribbon cut/cube cut misture and could therefore fill my pouch on Monday morning as I left the house. I don't know whether this is the ideal, but it allowed e to enjoy the tobacco and enjoy it I did. It is truly a wonderful blend. The dark fired Kentucky is just as sweet as can be and tempers the red Virginia wonderfully. This is an all day smoke that has not let me down at all. Whether I buy it again and go through the trouble of cutting it all up is still a question mark, but I am certainly enjoying it while I can.

I still have a number of tobaccos that I have been storing for awhile without opening. With the weather beginning to really turn it will soon be time to open one up and try something new. But I'm very pleased to have tried this tobacco and look forward to trying Pease's new plug tobacco that I assume will be on sale after it debuts in Chicago, where someday I hope to go for the show, but, alas, not this year.

Back to Burley

2011-04-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

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We have a wonderful woman who cleans our house once a week. But like every cleaning person we've ever employed she has a knack for taking the strangest things from their accustomed place and moving them to place where they will never be found. Or, more likely, they will be found totally by surprise when you're not looking for it.

I'm sure I've spoken about this tobacco before, but this week when I returned home after housecleaning day I found a half-used tin of C&D's Burley flake #1 sitting in the center of my desk. I'm not sure under what mound of papers it had been buried, but there it was beckoning me to take it up again, just as I had run out of what I had been smoking (which I don't remember anymore. See below.) Which is precisely what I did. In the course of that week I finished the tin and ran over to Holt's to purchase two more. I really love this stuff. I couldn't even wait to use the internet to safe the few dollars difference. Besides, as i may have said before, I like to "pay my dues" every now and then at Holt's for the great use that I make of the smoking lounge.

In regards to the parenthesis above. The reason I don't remember what i had been smoking before the Burley Flake is that weeks have gone by since I began working on this post. Funny how life gets in the way of blogging. Not only have I been insanely busy, but my attempt to conjure Spring out of Winter solely on the basis of the calendar just didn't work. After a few days of warmth winter returned to Philadelphia and hasn't really let go of its grip yet. Today was really the first morning I could sit outside and it is far from warm. But with the sun, fifty degrees is manageable. I know that during the deep of winter I managed to sit outside and regularly enjoy a pipe even when the temperatures were below freezing. But once the feeling of the warmth of that false Spring took hold of me, I just couldn't force myself to sit outside bundled in my winter coat anymore. I took a break. Besides, in addition to the cold, we've had an inordinate amount of precipitation and that makes things impossible. In hopeful that I am back and that real Spring is truly about to begin.

Meanwhile, to the extent that I could smoke, for instance on my various rides in the car to teach etc., I have gone back to the corn cob as my everyday smoke. Not that I didn't love the Rad Davis that I had been experimenting with smoking all the time. I did and will certainly smoke it and my other high-end pipes again when the mood strikes. But for everyday carrying around I just can't beat the cobs.

Finally, a word about the Jack Knife Plug that I mentioned last time. I can't say I've given it a fair trial. I've enjoyed the two or three bowls I've smoked, but the truth is, the inconvenience of having to cut off a plug has really been an impediment. Perhaps if I were smoking regularly then at least my evening pipe would provide me the relaxed opportunity of enjoying this form of tobacco. but for the rush of life it simply doesn't work. I am considering just sitting down tonight and slicing the whole can. Probably the best idea under the circumstances.

An Exciting New Tobacco

2011-02-23T14:45:00.000-08:00

I have had a couple of tins of this new tobacco from G.L. Pease for a few weeks, waiting for a good time to open one up. Today I could wait no longer. I have been very curious about the tobacco both from the perspective of its flavor and its form. I suppose it goes along perfectly with my decision to smoke like a curmudgeon (see below) to try a good old fashioned plug tobacco.

Here is the description of this new G.L. Pease tobacco offering:

JackKnife Plug - dark-fired Kentucky leaf and ripe red Virginia tobaccos, with their deep, earthy flavors, are layered on a central core of golden flue-cured for a hint of bright sweetness, then pressed and matured in cakes, and finally cut into 2oz blocks. Slice it thick and rub it out for a ribbon cut, thin for a shag, or chop it into cubes. The choice is yours.

So the first problem is cutting off a slice. I happen to carry a small pen knife on my key chain, and to tell you the truth, it was a chore for this knife. A real jack knife would be better. But I used what I had and managed to get a thin slice, maybe an eighth of an inch or a bit more, of the plug. Then the question of how to "prepare" the cut. I rub it a bit and it came out something like a thick shag with a little bit of the quality of a cube cut. Definitely not a pure ribbon. I was in a bit of a rush. The cut was enough to fill my Rad and throw the remainder into my empty pouch for another bowl full later in the day. Clearly, spending more time rubbing out and also measuring more exactly what I might need for a day or two of smoking is going to be a problem. The truth is this is not a convenient way to carry tobacco these days. Which, I guess, is the whole point. Could I wrap the plug into a pouch or even a sheet of wax paper, throw it into my pocket and cut a slice for every bowl full? Yes, but in some other world than I live in. So I imagine the tin will stay on my desk and I'll cut the occasional slice when I'm home and heading out to the backyard for a pipe.

As for the taste, it reminded me of my youth. this is what I conceive as an old fashioned American tobacco. No perique, no latakia, none of the fire-works of taste that I usually expect. Smooth and cool, easy to smoke day in and day out. But also, for that, a tad uninteresting in a pleasant sort of way. It is a quality blend that seems to me to achieve exactly what it is after and you may have to be sixty years old to appreciate what it is offering. Certainly full bodied and "manly" again in that old fashioned way. This tobacco reminded me of the first pipes of my youth with the great old American drugstore tobaccos before drugstore tobaccos was a derogatory term. I think I will smoke a lot of it and the fact that I keep it for home use and therefore can switch off to my more usual Vapers will be a perfect combination.

CURMUDGEON REPORT

I am now into my second week of smoking only my Rad Davis pipe. Keeping in mind that in this weather I rarely smoke more than two bowls a day, often one, and often with a day between with no smoking, and that I clean thoroughly after each smoke, this may not be a fair analysis. But I'll keep going and see where it leads.

Celebrate International Pipe Smoking Day!

2011-02-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

with thanks to A Passion For Pipes

Don't forget to raise a bowl today!

Evolution of a Curmudgeon

2011-02-16T18:48:00.001-08:00

What is a pipe smoking curmudgeon? Perhaps there is no official definition, so I will offer one. It doesn't have anything to do with a pipe smoker's personality. Rather, it has to do with the pipe smoker's attitude toward pipes. Specifically, a pipe smoker's attitude toward the socially accepted canons of pipe cleanliness and the preferred rotation of pipes.

Last year, as I tired of these canons I moved to the corn cob pipe as a way of avoiding them. I could smoke a cob all day and not think about it.
The pipe always seemed fresh, at least through three or four bowls which more than covered my usual daily needs. Even so, I developed a rotation of at least seven corn cobs yet still found myself standing before my pipe rack in the morning trying to remember which pipe to take today.

I continued my "Spring Training" of pipe smoking today. I grabbed my Rad Davis for the afternoon and smoked one bowl driving out to teach and one driving home. The pipe has fully passed its initiation stage and is just simply terrific. As I finished the second bowl I began to wonder about what it would be like to become what I am calling the pipe curmudgeon. That is, to go on smoking the Rad Davis bowl after bowl, day after day the way I image old time pipe smoker's, the curmudgeons of my title, did.

Of course, I know that eventually, and not to far off, the pipe would begin to reek and the exquisite satisfaction that I simply wanted to go on and on would disappear. But what if it could be different? What if the perfect pipe could simply go on and on?

What else are pipe dreams for?

Pitchers and Catchers Report

2011-02-13T07:52:00.001-08:00

Maybe it is just a coincidence, but as I enjoyed my morning tea this morning I began to feel the nearly forgotten urge to smoke a pipe and determined to do so. Not right at that moment, but after attending our morning service and with a couple of hours free before the web class I teach today, I wandered over to Rittenhouse Square to sit in the still cold weather and enjoy my first pipe of 2011. I chose the Peter Heeschen Blowfish not, surprisingly, one of my cobs, but you never know how these things work. For me, despite the fact that I was still bundled up and surrounded by ice and snow as you can see, this was the beginning of Spring training. As the weather warms, and it will if current predictions hold true this week, I will slowly begin to develop a regular routine again and, hopefully, find some semi-interesting things to blog about pipe-wise. Meanwhile, it is nice to be back and very nice to contemplate a season of sitting in my back yard again listening to the Phillies on the radio while smoking my pipe and enjoying what promises to be an historic season.

Winter Break

2011-01-13T11:40:00.000-08:00

Although I managed to keep smoking right up until the end of 2010, the weather has now beaten me. This happens every year. I can't go outside to smoke and difficulty of getting to Holt's during the work day just gets to be too much. I end up not smoking for a couple of days and once I do that the desire to smoke diminishes as well. Every year I take a winter break. Some warm day in March or April and I will suddenly feel the urge again and step out into my backyard to have a bowl. Once I do that I will be back to my usual two or three bowls a day until sometime around this time next year.

Meanwhile, I'm not saying I won't blog. As things of interest pop into my head I may very well. But as inconsistent as I am even during what I call the smoking season, imagine how inconsistent I will be over the next few months.

Restored Favorite and Upgraded Cobs

2010-12-31T04:00:00.000-08:00

My dealings with Walker Briar Works came to fruition. First, I received my signature pipe (see profile picture below.) What I call my Dunhill nose warmer. I've never seen another one so I don't know what the shape should be more properly called. The pipe is a shell briar measuring 4 1/2 inches with an oval shaped bowl. The identifying number is 4125 and if anyone can supply any interesting collector information I'd love to share it. I have always loved the pipe except for the fact that the air-hole was just too damn small. I tried to widen it myself a few months ago with a crude file and while I thankfully did not ruin the pipe irreparably, I stuffed it up good, couldn't clear it and knew it was going to have to go to a professional for assistance. As I have reported here, I recently found Walker's Briar Works and in addition to purchasing forever stems for my corn cobs and a nose warmer corn cob that I hadn't seen anywhere else, I sent Dave my Dunhill. While he had cautioned me that it could take a few months, when he received it and saw how little it would take to make it right, he did the work,sent it to me essentially by return mail. Within about 4 dyas the pipe had gone and returned with a wonderfully widened air flow. I am ecstatic.

My new "forever" stems also arrived quickly and I must say they are perfect. I ordered 6 of them and immediately transformed my rotation. Smoking the cobs without feeling the soft plastic crunching beneath my teeth was a pleasure and the acrylic presents the pipe so much more appealingly. Definitely a great find.

As is the Missouri Meerschaum nose warmer (with forever stem) that also arrived. It is a perfect nose warmer size and smokes very well.l

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I write during the week between Christmas and New Year's. I usually take this week off from work and this year managed to rent a lovely cabin in the Poconos to retreat to with Annie. We do not celebrate Christmas, but since it is our wedding anniversary we are (usually) in a festive spirit. This year marks 41 years. Hard to believe. The house is well apportioned with a front and rear porch so getting in a few bowlfuls a day will not be a problem.In fact the rear porch even has an outdoor gas heater, the kind the fancy restaurants use for outdoor seating in Philadelphia. Actually, so far I'm just as happy to go out dressed for the weather than to fiddle around with it, but I may just give it a try before the week is out. Of course with ten inches of snow predicted over night, it may be a couple of days before I venture out for a smoke. Below pictured is me on the porch. "And below that my very peaceful view.

My choice of tobacco for the week was Louisiana Red from the PipesandCigars.com Hearth and Home Series blended by Russ Ouellette. It is described as: "A great sweet and spicy blend containing two different Red Virginias and a good amount of outstanding St. James Perique. The rich, round sweetness of the Virginias are complimented by the plum and pepper hints of the cool-burning Perique. An overwhelming favorite of our local pipe club members." I've purchased it before and enjoyed it so grabbed the 4 ounce bag that I'd ordered for the trip. It frankly does not compare to either Exhausted Rooster or Riverboat Gambler by Cornell&Diehl and at first I was disappointed I hadn't reached for one of those instead. But I soon settled in and have enjoyed it through the week.

Out of paranoia I won't be posting this until after I get home; right. I shouldn't be advertising all over the web that we are away. So belatedly I wish you all a happy holiday season and a coming year of blessings and smoke rings.

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Cases

2010-12-22T07:06:00.000-08:00

In one of my last posts I showed a picture of my Corn cob rotation as the pipes sat nested in the wall rack that I'm using for them. One of the comments on that post was "nice rack." It kind of took me aback. I hadn't even been thinking about the rack when I took the picture, rather only about the pipes. I guess that's the way it is most of the time, but as any pipeman knows finding the right racks is an ongoing project. there are magnificent racks that are custom made by some fine artisans and I wish i could afford them. For average collectors like myself it has almost always been a matter of making do as I can with store bought racks. Even store bought racks of any value, with enough space for a growing collection, with the holes slotted the correct way to hold the numerous shapes of pipes that today no longer necessarily follow the traditional shape chart can not only be problematic, but expensive. So I realized that over the years I'd solved the problem somewhat creatively and serendipitously and I decided to focus on my racks and the stories behind them. This little essay does not count desk type racks. I have about 5 of those, holding 6 to 8 pipes that I've used over the years, but I'm not using presently and they are of less interest.

As my collection, in fact, began to overflow those aforementioned desk racks I began to consider something bigger and more pleasing for presenting the collection. After searching the web for a few minutes I knew that I had a problem. I couldn't afford what I wanted. So I envisioned what I wanted and went searching for a way to make it. Keep in mind that unlike many in the pipe community, I have no manual skills whatsoever. The idea of heading to the lumber yard and starting from scratch was ludicrous. Instead I headed for the used furniture/thrift shops and after a little while found an old cabinet with glass sliding doors that I thought would do the trick. I bought it for probably $20 and lugged it to my friend's house who is manually skilled and he helped me put in some thin boards to create a slant instead of affixing the pipes to the deep, straight back cabinet walls. We also sanded it down and re-painted it. It was now ready to accept the pipes. The question of how to affix the pipes vexed me for awhile until I visited an old fashioned pipe store that looked like the cigar boom and everything else had passed it by. I got to talking with the proprietor and turns out he had a load of the little rubber-like clasps that old fashioned pipe stores always used to affix the pipes to display boards. I bought a bag-full of them and my problem was solved. I screwed them in at various angles to accept various shaped pipes and the pipe case pictured below emerged. The only problem left was that this cabinet was either intended to be affixed to the wall -which I wasn't going to do- or rest on a table -which I didn't have. So I began another search and found a lovely floor unit painted the same color that I had painted my case and had two shelves behind doors in the front and two side doors with corner shelves. Perfect for storing tobacco, pipe books and assorted paraphernalia. As you can see, since I've shrunk my collection I have been able to move some of my tins of "cellaring" tobaccos up into one of the main areas for display.

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Not too long after getting the case up and operating, I ran out of room. At the same time an old friend and venerable Philadelphia pipe smoker named Herschel Barron reached the age when he had to de-acquisition. Actually only a few months before he passed (at a ripe old age I must say) he gave me this double row wall rack that I featured because I now use it for my cobs. In addition to the sentimental value that Hershel's memory invokes this rack is also special because it really wasn't in very great shape when he gave it to me. So my lovely wife Annie the artist refinished it and added the pipe and tobacco themed collage that adorns it. I wouldn't think of not using it.

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But lovely as it is, it doesn't compare to the cabinet below that Annie surprised me with for my birthday a few years later. She commissioned it from a young man who does beautiful wood working. Then a student and member of my congregation the cabinet is flat out gorgeous. It rests on a large file cabinet that I keep near my desk and is directly across the corridor from both of the other cases described above.

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Finally, the cabinet below. Cruising around ebay one day I came upon it for a ridiculously low price and had to have it. I probably didn't need this much more room for my collection, and now that I have been de-acquisitioning myself I must admit its largely empty. But what pipe smoker could resist a beautiful Sherlock Holmes pipe cabinet? I couldn't.

What are the stories your cases hold?

Pouch Mixtures

2010-12-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

I'm sure someone has written about this before, but I don't remember seeing anything so here goes. A few days ago, as I prepared to leave my house in the morning and chose my pipe for the day and went to fill my pouch, I realized that I had a small amount of Exhausted Rooster left in the pouch (but none in the tin) and a small amount of tobacco left in my tin of Katerini Classic. (Despite this occurring on Hanukah I did not expect that either small amount would last the day, let alone the week.) Separately there was not enough to get me through the day, but together there would be. In my growing phase of non-obsessiveness regarding pipe smoking I dumped the remaining Katerini Classic into the pouch, shook them together for a couple of seconds and...presto...a new, never to be repeated blend was born. Call it Exhausted Katerini, or what you like, but it smoked very nicely and tasted pretty darn good. The heavier VaPor mixed with the Orientals worked just fine. I suppose I should have paid more attention to the proportions and other relevant information for repeating the experiment or even creating a personal blend, but half the fun was the serendipity of the whole thing. I'll settle for just waiting for the next time the situation presents itself and hoping for similar results.

I expect to receive my first package from Walker Briar Works today. That will be my cob nose warmer and my new pipe stems. Looking forward to trying those out. Meanwhile, I sent my Dunhill to Dave at Walker to widen the air-flow and he finished it the day he received it for an incredibly modest price. That package is already in the mail and I should have it tomorrow or Friday. Reports to follow.

Lastly, having finished up some tins (see above) I bought another C&D blend, Riverboat Gambler. Lo and behold! It is a Virginia perique blend with "the exotic taste of Turkish leaf"! Sounds a lot like mixing Exhausted Rooster with Katerini. Well, its better than that. The main taste impression in this one is precisely Exhausted Rooster but with something subtlety and deliciously different. This is no mistake blend. It melds together all the flavors I most enjoy and, at least for now, is my regular, C&D have really got that Virginia Perique mixture down pat.

I had a chance to show it off, along with my Peter Heeschen Blowfish at the Christopher Morley Pipe meeting last night. One of the most pleasant meetings I can remember, for no particular reason except perhaps that the temperature was 20 degrees outside and I started my meal with a very nice Manhattan. As usual I wat next to George Amram from whom I always learn something about pipes and tobacco (see todays A Passion For Pipes post.) I am also excited by the tentative plans we made to go up for the next meeting of the New York Pipe Club, which so far my schedule amazingly permits. Though because of this blog some of the guys knew of my new passion for Cobs, I mostly bring a nice briar or two for use at the meetings. Don't want to forsake them entirely, after all. The Heeschen smoked really well, by the way.

The Benefits of the Fraternity of the Briar (or cob)

2010-12-10T03:55:00.000-08:00

With temperatures dipping into the 20's and a few canceled appointments freeing up some afternoon time I trucked over to Holt's for an afternoon bowl or two yesterday. Just after I settled in a gentleman sat down next to me saying he wanted to sit next to the pipe smoker. As he sat down and unwrapped his cigar he mentioned that he preferred pipes but never traveled with them. I smiled and said he should consider a corn cob if he was worried about losing or breaking a pipe. He said he had a few and we began talking. Usually the cigar smokers at Holt's really don't know much about pipes, about collecting, about brands and artisans or about tobaccos. This gentleman, Robert, knew his stuff and we spent a good hour intelligently discussing our collecting habits, different pipe shops (his vendor of choice was Cup O'Joes ) and we meandered on to the subject of pipe repairs. I mentioned my Dunhill Shell whose air hole was too tight and how I'd clogged it entirely by trying to fix it myself. Robert suggested that I check out Walker's Briar Works . I did that and what a wonderful surprise. Not only do they repair pipes, but they also specialize in selling Missouri Meerschaum pipes and make hand worked acrylic and vulcanite stems for them! They are called Forever Stems and certainly solve the ever present problem with corn cobs: the quick deterioration of the stems. I called Dave at Walker's and had a very pleasant conversation. I told him about my dissatisfaction with my Dunhill airhole and he assured me he could fix it. I sent it off this morning. While on his website I ordered a number of Forever Stems for the corn cobs I use most and ordered a Missouri Meerschaum nose-warmer that I had not seen anywhere else. All from a friendly conversation at the pipe store (where I bought a couple of tins of tobacco which I do from time to time, as opposed to buying off the web, to "pay my dues" for the luxory of having a place to go and smoke.

Anonymous Cob

2010-12-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

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I'm wondering if anyone out there might have some information about this pipe. I bought it in an estate sale, I don't remember which catalog, maybe as long as 20 years ago. It has no visible identification. It is a corn cob, but has a bamboo shank and an acrylic stem with a permanent metal filter attached to the stem, rather than the soft plastic stem and wooden shank of a Missouri Meerschaum. Anyone know who might have made a more sophisticated cob than Missouri Meerschaum back in the day?

So Far So Good

2010-12-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

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The temperature has plummeted for sure, but the wind has been tolerable and the skies mostly clear, so smoking out in the backyard has been ok once or twice a day. And the occasional visit to Holt's helps. I have not had much to write about other than the fact that I continue my devotion to cob pipes. I have gone back to Exhausted Rooster as my everyday tobacco and really can't say enough about how much I enjoy it. Given the weather I don't want to open too many tins that won't get used quick enough to keep them fresh despite a fantastic post on how to do exactly that on Neil Archer Roan's Passion For Pipes blog.

Cob Society

2010-11-05T14:12:00.001-07:00

I recently discovered that I am not alone in my infatuation with the corn cob. Scott, over at Aristocob celebrates and sells Missouri Meerschaum pipes while in quest of the rare Aristocob pipe, which is a weird metal stem to which a screw in cob is affixed. It doesn't do much for me, but to each their own. Meanwhile Scott produces a number of wonderful videos about corn cobs. Here's a saqmple:

Also he is running a video contest during November, which is apparently Corn Cob Pipe Month. Check out his blog in the side panel.

Baby It's Cold Outside

2010-11-04T06:29:00.000-07:00

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It begins with wearing long sleeves. Then I move on to a sweatshirt, then a light-weight jacket, then a medium weight jacket. This week I sat out in the back yard in my heavy winter jacket (not yet my really heavy coat)and winter hat. The temperature was in the high thirties, there was no wind to speak of and it was actually lovely. But the frost is coming and pipe-smoking weather is on its way out. There will be days ahead in the coming months when, except for occasionally being able to get over to Holt's during the day (which I might add also gets harder as my work schedule heats up at the same time)I will likely be smoking no more than a bowl a day and sometimes not that. For a few days this will really annoy me, and then I will settle in and wait for spring.

From a pipe smoker's point of view the only real problem this presents is choosing tobaccos. I need to finish off open tins and be more judicious with what I open knowing that it will take longer to finish and that therefore maintaining the freshness of the tobacco become an issue that doesn't exist when I know I will finish a tin, even when alternating among a few brands, in the course of two weeks or so. I will be paying more attention to the humidifying agents. After years of using those little black disks soaked in distilled water, I have switched to the humidifying packets that are sold to put in cigar bags. I'm not convinced of their efficacy, but given the seasonal smoking habits they have not been truly tested. We'll find out over the next few months.

A Depressing Thought

2010-11-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

If you're already having a bad day, skip this post and come back to it some other time. Perhaps when you're afraid that the pure bliss of enjoying a sublime tobacco in precisely the right pipe with the perfect glass of scotch in the company of the perfect companion will bring bad luck and you need to burst the ballon.

I live and work in Center City Philadelphia. That is the commercial heart of the city as well as being remarkably residential for an urban area. Therefore when one walks the streets one is not only in the company of working people, mostly visitors from the suburbs, shoppers from the same far flung wildernesses and tourists -- but also in the company of real life people who live here and are going about their daily business. They are running errands, going to the library, dropping off and picking up their kids from school. But there is no school today as it is election day. So there are more than the usual number of people walking around town with their kids. These people are likely not city dwellers, but suburbanites in for the day since the kids are off from school.

Twice today, I repeat, twice today I walked past family groups -- I didn't pay enough attention to them to remember if there were two parents or one or even how many kids made up the group. But in each case as I walked past I suddenly felt drilled and turned to see a young child staring at me in disbelief and even as I was passing I could see the words forming on his or her lips and I could hear the words from behind: "Mommy what is that? What does that man have in his mouth? "Obviously, a dragon-like smoke breathing man, honey." No, that wasn't the answer. I didn't hear the answer, but I was simply shocked to realize that there is likely an entire generation of children (these kids weren't toddlers) who simply could not identify a smoking pipe.(And the answer most likely sounded something like, that is a very very bad thing...)It really depressed me. Always happy to share.

Corn Cob Wisdom

2010-11-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

So it has been some months since I have been smoking almost exclusively corn cob pipes. Since few people in the literate pipe community have apparently ever done so, there is really a dearth of information/insight into the vagaries of such. Most people just assume that there is nothing to it and that since these pipes are so inexpensive their care and handling is not an issue. Perhaps there are dedicated corn cobbers out there who know better, but they don't seem to have a voice in the literature. Where angels fear to tred...I step in.

As with any information about pipes one must state at the outset that it is highly subjective. Each person's experience is likely to be different. But having said that, we all know that, in the main, the subjective musings of pipe people tend to be the same, so what is touted as being subjective is actually relatively close to being objective. Get it? OK.

We begin where all pipe advice begins: How to select a corn cob pipe? There is only one brand of corn cob of any worth, and usually only one brand for sale, but just in case, check that you are buying a genuine Missouri Meerschaum. There is a wide variety of styles to choose from.I have been alternating between "The Country Gentleman," "The Diplomat," and "The General." The latter should not be confused with the famous "MacArthur" which is similar but much longer - Churchwarden proportions. I have one of these too, but rarely smoke it. I choose only the natural corn cob. There are some that are treated with a sort of plaster of paris solution to harden and smoothen the outside, but I prefer the natural look.

Next we move on to: Breaking in a corn cob. Most people will tell you there is no such thing. They'd be wrong. Certainly the pipe smokes fine from the beginning and requires no breaking-in in the sense that a briar pipe does. However, corn cobs come with a wooden shank that connects between the mouthpiece and the bowl. The part of the shank that extends in to the bowl will give off a taste of burning wood when you smoke that first bowl down to the bottom. There's not much you can do about this. I don't have a clue why it goes away after the third or fourth bowl, but it does. So just suck it up.

Next comes:Caring for your corn cob. Again, popular wisdom would tell you that there is no such thing. Again, not true. First of all, Missouri Meerschaum's come equipped with a medico filter. When I was young I would remove these and smoke without them thinking that was more macho. Stupid. The filter not only cools the smoke, it keeps the mouthpiece clean thereby eliminating the need for pipe cleaners. I know there are those who will say: Yech! but the truth is I have found it to be true. On the other hand I have also found that each filter only lasts for about three bowls and then should be replaced. Furthermore, one should not smoke a corn cob for more than six bowls in a day despite changing the filter in between (actually I'd recommend no more than four). Then it should be rested for a few days so that the inside of the bowl can thoroughly dry. If not, you will regret it. Thus, I have expanded my rotation of corn cobs to six pipes and can adequately get through the week.

Regarding the filters. There are two main brands: Medico and Doctor Grabow. Though the pipes come with the former I have found the latter to be more easily available, but that may be just a local concern. I have also found some evidence that the Medico filters last longer, but I have not pushed them beyond the three pipe limit.

Finally, the mouthpieces are made of very soft plastic. I happen to be a biter, but even if you're not and even when I try not to be, it doesn't take too long until the mouthpiece is completely collapsed. I wouldn't be surprised if this is why most people toss their pipes long before there is any problem with their smoking quality, which as far as I can tell so far is infinite. Not to worry. The above cited Missouri Meerschaum website sells replacement stems. They are exceedingly inexpensive - .25 I believe. I've purchased about 30 and I'm probably set for life.

So smoke and enjoy!

Rad Davis Arrives

2010-10-29T11:58:00.001-07:00

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So there it is, my new Rad Davis purchased with funds from my latest pipe shearing via smokingpipes.com. It is a lovely pipe and after two smokes I would definitely count its smoking properties as excellent. It is, of course, still in the breaking-in stage as well as the honeymoon stage, but it has much promise. That said, despite the excellence of my front line collection, I just can't get away from my new obsession with corn cobs. But I am trying to work through my rotation, perhaps one smoke a day in wood. but I just can't justify taking any briars with me on the outside when smoking the cobs is so much more convenient and I don't have to worry about smoking one bowl right after another, for instance. However, in that regard, I have begun to learn something of the idiosyncrasies of corn cob pipes and I intend to devote my next post to that subject.

Its The Tobacco, Stupid

2010-10-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

I purchased my first pipe when I was 16 years old. I am almost 62 years old. Although math has never been my strong suite, I believe that comes to about 42 years. It has taken until the last few months until I finally understood that the point of smoking a pipe is the tobacco. This may seem a little unbelievable, believe me I was pretty surprised at this realization also, but the truth is that I bet many pipe smokers think the point of smoking a pipe is the pipe. that's what I always thought implicitly, though I had never quite articulated it. However, once articulated, its falsity is almost immediately apparent. Of course, this probably accounts for the fact that over those 42 years I had collected over 135 pipes, not counting the ones I'd lost or jettisoned along the way. But a few months ago, for no apparent conscious reason, when smoking began to go blah and my usual instinct would have been to buy an expensive pipe, I switched instead to a corncob, added only three more in the following weeks in order to give them a bit of rest, and have concentrated as never before on what I put in the pipe rather than on the pipe I put it in. I have recorded some, though not all, of my ongoing tobacco experimentation and I can say without doubt that concentrating on the tobacco rather than on the pipe has significantly heightened my pleasure.

Concentrating on the pipe is in a different category altogether. The pipe is, or can be, a work of consummate art or handiwork. I have several that are stunning and a lot more that are wonderfully serviceable and aesthetically pleasing. I've also discovered (and I know I'm not the first, but if after all these years the consequences of the discovery hadn't fully been assimilated for me then I assume others are in the same place) that briar pipes first, impact the taste of the tobacco without question, and second, carry the taste of one tobacco into another used in the same pipe. I have not found this to be true of corncobs and I'm told that it is not true of meerschaums, but I have an aesthetic allergy to meerschaums. And its not just types of tobacco that I am talking about, like Orientals, or Virginias or aromatics etc. Even, and perhaps especially, when one tends to smoke the same type of tobacco the nuances of difference between two or three tobaccos may be lost because of the pipe. Unquestionably, then, one should restrict each pipe to a particular tobacco! This is economically unfeasible. Except with pipes that are remarkably inexpensive like corncobs, where in any case the problem does not seem to be as significant since they don't retain the previous flavor. Thus, my solution of moving almost exclusively to corncobs while still collecting on a small scale and smoking on an occasional basis pipes that I love for their aesthetics.

This has resulted in my having sold off over sixty pipes in the last few months. I've purchased two pipes that I really love out of the cash I've garnered this way while making a sizable contribution to next summer's vacation fund. I've previously described the beautiful Peter Heeschen pipe and will in a next post describe the Rad Davis that I just purchased.

Peter Heeschen

2010-09-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

A number of miscellaneous topics to cover this afternoon, but the big news is that I finally heard from smokingpipes.com yesterday and was exceedingly pleased with their offer for the thirty estate pipes I sent to them last month. It was more than I ever expected. I was able to choose a new pipe at a level I never would otherwise have spent and still ask for the rest back in cash and get a substantial check that can go toward more essential things than pipes. I am very pleased and heartily recommend doing business with them if you are looking to pare your collection in order to buy new pipes or not.

So, I chose a sandblast blow fish from Denmark's Peter Heeschen. I forgot to capture the picture before it was removed from the web site, so I'll have to wait until it arrives and take my own photo and put it up. But it looks delicious and I can't wait to try it out.

UPDATE: HERE IS MY PHOTO! not great, but you get the idea.

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Even though, except for one night last week when I took a couple of trusty briars to the pipe club meeting, I'm still smoking corn cobs only. this too will, no doubt, pass. But they are very convenient and right now, at least, feel no motivation to go back to my regular rotation. The new pipe will be an exception and, who knows, may lead me back to my briars.

On the tobacco front, I finished the tin of Venice Agonya and decided to take a break from the McClellands. I opened the C&D Burley Flake #1 which I think is delicious but much stronger than I expected. So much so that I can only smoke it occasionally and after a good meal. Then I opened a tin of 2 Daughters Ramback which I find perfect for all day smoking.

New McClelland and New Cornell&Diehl

2010-09-15T08:41:00.001-07:00

I ended up being pretty satisfied with the Samsun blend in the McClelland Grand Oriental series once I'd switched to the corn cob pipe. For whatever reason I haven't been able to go back to a briar since, though I've long finished the tin of Samsun. Perhaps it is the ease of just picking up the pipe and smoking it without having to give any thought to what I feel like smoking. I do sometimes get overwhelmed by choice on the one hand and bored of my pipes on the other. Coupled with the tremendous pressure of this holiday season for me, not having to think about which pipe or pipes to take with me in the morning is a blessing. And if I expect to smoke more than 2 or 3 bowls, I just grab a filter and change it appropriately and the pipe smokes as good as new. I did buy two more and can at least rest them for a day or two, but it is hardly necessary. So I am (I'm sure very temporarily) a confirmed corn cob pipe smoker!

So after the Samsun I moved on to Venice Agonya which I find not too dissimilar to it. I've finished about half the tin and neither of these tobaccos are going to threaten my earlier favorites, but they are enjoyable enough. Today, however, I really needed a break from this diet of orientals. So I opened a recently procured tin of a new blend from Cornell&Diehl: Burley Flake #1. I haven't smoked a plain Burley blend for years, though years ago I smoked them plenty. It is a very nice change and just what I needed. It is a blend of dark burley and red Virginia with a bit of Perique. What more could you ask for? Rich and deep but far from overpowering. The spiciness of the Perique comes through very well, and the Virginia is very well tamed by the burley to provide a cool, spicy smoke.

On To Classic Samsun

2010-09-06T14:33:00.001-07:00

I "burned" through Katerini Classic in no time. I really loved it and it may emerge as my chief reward for sampling this wonderful McClelland series. Not that I haven't loved and/or like the other blends. Now I am on to Classic Samsun and, I must admit, it was slow going at first. It is a very different tobacco; heavier and sweeter at the same time, and really took some getting used to. In fact, I almost gave up on it and threw in the tin until the urge came over me one afternoon at Holt's to buy one of the new pipes in the natural series by Missouri Meershaum. That's right, a good, old fashioned corn cob pipe. I sometimes get in the mood and I had read something about their new series in which they were not applying the outer coating toi smooth over the cob and I thought I'd try it. So I lit it up with the Classic Samsun and what a difference. The second half of the tin, which I've smoked only in the corn cob, has been wonderful. Why is this? I've deduced that, for whatever reason, this particular tobacco does not mix well with whatever has been in a pipe previously. Is this possible? Perhaps someone out there can tell me. But experientially I have no doubt.

From Drama to Katerini Classic

2010-08-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

A brief report. Last night was the August meeting of the Christopher Morley Pipe Club in Philadelphia. I had to go to a meeting that I'd hoped would be finished by 8PM but which didn't finish until after 9. I walked over to the meeting anyway, feeling much in the need of a nice indoor smoke. Everyone was still there when I arrived, but due to the hour, almost everyone was soon gone. Thankfully a couple of members apparently had nowhere to go and kept me good company until near 11 PM including Hank Saatchi who is a great pipe seller on ebay (Ebuyer1932)and who is suppposed to list a few of the pipes he was showing last night, today. I had a fine if belated time.

I was smoking my first bowl of Katerini Classic in my journey through McClelland's Grand Oriental series. I finished my tin of Drama and have to say it was only so-so. Nothing to compare with either Yenidje Supreme or Smyrna No.1, which remains my favorite. But I am very impressed with Katerini. Very distinctive flavor, mild but strangely rich and lasting. I have a way to go in the tin, but I'm looking forward to it.

Still waiting for word on my pipes from smokingpipes.com. Anxiously!

Drama Reserve

2010-08-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

I sadly said goodbye to my tin of Smyrna #1 and have about a pipeful or two left of Vendije Supreme. These have been wonderful companions for the last couple of weeks. And don't worry, I've already stocked up on them in my cellar. But for now, it is time to move on to another one or two of the tins in McClelland's Grand Oriental series that I am trying out. this afternoon I opened a tin of Drama Reserve. It is early to give a full report. this tobacco came highly recommended by a friend as being the best of the series. I wouldn't say that...yet. It was very good. Not that different from Smyrna #1, but perhaps a bit deeper in taste. My love of these Orientals certainly puts it at an automatic advantage and I don't expect to not like it. But a fuller exploration and final placement in the smoking order will have to wait.

Meanwhile I have received as a gift a rather large tin, 8 ounces, of Canvasback Decoy by The Bufflehead Shop. this is a Virginia-Perique blend that is apparently no longer available from a shop that is, to the best of my knowledge, no longer in existence. I did some preliminary web searching for both and from what I've found the are both extinct. The reviews on tobaccoreviews.com suggest both that it is no longer available and that it is a worthwhile smoke, though not extraordinary. In any case, I'm happy to have it to try, though I won't get to it for awhile. And glad to be able to mention tobaccoreviews.com. If you haven't checked it out, you should.

Finally, I wait with great expectation word from smokingpipes.com regarding the disposition of the pipes I sent for evaluation. No word yet, but that was to be expected.

Thinning The Herd

2010-07-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

I own between 125 and 130 pipes. I tried to make an inventory once but its been awhile so my count is inaccurate. I actually smoke about 20 of said pipes on a regular basis, and another 5 to 10 on occasion. Some I smoke only when I have an extended opportunity because they are lovely but too large. Others just as the mood hits me, for instance I own 5 or 6 beautiful meershaum pipe that I smoke very infrequently. But there are a good 75 pipes that I haven't smoked in years and have no intention of smoking for one reason or another. Yesterday, 30 of those pipes were packed up and readied for shipment to smokingpipes.com for evaluation, and hopefully sale.Of all the methods of selling estate pipes this struck me as the best. I'm certainly not interested in cleaning and freshening-up the pipes myself to sell on ebay. Smokingpipes.com offers a much easier way of doing business as well as either 30% of their expected sales price or 50% if taken as trade credit, which is what I expect to do. They say it takes about two weeks, so wish me luck and I'll let you know how it goes. Hopefully I will able to report on the acquisition of a new pipe or two (or three or four?)with my credit.

Let The Good Times Roll

2010-07-23T06:32:00.000-07:00

What else are vacations for but overdosing blog posts and spending a lot of time thinking about and, more importantly, enjoying pipes and tobacco? So I'm back again having produced more posts this week than in the previous number of months.

What brings me back?

G&P Chelsea Morning. It is actually strange, but after years and years of essentially being a one-tobacco-at-a-time guy, sometimes the same tobacco for years, I've morphed into a compulsive taster. I actually blame this, somehow, on A Passion for Pipes the fabulous blog by Neil Archer Roan. Don't ask me to explain that, it just is so. Anyway, having read in various places about Greg Pease's new tobacco I couldn't resist picking up a tin last time I was at Holt's and cracked it open last night after a nice heavy meal. Let me say again that I am not a Latakia man. I hadn't smoked a blend with Latakia in it in probably 40 years since I first tried Balkan Sobranie and didn't like it. As reader's of the blog may remember, I broke that ban back a few months ago with a tin of Pease's Maltese Falcon. I still have a few of those and smoke it very judiciously. I like it very much, but in small doses. Chelsea Morning is another Latakia blend. I have to say I like it even better. While I don't think I'm yet ready to say that I would smoke it regularly, I can say that I will smoke it more regularly than any other Latakia blend, including Maltese Falcon. The flavor is truly brilliant and it passes the highest test I have for any tobacco: An hour after the smoke does the lingering taste in one's mouth begin to cry out to be replenished by a bowl of the same. The two blends that have passed this test this week are Chelsea Morning and Smyrna No. 1. The latter is still out ahead by quite some distance.

All of which put me in mind of reflecting on this Golden Age of tobacco that we are living in. How long can it last? What will those of us who may live to see it come to an end do after that? Should we be stocking up? Hoarding? Or what is politely called Cellaring? I'm loath to fall into that, but I'm beginning to think that if I allow this rampant experimentation to go on for awhile, just long enough to identify, say, four or five blends that I don't want to face the possibility of living without, then maybe I'll start buying those 2 tins at a time and in a disciplined way smoke from one and cellar the second. But for how long? How many tins doth a fully stocked cellar make?

Along those lines I bring to your attention the following article from Pipesmagazine.com. On the subject of the current embarrassment of tobacco riches

Check out the full article here in which the following lines appear:

Truthfully, I am overwhelmed by the embarrassment of riches of all these blends. I don’t know how many more masterpieces I can take from these blenders, especially McClelland, but also other blenders like GLP & C&D. I want time to enjoy the awesome blend I just discovered, to get to know it more intimately. I don’t want to hurry to the next masterpiece, then the next, in a decadent orgy of tobacco consumption

Finally, chapter 3 of Pipe Smoking 101. this is the last chapter I will embed. Those interested in continuing the course should go to the site.

Club Night

2010-07-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, last night was the July meeting of the Christopher Morley Pipe Club at the Pen&Pencil Club in Philadelphia. A small turnout, perhaps because of the season or because Wednesday nights appear to be less popular than Thursday's. Still, a fine time, with pleasant conversation regarding pipes, tobaccos, and a million other things from 1950's TV to current politics. And a full three pipe evening for me.

I was fortunate enough to have received my Steve Linskey pipe and was able to break it in at the meeting, alternating with the new Becker. The first smoked really fine from the first bowl and promises to be a real keeper. The second continues to impress.

I also broke open yet another tin, this time of McClelland's Smyrna No. 1. The second in the Grand Orientals Series. Stunning. As much as I'm enjoying the first tin just recently opened of Venidje Supreme, this tobacco is positively intoxicating. It really does put everything else I've been smoking into a far second place. Now, of course, in addition to alternating between these two, I will have to acquire the other tobaccos in this series just to check them out.

Finally, enjoy part two of Pipe Smoking 101.

Pipe Smoking 101

2010-07-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share this series of instructional videos, adding one of the seven every couple of posts. Enjoy, or go to Smokingpipetobacco.com to check it out

Turkish Delights

2010-07-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

What an unusual confluence of events! I have always enjoyed Turkish tobacco; it has been my favorite second only to Perique, and possibly ahead of it. However, finding good Turkish blends has been difficult. One occasionally finds a strong Latakia blend, like Bombay Extra, flavored with Orientals, including Turkish, but I've always found the Turkish flavor disappears after the tin has been opened for a few days. Now, a veritable cornucopia! In the very same (last) issue of Pipes&Tobaccos Magazine there was a review of Daughters & Ryan Ramback and a feature article on McClelland's new series of Oriental blends. I have mentioned earlier my impressions of Ramback.

This morning I couldn't resist opening my tin of Venidje Supreme. I now have too many tins open, which worries me, but I've become more conscientious about keeping them well humidified and, hopefully, long lasting. So sitting in my backyard with a mug of tea I enjoyed my first bowl in my Brian Ruthenberg

nosewarmer. Interestingly, the first impression was very much the same as the Ramback. Distinctive Turkish flavor, a bit hot to begin with and then settled down into a very flavorful smoke, almost the same flavor truth be told. However, after the half-way point in the bowl I would have to say that the Venidje Supreme stayed a bit cooler and richer to the end. For anyone who enjoys Turkish tobacco either of these blends will make comfortable companions. For me you can't beat these as early smokes before turning to Vapors or Latakia blends later in the day. As I still have only found Daughters & Ryan available in 16 oz bags and the McClelland is now pretty much available in every shop and on every web site I visit, it will be both easier to find and less of a commitment to buy.

New Pipes

2010-07-15T04:19:00.000-07:00

Feeling like it was time to freshen up my collection and my rotation of pipes, and taking advantage of a 50% off sale at Holt's and then a very low price from a new and obscure pipe maker I've added two new pipes. Below is the pipe by a well-known pipe maker, Paulo Becker, procured at half price from Holt's. It is a tad longer than an official nosewarmer, but is pretty close. Call it an opera pipe, it is a lovely shape, so far smokes terrifically well and is a much needed short smoke in the rotation.

The two shots below are of the Stephen Liskey Sandblasted Dublin Nosewarmer that I am still awaiting delivery of. It looks to be a beut and expands my now more than respectable collection of nosewarmers. I''m really looking forward to trying this one out.

Daughters and Ryan

2010-07-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

It has been a few weeks since I received my 14 ounce bags of Rimboche A.P. and Ramback from Daughters and Ryan tobaccos. I had the hardest time finding these tobaccos on any of the usual internet sites and when I found it on Pipes and Cigars.com I bought it despite the humungous amount I had to buy. I was definitely betting on liking this stuff. Thankfully, I have not been disappointed. I am enjoying both tobaccos immensely.

First there is the pure Turkish, Ramback. this has become my everyday smoke. It is particularly good in the hot summer weather when other tobaccos might be a little too strong or heavy. Sitting in my back yard in nearly 100 degree heat, it smokes as cool as you'd like and offers a light taste just perfect for the occasion. I have always loved Turkish tobaccos and I probably would have liked this to be a little darker and full-flavored, but it has been perfect for the season. On the other hand, inspired by a renaissance of interest in Orientals, I also purchased 2 of the 5 new McClelland tins in the their new Grand Orientals series. I bought Smyrna No, 1 and Venidje Supreme when I was last in New York and Barclay-Rex tobacconists, neither of which has been opened yet, but that will be another story. Meanwhile, in addition to smoking the Ramback, I also experimented with using it for a bit of blending. I cut about a 50-50 mixture of G.L. Pease's Maltese Falcon with the Ramback and created a Latakia blend that I can smoke regularly. Not usually much of a Latakia fan, this mixture provides a perfect full-bodied smoke once every couple of days after a good dinner. So, believe it or not, my 14 ounce bag of tobacco is definitely not going to go to waste.

Second, we have the Rimboche A.P. A.P. stands for Arcadian Perique, certainly the thing that Mark Ryan is most famous for, having almost singlehandedly rescued Perique, my favorite tobacco, from becoming extinct. This is a lovely VaPer blend that has a sweet and light flavor that deepens as you smoke it. Since I regularly smoke VaPers anyway, and this is most certainly a good one, smoother than the C&D Red Carpet that I had been smoking, the large amount of my purchase will also end up being ok. My only problem is that I don't want to open up too many tins at once, so the McClelland's will have to wait awhile.

Going back to my mention of New York, let me give you a few more relevant details. I had an early morning meeting there so took the Bolt Bus and arrived and 8:30 AM. After my meeting, at about 10:30, I went book shopping, successfully, I might add. After that I met my son and daughter-in-law for lunch at the 2nd Avenue Deli. The perfect meal preceding a good pipe. The restaurant is on 31st and Lexington, an easy walk to Barclay-Rex to see if they had a comfortable place to sit and enjoy a pipe. (The temperature/humidity did not recommend sitting in Bryant Park, say, though I would have had it been necessary.) They do not have a lounge in that store, but I spied the new McClelland blends that I had just read about it P&T magazine, so I bought a couple of cans as described above and continued on to Nat Sherman's to make use of their smoking lounge. The store has moved since last I visited and is smaller, but still has an adequate area for smokers. I was approached by an associate as soon as I entered and I asked if it was ok to sit and have a pipe. He said sure and ushered me back. Unfortunately, a few minutes later, a different associate came over and made it clear that in the future I would have to purchase my tobacco at the store in order to smoke there. Then the first associate came back and apologized saying, things were not as they had been in the past. Well, first of all, I was entirely prepared to buy something if necessary, which is why I asked to begin with. It wa rather rude to accost me after the fact. Second, it would be much easier to purchase something if Nat Sherman sold any tobacco other than their own blends. Their blends may be great, but I have limited resources and would have wanted something I knew more about if I had to buy something. And if they do sell other tobaccos in tins I certainly didn't see them. But what the hell. I was in. Enjoyed a perfectly luxurious bowl sitting next to a guy who belonged to the New York Pipe Club (sorry, didn't get his name) who regaled me with stories of the Chicago show. Left just in time to catch my bus back to Philly. Perfect day out.

Where Does the Time Go?

2010-06-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

Has it really been almost three months since I've posted? Well, yes it has. I have been busy with work and lots of other things including caring for my wife who had both her knees replaced not long after my last post. Must say that I nice relaxing pipe at the end of the day after she was down for the night was a great help in getting through. She is still recovering but becoming more and more independently mobile by the day.

I have not been in the market for new pipes, but I continue to develop my previously under-developed appreciation for different tobaccos. After years of being a one tobacco man, typically changing blends slowly after a few years and then staying with one for a long time, I've become much more adventurous. true, I mostly stay with Virginia-Perique blends, but there are almost a lifetime's worth of those to try and more appearing each week.

I've just ordered two new blends. One is a VaPer the other is not. They are both from Daughters & Ryan Tobacco. The VaPer is called Rimboche A.P. and the other, a pure Turkish tobacco, is called Ramback. Both were well reviewed in the most recent issue of Pipes and Tobaccos magazine. I will report on them as soon as they arrive and have been sampled.

Club Night

2010-03-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

Finally the stars aligned and my schedule and the Christopher Morley Pipe club's schedule aligned and I was able to attend my first meeting since last fall. Or was it summer? Either way a long time ago. We had quite a nice crowd and I really enjoyed myself. The conversations ranged from movies to family and, of course, pipes and tobaccos. I brought my burgeoning collection of nose-warmers to show off and received a lot of good feedback. The Askwith Morta received the most attention. There was much talk of the recent NY Pipe Show and the upcoming Chicago Show. Someday I hope to be able to arrange things to get to the Chicago show. A few of the guys had exquisite pipe pouches made by Whitewood Leather company. The are made of various exotic skins and look and feel fantastic. Definitely on my list to look into in the future. It is always a real pleasure to spend the night over a couple of beers, smoking contentedly and unmolested, while learning much about this great hobby.

Calling Luke Stevens

2010-03-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

I received a comment to this blog today from one Luke Stevens. Unfortunately I inadvertently deleted it while trying to publish it, so I re-print it here:

I currently have no pipes I have just turned 18 and pipes fascinate me and seem to be quite artistic. I have taken a liking to the "nose warmer" style and haven't been able to find one. My questions for you are... Where might I find one? Would it be worth it to buy a more expensive and nice one?

Now for my answer:
Dear Luke,
Welcome to the great fraternity of Pipe Smokers. Yes, pipes are fascinating and most artistic. I'm glad you are drawn to the nosewarmers as I happen to be infatuated with them at the moment myself. But I have had many such infatuations over the years: pokers, billiards, half-bends, bulldogs; the list goes on. I own over 120 pipes as a result. So beware: collecting pipes like collecting anything can be addictive. Much more so than the actually smoking. In any case, buy whatever shape strikes your fancy. Whatever you do be prepared to buy at least two, preferably four pipes in a short time as you will want to rotate pipes. They need to rest and thoroughly dry after a day's smoking. Pipes can be expensive, but do not have to be. With today's inflationary dollar I wouldn't recommend buying a pipe for much less than $100, though I have a couple of good smokers that cost in the $60-$80 range by reputable companies like Savanelli. It is worth saving up and buying a good pipe. A cheap manufactured pipe will smoke hot and wet and ruin your taste for the hobby. A good pipe will smoke dry and cool and allow you to taste the heart of this entire project, the wonderful blends of tobacco out there. Go to a reputable tobacconist if you can still find one wherever you live, or try a reputable web based firm like smokingpipes.com. Good luck.

Downie Arrives

Still not a great photo but I hope you get the idea of this lovely nosewarmer from Stephen Downie Pipes. I smoked it for the first time today and it seems like its going to be one of my favorites.

Maltese Falcon Returns

I did indeed crack open a tin of Maltese Falcon as an alternate to the Arcadian Perique I've been smoking. Very nice for a change. I'm beginning to really like the Latakia more than I ever have before and may branch out into a number of other recommended blends. Check out Neil Archer Roan's latest blog in the side panel for a discussion of Syrian Latakia and some recommended Latakia blends.

Stephen Downing Pipes

2010-03-05T06:32:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for a high quality hand made pipe by a fine American pipe maker you should check out Stephen Downie Pipes. These photos are a little small but they depict a pipe Stephen carved for me. It is a lovely nosewarmer slightly bent blast.

Meanwhile I'm still working through my first tin of H&H Arcadian Perique. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I only wish the weather would change so I would be able to get in an evening smoke so that I could open something else for a change of pace. Something like the tine of Pease's Maltese Falcon that's been awaiting me for months. As it is I rarely smoke more than the one pipe a day I manage to fit in with an afternoon visit to Holt's. But the weather is beginning to turn and this over-the-top winter may be loosening its grip. Not only will I soon be able to sit out back for a smoke, but also get up early for a bike ride.

Guest Article

2010-02-15T03:10:00.000-08:00

I will return after another hiatus longer than I'd planned, later this week. Meantime, this article might be very eye-opening.

Advocacy research: what a filthy habit

First we were told - quite reasonably - that smoking was bad for us. It increases the risk of a variety of diseases, particularly lung cancer and respiratory illnesses, as well as making heart disease and stroke more likely. No one who smokes regularly can be unaware that there is a fair chance that their habit will shorten their life, even if the immediate prospect of a stimulating drag is more enticing than a few extra years of old age. We’ve all got to die of something, at some point; it’s up to us to make a calculation about whether that nicotine hit is worth it.

More controversial was the suggestion that breathing other people’s smoke might be dangerous, too. Okay, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if those nights of old spent steeped in a nicotine-tinged fug in the Dog and Duck didn’t exactly do one’s lungs the world of good. The smell certainly lingered on your clothes. Even then, anyone who remembers boozers in the past, or the top-deck of the bus on a winter’s evening, will know that the modern, well-ventilated, pre-smoking ban pub was a much less smoky environment. By rather dubiously extrapolating from some small personal risks, based on smoking studies that probably bear little relevance to twenty-first century Western workplaces, official estimates concluded that about 1,000 people per year die from ‘secondhand’ smoke in the UK. In July 2007, a ban on smoking in public places came into force in England. The tobacco lovers were turfed out on to the street.

Yet even the junk science of secondhand smoke seems like the stuff of Nobel Prizes next to the new kid on the block: ‘third-hand smoke’. Now, claim researchers, you don’t even need to breathe smoke in, you simply need to be in contact with smokers or touch surfaces that have been in contact with their smoke to be at risk. If the dodgy research that produced the smoking ban was bullshit, the claims made for third-hand smoking are in a whole new category: ‘beyond bullshit’.

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California found that carcinogens from cigarettes linger in the environment on clothing, floors and walls long after smoke has dispersed. Worse, their shock-horror discovery was that some of these substances can then go on to react with these surfaces to produce more carcinogens. Mohamad Sleiman, the lead researcher, told Scientific American: ‘Our findings indicate that third-hand smoke represents an unappreciated health hazard.’

Another of the researchers, Lara Gundel, told the magazine: ‘Smoking outside is better than smoking indoors, but nicotine residues will stick to a smoker’s skin and clothing… These residues follow a smoker back inside and get spread everywhere.’ Now, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that cigarette smoke gets everywhere and eventually coats everything near it with a nasty, yellow stain. And it would surprise no one to find that if you tried cleaning these stains off with, for example, your tongue, it might not be terribly pleasant.

But the study doesn’t measure the risk from these smoky residues. Instead, researchers simply imply that there must be a risk, coming up with all sorts of scenarios to suggest why we might be facing a hidden danger. For example, in another Scientific American article, Jonathan Winickoff, a Boston paediatrician, explains why these residues might be a particular danger to babies: ‘Children ingest twice the amount of dust that grown-ups do. Let’s say a grown-up weighs 150 pounds [68 kilograms]. Let’s say a baby weighs 15 pounds [seven kilograms]. The infant ingests twice the dust [due to faster respiration and proximity to dusty surfaces]. Effectively, they’ll get 20 times the exposure.’ Children pick up all sorts of bugs while crawling around, some of which of which make them ill, but the risk of ingesting enough tobacco toxins to cause cancer must be infinitesimally small.

Then, Winickoff - whose research team is credited with inventing the term ‘third-hand smoke’ - skips merrily on to suggest that this might explain cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (also know as SIDS or ‘cot death’). And just to bolster the argument, the article quotes perhaps America’s leading anti-smoking campaigner, Stanton Glantz: ‘The third-hand smoke idea… has been around for a long time. It’s only recently been given a name and studied… The level of toxicity in cigarette smoke is just astronomical when compared to other environmental toxins.’

[get spiked by email]

This is not cold, hard-headed investigation; this is ‘advocacy research’. Those involved have decided that tobacco smoke is not just a threat to smokers but to everyone, particularly children. Unsurprisingly, their work then confirms this prejudice. Winickoff is asked in that Scientific American article why the label ‘third-hand smoke’ was chosen. ‘This study points to the need for every smoker to try to quit. That’s the only way to completely protect their children… Really, I think that what this says is that we need to have sympathy for smokers and help them quit smoking… [And also] that the introduction of this concept will lead to more smoke-free spaces in… public.’

The mere presence of carcinogens does not mean that we will suffer from cancer. In fact, we are bombarded with carcinogens every day. Our food is packed with them, particularly naturally occurring substances that plants produce to ward off pests. If the microscopic quantities of carcinogens in our carpets and on our clothes left by tobacco smoke are going to be treated as a potential health threat, that makes every cup of coffee a caffeinated, cancer-causing cocktail, too.

If the chemicals in cigarette smoke were really so deadly as Winickoff and Glantz imply, it would be simply inconceivable that people could live - as many do for 50 years or more - while smoking a packet of cigarettes or more every day. It usually takes decades of effort directly polluting the body with tobacco smoke before someone becomes seriously ill because of it. The idea that a whiff of smoke in the air, or a thin coat of smoky tar on the walls, can put us in mortal danger is just laughable. Or, at least, it would be if the health authorities weren’t so keen to pounce upon each new study as a justification for ever-greater restrictions on lighting up.

Anti-smoking is hypochondria-by-proxy, an obsessive compulsive disorder whose sufferers demand that the normal pastimes of others leave them under attack. Contrary to what Winickoff says, it is anti-smoking campaigners and our health guardians who need help - to quit their disgusting, illiberal, interfering, busybody habit once and for all.

Rob Lyons is deputy editor of spiked.

Askwith Morta Arrives

2010-01-13T06:08:00.000-08:00

My first Morta pipe, by Chris Askwith, arrived yesterday. As soon as I could clear my desk and finish my appointments I returned to Holt's for a second stay in the lounge to fire it up and give it a try. So far so good. First of all, it is a true nosewarmer. It is the smallest pipe I have in my nosewarmer collection length-wise. But it is remarkably comfortable, smoked very cool and really impressed me. I don't really know anything about the qualities of Morta for a pipe, despite reading the article I linked to in my previous post on the subject. I haven't found any information about break-in or other issues. So I'll withhold final judgment until I've smoked it at least a few more times. But for now I'm very pleased and once again very pleased with Chris' service.

Well, I have now had an opportunity to smoke the Morta pipe numerous times and I am more impressed each time I do. I can't say that it is better than a briar pipe, but it certainly is every bit as good. I am enjoying this pipe immensely.

Also wanted to make you aware of a relatively new on-line magazine called
Pipes Magazine.com. It has some really interesting articles including one, in the latest edition, about Perique, my favorite condiment tobacco. Click the link and give it a read.(I've also added it to my sidebar.) At the end of the article you will find a list of recommended Perique strong blends, one of which I decided to immediately order and give a try. It is my:

TOBACCO OF THE WEEK

And all I can say is: WOW! First of all, it is not as strong as I feared. Which is not to say that it isn't strong. Only that I feared it would be impossible to smoke. Not so. It is certainly full-bodied, but it doesn't "bowl you over," so to speak. It is exceptionally flavorful. According to the information on the tin it contains:Virginas, Burleys, Original Cavendish, Dark Fired Kentucky, Orientals and of course a fair amount of Acadian Perique. All I can say is that whoever blended this is a genius. I am going to order a few more tins for my cellar immediately. Give it a try!

Winter@#&*!

2010-01-07T12:17:00.000-08:00

Or: What would I do without Holt's? I can manage to sit outside bundled up to enjoy a pipe up to a point. But this year we in the northeast are getting a real winter so far. Aside from the freak December snowfall of 22 inches, the temperatures have been frigid. And being on break from many of my teaching and other obligations I have little reason to spend the requisite hour in the car that often enables me to enjoy a pipeful. Thus I often end up giving up the pipe for a few months (I know there are those who don't see that as a big deal.) But this week I've been able to take advantage of a lunch hour smoke at Holt's just about everyday and it is really a wonderful luxury.

Morta!

2009-12-30T06:05:00.000-08:00

What, you ask is Morta? Well, until very recently I would not have been able to help you out. But over the last couple of years I have slowly begun to hear about another material for use in pipemaking that was making a reputation for itself suggesting that it was every bit as good as briar for making fine pipes. Turning to Google for a bit of help I not only discovered this article on Morta and making pipes from Morta (for those of you unable to bear the suspense any longer Morta refers to partially fossilized wood (probably oak) found in one particular area in France. It is difficult to find, difficult to mature, difficult to carve, etc etc.) Pipemaker Trevor Talbot (whose blog is listed in my side panel) has done a great deal of work in this area and has written a very informative article on Pipedia For more information check it out.

Meanwhile, this particular search yielded the existence of Pipedia! I had never heard of it before today and I'm thrilled to have it to explore. I will add it to my side panel for you to explore at your leisure, as I will be doing.

Finally, on this subject, what brought it all up, actually, is my decision to acquire a Morta pipe when I came across a nosewarmer made from it on Chris Askwith's website. I haven't received it yet, but it is pictured above and I'm really looking forward to it and will, of course, report.

Finally (again!) but not on this subject, I want to make note of the return of Neil Archer Roan's blog A Passion for Pipes. This is, bar none, the most interesting, erudite and informative pipe blog in existence and is directly responsible for my taking up the "sport." (For which Mr. Roan bears no responsibility nor blame.) After deciding to desist from writing I left his site up on the side bar so that folks could access his archive. But he has recently decided to resume writing and new posts are now listed there. Don't miss them!

Kirstens

2009-12-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

I don't believe in apologizing for blogging lacunae, but still, it has been a long time. In part because I haven't had much to say, but more particularly because I've had so little free time to even think about what I might say. That said. Here I am again. Since last we met I have continued on a very steady course of one to two pipefuls a day. As reported in my last entry I cracked open Montgomery by G.L, Pease and enjoyed it well enough. I had also ordered a few cans of exhausted rooster on the assumption that it had proven itself to becoming my regular blend. There was a mix up in my order and while I received 2 ozs of Louisiana Red, as ordered, I received three cans of something other than Exhausted Rooster. A computer glitch? Did I hit the wrong button? Who knows. A phone call later it was all straightened out and I had the Louisiana Red to get started on. I really like this tobacco and lo and behold the other 2 ozs I ordered turned out to be 4 ozs by way of compensation for the mail mix up. Since I really don't trust any system of long-term humidification and haven't found one that works to my satisfaction, combined with the fact that the Louisiana Red comes loose, I really had to keep smoking it before opening the cans of Exhausted Rooster. Not to mention that I still have some tins of tobacco I haven't tried at all yet. Smoking only one or two pipefuls a day makes it a bit difficult to go quickly through tobaccos and not depending on any storage system makes opening more than one or two at a time very difficult. Bottom line: I'm still working my way through the Louisiana Red (now set back slightly more by a week's cold that had me bed-ridden for two days and definitely not up to smoking on the other days - certainly not sitting out in the cold after the biggest December snow storm on record.) But there are worse things than smoking only a great tobacco like Louisiana Red and the others will keep. And spring isn't that far away!

Meanwhile, maintaining this steady smoking pace has pushed my regular rotation of mostly nosewarmers to their max. I have occasionally switched off to a pipe from my regular collection, but only occasionally. Instead, what I have found really helpful is a reliance on my always dependable Kirsten's for an occasional day or two each. I have written about these pipes in the past, but they are truly amazing. They smoke very well, can be smoked two, three or four times in a row without any deterioration, and just make a great back-up on a day when I have the opportunity to smoke an extra time or two in addition to carrying my regular pipe of the day.

take a look.

Finally cracked a new tin

2009-11-18T06:51:00.000-08:00

Despite my extreme satisfaction with C&D's Exhausted Rooster it was time to move on to something new. I ordered a few tins of Exhausted Rooster so that I can return to it shortly, and while I was at it I ordered a few ounces of Louisiana Red, that lovely Hearth&Home blend from pipesandcigars.com Meanwhile, while awaiting their arrival, I cracked open G.L. Pease's Montgomery. It is advertised as a blend of Virginia! Virginia! Virginia! with a little dark-fired Kentucky for richness. I was really taken aback by it. It is remarkably cool for a Virginia blend; almost bland at first puff, but after a minute or two it quietly comes to life. Still mild, sweet but not hot, and remarkably addictive. Definitely will be a part of my emerging regular rotation. As it stands that rotation consists of:
1. Exhausted Rooster/Louisiana Red as the main stay. (Since I can only get the latter by mail it is more cumbersome. The ER I can order by mail or pick up at my local B&M.
2.Montgomery as my switch-off so as not to get bored
3. Maltese Falcon for special occasions, after heavy meals etc.

This Week's Favorite Pipes

This week's standout pipes were my two Barbi's.These two pipes carved by the renowned German pipemaker Rainer Barbi have long been favorites. this week I chose both of them to use fairly heavily and they both performed superbly. Check out Barbi's web page for a look at his work.

VaPers

2009-10-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

I have been out of blogging mode lately, but here I am. Ready for the Phillies to win their second straight World Series. I have been happily puffing my regular rotation of pipes, which now includes last post's featured Askwith. I've been mostly smoking Exhausted Rooster and yesterday finished the first tin of it and happened to be at Holt's at the time and broke my pattern. Rather than opening one of the tins I have in waiting, I've enjoyed this tobacco so much, I bought a new tin and opened it on the spot. So my stock will have to wait a bit.

On that note I came across this list of recommended Virgina/Perique blends on the Pipe Smoker's Community (though I don't think it was original there either) and thought I'd share it. Comments are welcome. As I remember it is in order of preference. But it's a great list to use to buy oneself a sampler. Enjoy.

1)McConnell Scottish Cake
2)Samuel Gawith’s St. James Flake
3)Escudo
4)GL Pease Filmore
5)H & H AJ’s VaPer
6)Low Country’s Waccamaw
7)Peretti’s Park Square
8)H & H Rolando’s Own
9)H & H Anniversary Kake
10)G & H Louisiana Flake
11)Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture
12)C & D Night Train
13)H & H Louisiana Red
14)Reiner’s Long Golden Flake
15)Treasures of Ireland - Limerick
16)Dorchester
17)Solani #633
18)Luxury Bullseye Flake
19)McClelland Bulk 2015
20)GL Pease Telegraph Hill
21)Kajun Kake
22)Luxury Navy Flake

Askwith Arrives!

2009-10-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

My new Chris Askwith nose-warmer prince was waiting for me at the office this morning! I immediately repaired to Rittenhouse Square for a morning bowl of G.L. Pease Lombard (I really have grown to like this tobacco!) Here are two self-portraits of a pipe smoker I took in the park. Beautiful day and perfect first smoke. The pipe is everything I could have wished for. It will take some time to break in completely, but it did very well for a first smoke. No rough or hot taste. A bit wet until the cake builds up, but that is to be expected. Smoked it all the way down and will rest it a bit before giving it another shot. Unless something very untoward occurs, I can highly recommend this new British pipe maker (get him before the prices go through the roof.)

Steady Puffing

2009-09-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

I have been maintaining a steady one to three pipes a day, rotating pipes and rotating the three tobacco tins that I presently have opened: Lombard, Purple Cow, and Exhausted Rooster. It is proving to be a good rotation. I am trying to stay very patient about opening any other new tins. Autumn is, of course, really the nicest time for smoking since I can only smoke out in my back-yard or at the local park unless I want to take the time and effort to walk over to Holt's. But Autumn is also a harbinger of winter, when I eventually give up trying for a few months after getting tired of freezing my nose off sitting out back. But until then I will enjoy!

PIPE OF THE WEEK

An old favorite and a part of my regular weekly rotation, this saddle-bit straight little apple by Former is a gem! Former is one of the foremost pipe makers in the world, celebrating his 50th anniversary year this year. I've had this pipe for a fairly long time; can't remember exactly when or where I purchased it, but it has always been one of my favorites. Check out his web site to see some beautiful pipes.

This video was taken from pipesmagazine.com a very informative web "community" that I came to through Facebook (where, btw, there are a load of pipe related groups) and have enjoyed checking out on occasion. Their series on filling pipes with flake tobacco is informative. Here is one sample of a number of methods they describe. Check it out.

Featuring Askwith Pipes

2009-09-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

This week's edition of Pipe Pulpit features Askwith Pipes, Hand Made in England. I heard about Chris Askwith on My Pipes Community, I believe I've mentioned before. I don't check it as often as I used to, and almost never contribute; it just lost its appeal for whatever reason, probably because it seems like the same 5 people are always writing the same fairly boring stuff. But anyway, I do check in from time to time and saw a notice about Askwith Pipes and went to the web page and was very impressed. I particularly liked this nosewarmer prince and I've reserved it pending my working out the finances. It is actually very inexpensive comparatively and if it smokes as well as it looks it will be a steal. I attribute this to Chris Askwirth being a new carver on the scene. I may finally be in on the ground floor. We'll see. Of course I'll report.

Pipe Of The Week

Featuring this week a lovely pipe from New Zealand made by Jan Zeman and called an "Old Sea Dog" shape. It smokes very well and Jan is another of the many pipe craftsman out there that can deliver a good quality handmade pipe at a very reasonable cost.

Tobacco Of The Week

I finally finished the tin of Red Carpet and ended up really enjoying it. I'm still working on Lombard and Purple Cow and having mixed reactions to both. So I decided to break out one of the new tins: Exhausted Rooster and smoked a bowl this morning in the Jan Zeman Old Sea dog. I really really liked it. It is a classic flake of Virginia, dark fired Burley and a dash of Perique. Really smooth and lovely.

Happy Smoking!

A Busy Time

2009-09-10T12:22:00.001-07:00

With the Jewish holidays coming up I finally had to give up the idea of going to last night's Pipe Club meeting. Too bad, especially because my regular schedule will now make going to meetings almost impossible. Maybe I can sneak one or two in until next summer when I can attend a few in a row again.

Meanwhile, I've been finishing up all of my open tobaccos so nothing new to report in that department. I've been smoking a lot of pipes that I haven't smoked for awhile, trying to expand my repertoire a bit. In other words, boring report. Sorry.

But here's something you might appreciate. It is a great video of sand blasting from J Allen Pipes. Enjoy!

New Blends

2009-08-31T16:57:00.000-07:00

As promised in my last post, here is an introduction to the three new blends I bought in the Black Cat cigar closeout last week. The first, pictured below, is Cornell&Diehl daVINCI, described as a blend of Cyprian Latakia, rough cut Burley and bright Virginia flake, with the extra warning "Heavy Latakia." I haven't opened any of these tins yet and won't for some weeks. I smoke one to two bowls a day tops and have three opened tins that I'm working through (which, by the way, are each tasting better and better as I smoke them and as they dry a bit with the passage of time.)But I am really looking forward to trying these.

The next blend is also Cornell&Diehl, called Exhausted Rooster and described as a blend of Virginia, dark fired burley and a dash of Perique. This sounds great and is close to what I usually enjoy most.

Finally, there is Montgomery by G.L. Pease (no photo) described as several grades of wonderful flue-cured Virginia leaf combined with just a touch of dark-fired Kentucky. I haven't smoked a pretty much pure Virginia for a long time and I'm looking forward to this one as well. I also look forward to sharing with you the results when I open these tins.

PIPES OF THE WEEK

This week I broke out two very old pipes. Not sure what possessed me, Pipe-smoker's nostalgia, I guess. The pipes below are both over 40 years old and used to be regular members of my daily rotation. They are probably the second and third pipes I ever bought. They are both Wilke pipes that I bought at that venerable New York establishment when the Wilke sisters were still running the now long-gone store. It was one of my favorite destinations for a day in Manhattan in my late teens. Those were the days when the youngster behind the counter, otherwise manned by the aging sisters and an aging blender whose name I wish I could remember, was Arizona Zipper. Some of you may remember his ubiquitous letters in the Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris and his friendship with Tom Dunn of that publication. When I have time I will have to devote an entire post to the Ephemeris and Tom for you younger readers. Anyway, these two pipes probably cost $15.00 a piece, which is not as cheap as it sounds given that the highest priced pipes then were about $100. But they were still starter pipes. They were. like all Wilke pipes, unstained and achieved the dark walnut color purely through the persistence of smoking. The advice, which I followed assiduously, was to rub the bowl against the side of one's nose while it was warm. As you can see, it worked. They are good smokers but both bowls get a little too hot. Dosen't seem to affect the smoke, but is a little tough on the fingers.

A Contemplative Morning

2009-08-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

For the third morning this week I have secreted myself away with my laptop at a cafe to focus on preparing for the High Holy Days fast approaching. After today's session I repaired to Holt's smoking lounge for some well earned contemplative puffing.

On the way over I stopped in at the soon to vanish Black Cat Cigars mentioned in my last post top check out the pre-closing sales. They've never really carried any pipes of interest (perhaps at the new shop?) But they've recently been carrying more Corneel&Diehl products so I bought four tins on sale -- Maltese Falcon which I've really enjoyed and three that I haven't tried before. I'll show and tell about them in my next post. Meanwhile I want to finish my pipe in peace.

In The News and In The Bowl

2009-08-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

Well, my publication schedule hasn't been as regular as I had hoped, but here I am again in the wake of this week's meeting of the Christopher Morley Pipe Club. Another very pleasant evening among the pipe cognoscenti in Center City Philadelphia. With summer drawing to a close and my regular teaching schedule gearing up I may not make more than one or two more meetings in the course of the year, but it's been fun being a regular again these last few months.

The highlight of this last meeting was the announcement by Sam, owner of Black Cat Cigars that having successfully opened their new store out near Plymouth meeting, they will be closing their Center City store after some 26 years. Good luck to them, bad luck for Center City pipe and cigar smokers. But the silver lining is the hefty sales beginning today on Pipes and tobaccos might soften the blow. Check it out.

THE TOBACCO BAR
Last time I mentioned two new blends, Lombard Street and Purple Cow.

I've had quite a bit more opportunity to test these out. Lombard street turns out to be a good light Latakia blend that I'm really enjoying. It has become one of my go-to blends during the day.

Purple Cow, on the other hand, is not growing on me. It is flavorful but has a bit of a hot bite on the tongue, which Robusto does not. I spoke to Bob about it and he told me that it depends on the type of Burley they find to put into the blend. Some have more sugar content than others and it is the sugar content that accounts for the bite. So be it, but I don't think this is going to go on my regular list.

I've also added one more new blend to the mix, pictured below, from Cornell&Diehl called Red Carpet.I like it a lot. I was looking for a new Virginia-Perique blend to change of from my sudden riches of Latikia blends. I have not been disappointed. But beware, it is strong. And when I say a Virginia-Perique blend is strong you better believe it. I've smoked almost nothing else for years and have never found a blend that I had to give up smoking in the morning, for instance. But this blend on an empty stomach is not recommended. Otherwise, go for it.

While browsing the C&D site I came across a link recommending
The Pipe Smoker's Intelligencer and checked it out. I think any pipe smoker will enjoy it, so check it out yourself.

And finally Cornell&Diehl was written up in WNC magazine and you might enjoy reading about Craig and Patty also. Enjoy a great article about C&D tobaccos

Happy smoking!

After A Long Hiatus

2009-08-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

I'm back. No real excuses, just lazy and I did go back to work on the very day my last posted was uploaded after a six month Sabbatical. Suddenly my time was a bit less free!
But I continue to be interested in the world of pipes and there is some stuff to catch up on.

First of all. I've been able to attend a couple of more meetings of the Christopher Morley Pipe club here in Philadelphia. The club is now on Facebook and you are welcome to check us out there. You need to log in first

Next, I've finished the two tobaccos I mentioned before my break, Robusto and Sunday Picnic and thoroughly enjoyed them both. I am now working on two new tobaccos.

The first is G.L. Pease's Lombard. I haven't opened it yet but it is a Virginia and Latakia blend and I guess I've suddenly become a Latakia smoker after all these years. There are just so many interesting blends available. I still need a Virginia Perique blend sansLatakia to smoke on a regular basis so I'm finishing off my tin of Or Olam from the Cornell&Diehl Hebraica series that I helped blend until I find something else. Meanwhile, since I live on Lombard Street I thought I'd give this one a try.

The second tin is called Purple Cow blended for Cornell&Diehl by Bob Runowski well known in these parts for his speciality in burley blends. This particular one is rather unusual, containing burley, bright virginia ribbon, latakia (there it is again) and maduro cigar leaf. It is, therefore, in the same family as Robusto and just as powerful and pleasing. I've smoked a couple of bowls and have enjoyed it, but I haven't quite decided between the two (Purple Cow and Robusto.) Bob is a member of the Christopher Morley club and I saw him at the last meeting before I purchased this tin. I hope he'll be at the next meeting and we can share thoughts about it.

Well, that will do it for now. No promises, but I will try to update a bit more frequently. Happy smoking!

Traveling Again

2009-05-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be off to Los Angeles for a few days, carrying a few pipes and a pouch. Hopefully, there will be times and places to get a pipeful in, but it is tough these days on the road. Last trip I stopped at the famous Gus's Tobaccos to check out the wares, but it is unlikely I'll have that kind of time. Meanwhile...this week's features:

Pipe Of The Week;

One of my favorites, this shape that I call a squashed bulldog by Manuel Shaabi who was profiled a couple of years ago in Pipes and Tobacco magazine shown below. Shaabi is a Lebanese wood carver/sculptor who came to Germany in 1979 because of the war in his country. After a number of different vocational strategies, all built around his love of wood and his skill, he trained in the famous Pipe Dan factory. Then he went out on his own and creates some of the most intriguing pipes around. This one is simple as compared to his very ornately carved specimens. If you want to see some really interesting pipes check out his web site: here.

Tobacco Bar

After a week off from blogging (you noticed!) I decided to try a new tobacco for the tobacco bar and picked up a tin of Corneel&Diehl's Sunday Picnic. It is a Virginia-Periqu blend with a healthy dose of Izmir tobacco from Turkey. Virginia-Perique blends are my favorites and I'm always looking for variations on the theme. Despite being very happy with Louisian Red these days as my regular VA-P blend, this one is quite different, quite interesting and very inviting.

From Seattle

2009-04-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

Home of the Kirsten pipe, already refferred to in an earlier blog-post. I arrived here yesterday and hope to get to one of the two Kirston stores today. I'll buy a replacement stem for my pipe (the same thing I think I did the last time I stopped in maybe ten years ago.

Pipe Of The Week
Since I'm traveling this feature will be postponed until next week.

Tobacco Bar
I have to return to a discussion of G.L. Pease's Robusto. I think I indicated, when I first decided to try it, that I liked it well enough. Since then it has significantly grown on me such that it threatens to become my everyday smoke. It is a bit strong as the first pipe of the day, so Louisiana Red still has that distinction, but for the rest of the time Robusto has been it. After a particularly heavy meal I am still working in a bowl of Maltese Falcon, so for the moment (and it will change!) I have a pretty set rotation.

Tampers

2009-04-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

American pipe carver Todd Johnson has a very nice blog called Musings On Life In General which is always fun to read. But this particular entry is really quite fantastic. It is the evolution of a spectacular Calabash pipe. You should really check out the photos and accompanying description.

On to the subject of this week's entry: Tampers. Those are the tools that one uses to tamp down the tobacco in one's pipe as one smokes it down. Among pipe smoker's they constitute an esoteric domain within the hobby. Some people use an old nail. It works. but you have to watch out for the point in your pocket. Others use a piece of dowel. A bit unwieldy, I find. Then there is the standard: know as the "Czech" because they're imported from Czechoslovakia for as long as anyone can remember. They are a three piece pipe tool including the tamper, a little shovel to clean out the bowl and a straight "pointer" presumably to unloosen overly tight-packed tobacco. I own two (they cost about $1.00) and have found myself using one for the last few months since losing a tapered tamper made by Brebbia that I really liked. I also own a number of more costly tampers made by more upscale firms who are identified on the tampers only by logos which I no longer can identify. Ah well. The first picture shows them in their tamper mode. the second shows that both of them unscrew to reveal a little shovel/pointer not unlike the Czech but much more elegant. I have resisted carrying them around for fear of losing them. There is also a traditional dowel in the photo, and a lovely little meerschaum "chess piece" tamper. The dowel is much too unwieldy, and though I actually used the chess piece for a few days I found its tamper surface to small.

So I've been wanting to find something the right size, the right weight, not too expensive, a little bit more elegant than a Czech. And I have. Thanks to the Oompaul podcast I heard an interview with Gunner Weber Prada artist, pipe carver and tamper maker whose work can be found on his web site Totemstar.com . It is an elegant aluminum tamper, just the right weight and size, a little pizazz ( it looks very much like a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti.)

Pipe Of The Week
Ser Jacopo - Picta Collection

This lovely pipe is part of a series of Ser Jacopo pipes made to resemble the various pipes featured in Paintings by Vincent Van Gough. The photo from the Ser Jacopo web page gives you the idea of the series. The photo below is my pipe and it is one of my favorite. It has the feel of a corncob, a workingman's pipe, while obviously not being such. Rather it is a fine relatively high grade pipe with a great sandblast grain. Extraordinarily comfortable and a great smoker.

Fathers and Sons

2009-04-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

Most of my family were in town for the Passover holiday. My oldest son was unable to come, but my younger son was here and we scheduled a time to be together out of the hub-bub of kids and infants and just plain piles of people. On Monday we repaired together to Holt's, him for a cigar and me for a nice pipe full. That's him in the photo above, though obviously not from this trip. It is from a visit I made to LA and a morning bike ride we took together then.

I took with me the Winslow Crown that I actually purchased some time ago at Holt's during one of their semi-annual sales. So I thought I might as well make that my pipe of the week below. In honor of our visit to Holt's I picked up a can of G.L. Pease Robusto. This is a tobacco I've been wanting to try for awhile. It is made with cigar leaf and is, naturally, this week's feature in the Tobacco Bar, also below.

PIPE OF THE WEEK

The Winslow Crown has proven itself to be a very fine smoke and a lovely piece to look at as well. It is actually one of the very few smooth finished pipes that I smoke regularly, having developed an almost obsessive loyalty to sandblast and rusticated finishes over the past few years. The weight of this pipe in the mouth and in the hand is absolutely perfect and it was, in fact, this pipe that began my current collecting/smoking of nosewarmer pipes. I think the grain on this is quite lovely, especially for a reasonably priced pipe (of course it was on sale.)My only complaint is that the fit between the stem and the shank is not perfect, but I suppose that is symbolic of the price range.

I had actually been away from the pipe world just long enough not to have been familiar with Winslow when I encountered it at Holt's. I bought it "blind" and have since learned that it is indeed a more than merely reputable name. I'm glad I bought it and its really quite perfect smoking performance allows me to recommend it
unquestionably.

TOBACCO BAR

As previously mentioned, I purchased a tin of G.L. Pease Robusto for our father-son smoker.

Before I did I read a bit about it. I found the review at smoking Pipe tobaccos to be the most informative and, after I smoked two bowls, to be closest to my experience. I too found that it started off slowly, but not requiring a few days before delivering its flavor, only half a bowl or so. It did taste somewhat "muddled" for that first half a bowl, but then really kicked in. And the second bowl was terrific. I agree that it is incredibly easy on the palate for such a flavorful (read: powerful)smoke. Curiously, I could not taste or smell the presence of Latakia, though I take it on faith it is there. For me that was a good point. If the Latakia is shaping the flavor without itself being noticeable, all the better. Despite my continuing love affair with the strongly Latakia flavored Maltese Falcon, I was not looking forward to negotiating a second such blend at present. It worked out fine and I can't see not making this one of my regular smokes.

That's it for this week. Once more, because of the Passover holiday I am publishing this a bit early in the week. Next week I will return to the Thursday publication schedule.

Bamboo

2009-04-08T03:19:00.000-07:00

Almost every pipe smoker/collector goes through a bamboo phase. Mine was several years ago and below is the result: seven fairly interesting specimens from the lowest of the low end to moderate examples of high-end makers.

From top to bottom: the first pipe is a corn cob. I bought this years ago as an estate pipe! Most people wouldn't buy a pre-smoked corn cob, I know, but the bamboo shank really appealed to me and after a good cleaning of the stem, and after a few smokes to get out the remnants of what had to be an aromatic blend, the darn thing smokes very nicely. It is not marked and I must assume that it is a Missouri Meerschum brand, but somehow I have a feeling it isn't. It just feels more solidly made or something. I'll never know.

The next pipe is a Bari and after that a Stanwell. Both solid factory pipes that have been decent smokers.

The next three are a Julius Vesz, a Tsuge and a Tom Spanu, all hand made higher end pipes that I had to stretch a bit for but have been more than worth it.

Finally, there is an estate Kaywoodie that I love. This classic American pipe with the bamboo shank smokes very well and somehow transports me to the forties or fifties of the last century.

Aside from the aesthetics, the supposed advantage of bamboo is, of course, the weight. I'm sure this has an effect on the feel and handling of the pipe, but for me it is definately all about the aesthetic. They just look cool.

Tobacco Bar

Before describing the various other tobaccos I either am or want to be trying, it really seemed appropriate to pause and review my regular, standby tobacco, not the least because I had a hand in blending it and receive some credit for that from the blender Craig Tarlor of Cornell&Diehl tobacco.

Craig introduces the series as follows:
HEBRAICA SERIES
A NEW SERIES BY RABBI IRA STONE & William Serad

Ira Stone is a longtime pipe smoker and co-founder of the Christopher Morley Pipe Club in Philadelphia. He is a Rabbi in that city and teaches Jewish Philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Four of the names in this series build on the Hebrew word “Or” meaning light.

I'm not sure why nothing is said about William Serad. William was a member with me in the pipe club and really the master blender behind the series. I was more of a taster and made an occasional suggestion. Since both of our tastes leaqned heavily toward Virginia/Perique blends, we wanted to create a series that could introduce a smoker into this type of blend, starting rather mildlyt and moving on to a pretty heavy Perique presence. The series works pretty well. I never liked Halav and Davash, but Sha'are Orah is still my regular smoke. It is very like the Louisiana Red I wrote about last week, but not as strong. Now I regret we didn't lay on more Perique. But I
appreciate the Turkish touch. This was the other element that William and I were trying to get into it.
Below are descriptions and pictures from the C&D web page. Give them a try if your of a mind.

#837
Or Olam:(Light of the Universe)

A classic Virginia and Perique blend with an unusual added note of exotic orientals. Red and golden Virginia are married to Perique and just a note of red Virginia cavendish is added for a smooth, sweet finish.

#838 Halav U’Dvash (Milk and Honey)

A true blend of both black and red VA cavendish as a base, given strength and presence with rough cut and dark fired Kentucky leaf, combined with exotic Middle Eastern orientals and specially processed with a traditional aromatic agent. The blend comes into being with a final hand-blended note of Perique. An aromatic for those who think they don’t like aromatics.

#839 Boker Or (Morning Light, a response to Boker Tov, or Good Morning)

An unusual base of light yet rich orientals serves as a backdrop to a real Perique presence, enveloping stoved red Virginias sweetened with a bit of black cavendish. Perfect with a cup of strong coffee or on a morning stroll.

#840 Or L’yom (Daylight)

Lighter in the contribution of orientals and Perique, this blend gets it character from the elegant red Virginias and smooth, round burley that are melded with toasted cavendish. A bowl starting the day sets a fine course for what follows.

#841 Sha’are Orah (Gates of Light)

Named for a book of Jewish mysticism, this is a substantial blend with a special cubed burley base. It derives its subtle essence from the delicate interplay of Turkish leaf and Perique, further mellowed by stoved red Virginias. We are admonished to act with great care in this world, as we are not the final arbiters of actions we judge insignificant. Similarly, a microcosm of leaf adroitly balanced results in intricate and surprising flavors.

Brian Ruthenberg

2009-04-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

I recently acquired a pipe from the American carver Brian Ruthenberg. Acquired doesn't really do the process justice. Brian, whose web site identifies itself as BriarArt and provides a sample of his work, is a really nice fellow to work with. I initially contacted him regarding a blast nosewarmer that was shown on his site as sold to ask what would be involved with having a like model made to order. Brian immediately responded and said that as soon as he had a piece of briar that he thought would work he'd let me know. It didn't take long. He kept me up to date on his progress throughout the few weeks it took, including explaining when family responsibilities prohibited him from working on it for a few days. All along he made it clear that if I wasn't happy with the pipe I could refuse it, no commitment on my part required. You can see the in-progress photo below that he sent before doing the sandblasting or the silver work.

Then soon after came this photo of the finished product:

The pipe is as good as it looks! While it isn't fully broken in, it has smoked very well from the get go.

Pipe Of The Week

This is a lovely pipe hand made by Jan Zeman of New Zealand, my first and only New Zealand pipe. It's called an Old Sea Dog. I think I read about Mr. Zeman in Pipes and tobaccos magazine and I contacted him via his web site here. Here's a bit of what he says about himself

Hello my friends, let me tell you a bit about me and my pipes. I live and work in the small city of Nelson in New Zealand. I am a tool maker by trade, but was involved in photography for the last twenty years. Both of these trades helped me to develop my pipe making skills and keen eye, a necessary skill needed by every pipe maker...When I create a pipe, I try to make it a personal item that is an extension of the smoker that receives it. I feel that this is my way of bringing a little joy and pride into the lives of my fellow smokers. I try to create pipes that I think a fellow pipe smoker will be proud of, enjoy and get the most value for the money. I want to create pipes that will bring pleasure to the true pipe lovers, rather then trying to produce smoking utensils for the masses.

His prices are terrifically reasonable and his work is fine. I love smoking this pipe!

Tobacco Bar:
This week a received a few tins (stocking up before the tax hike) from pipes and tobaccos.com of Louisiana Red blended by Russ Ouellette, store manager and master blender. I heard Russ interviewed on the Oom Paul podcast and was very impressed. This tobacco is one of his Hearth&Home series and is described in their catalog thus: "A great sweet and spicy blend containing two different Red Virginias and a good amount of outstanding St. James Perique. The rich, round sweetness of the Virginias are complimented by the plum and pepper hints of the cool-burning Perique. An overwhelming favorite of our local pipe club members." Sounds just like my style.
In fact, it is precisely my style! I've sampled three bowls and by the third I was craving more. I always know when a tobacco really "hits the spot" when I finish a pipeful and feel the urge to immediately refill the pipe with the same tobacco. I don't usually, and didn't in this case, but Louisiana Red hascertainly gone to the top of my list of Virginai-Perique blends.

To Every Pipe Its time

2009-03-26T04:05:00.000-07:00

Falling within the 4 1/2 inch limit of my latest smoking faze but not in my rotation at the moment is an old favorite, a Kirsten. Called a Jewel in their catalog, I've owned this pipe for many years, perhaps 15. Interestingly, Kirsten is located in Seattle where I lived and smoked for 9 years but never discovered them. I did visit their retail store in Seattle some years after I left when I was back visiting. I decided to try this pipe way back when because of its size and the promise of its ability to be smoked time after time with no need of rest days in between. At the time (as now) I had to restrict my pipes to those that could be smoked in a relatively short time since almost all of my smoking must take place out of doors. In addition I was going through a period when the pressure of deciding which pipe to smoke somehow became to much for me. I get that way sometimes. Anyone else ever have this happen? Despite, or really because of the number of pipes I own, deciding which to smoke somehow sometimes becomes a daunting decision. The notion of having an all-the-time pipe became very enticing. So I purchased the Jewel and, indeed, did smoke it non-stop for a long time. For the most part I found it lived up to its advertised claims. Near the end I finally tired of it for one reason or another and returned to my regular pipes. But not before purchasing a couple of more Kirsten's, larger bowl sizes so as not to be restricted to quick smokes. I never really enjoyed the larger sizes as much for whatever reason. But now that I've discovered them all again, I'm going to give them a try again.

The prices of these pipes blows me away. The Jewel is listed at $67.00 and the others go up from there. I can't remember spending anything near that much, but of course that was many years ago. If your looking for a reliable everyday pipe and haven't tried one of these very interesting alternatives to briar take a look at their catalog here.

Pipe of the Week

Another in my regular rotation of nose warmers. This is one of my favorite pipes (so much so that when the cat knocked it down and it cracked, I searched high and low and found a replacement. They are not that easy to find!) It is an unusually shaped oval bowl. I hope the pictures do that fact justice. It is 4 1/2 inches long with a 1 inch smoking bowl depth and a bit less in diameter. The perfect short smoke! The only drawback is a tight stem. I've been considering getting it widened, but haven't mustered the courage to try. I know there are some aficionados who do this regularly, but I've never felt the need. I don't suppose I'm a stickler for originality so much as afraid something will happen to the pipe. I'm not about to buy a third one. Usually, if I get it cleaned out well, it isn't a real problem. Just a minor annoyance.

The Tobacco Bar
This week I broke open a tin of McCleland's Dark Star. It is a mixture of pure Virginia tobacco and North Carolina tobacco. I've had it in my pipe closet for at least three years, possibly four. It is a lovely smoke. That nice sharp, unmistakable Virginia taste, but without the bite that I've traditionally associated with straight Virginia's. I usually like my Virginia spiked with Perique, the more the merrier, but this blend has enough taste to carry itself all alone. I'm not sure it is still available, but if you find a tin, give it a shot.

Finally today I want to mention a great on-line pipe community that I've joined and have been participating in a bit over the last week or two. It is called My Pipe Community and if you're interested in a low key, friendly pipe place without some of the posturing and showboating that I've noticed on other virtual communities, give it a try.

An Extra Bowl

2009-03-19T08:04:00.001-07:00

Last night was the monthly meeting of the Christopher Morley Pipe Club. I haven't been to a meeting in years. That's a long story mostly having to do with the exigencies of my schedule, but I was able to attend last night at what for me was a new and very comfortable location, the Pen&Pencil club. Being a private club, smoking is not forbidden. Food and drink are available. It was great to see some of the original members of the club, co-founder Bob, old comrades in smoke George and Steve and Bruce. there were only two fellows who I didn't know and they were very nice. It was a small crowd, I'm told the smallest in years. In my honor I suppose. But it really was pleasant and I hope to make it part of my schedule more regularly in the future.

Pipe Photos

2009-03-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Continuing my leisurely reading of all the archived posts of the blog A Passion For Pipes recently brought me to one that described a pipe photography contest conducted by the Barcelona Pipe Club. Of the photos displayed on their site, this was my favorite, but there were many others to choose from.

You should go and check it out for yourself: click here.

A Little Bit Of Heaven

This is a pipe-related note. I am presently on Sabbatical from my pulpit and have been using the time to write a book that I have been working on for a few years. Since the Sabbatical began at the beginning of January I've been fairly disciplined about getting up and going to my desk and writing for a good part of the day. In years past, and for my three previously published books, I have written everything by hand and then transferred it to the computer. Early on I decided that that wasn't going to work this time. Since my laptop is old and clunky and my desktop is new and highly functional I gave up my previous routine of writing at one of a number of local cafes. But this week my wonderful wife bought me an HP Mini. I can almost fit it in my pocket, it comes with Windows, I loaded OpenOffice, an open source free office suite that is easily compatible with Microsoft Word and I was portable again. Today I began writing at a Starbucks, the third different cafe of the week trying to find the one that is most comfortable. This Starbucks is located three doors down from Holt's tobacco Shop mentioned in a previous post and i figured I'd grab a pipe after I finished work. After a couple of hours at the coffee shop I became restless and gathered up my things and wandered into Holt's lounge. Lo and behold I could continue working simply by keeping the Mini on my lap. After a little while, Phyllis, the den mother of the lounge brought out a stack table for me and I continued writing for another couple of hours, this time smoking 2 pipesful as I worked. I haven't been in a workspace where i could smoke my pipe for decades! What a treat. It will not be the last time, I can tell you that.

By the way I finished my can of G.L. Pease Embarcadero in my Former nose warmer(see below) while I worked.

PIPE OF THE WEEK

Every few years I re-arrange my regular pipe rotation. That is the group of usually 12-14 pipes that I smoke on a regular basis, one per day for a bowl or two or at most three and then allow it to rest until I get back to it days or sometimes up to a week later. For the last few years I've been smoking straight billiards but recently I re-organized my collection and decided to construct a rotation out of pipes recently called "nose-warmers," a term I must admit I don't remember from my early days of pipe smoking or collecting. I'm not sure when it came into general use, but it must be relatively recently. I define a nose-warmer as any pipe, regardless of shape, under 4 1/2 inches long. Most of these tend to be straight or at most 1/4 bent pipes and I actually have a good collection of them, some from some of the finest pipe carvers around. I intend to display and describe these pipes in my pipe of the week feature until we've worked our way through them all, though I won't always feature only one at a time so that we can get to some others before summer :)

The pipe pictured above is a Radice hand made in Italy. It measures 4 1/2 inches in length. With a 1 3/4 bowl depth and 1 inch bowl diameter (inside) in carries a substantial amount of tobacco. The bowl diameter (outside) is 1 1/2 inches, providing a very cool bowl to the touch. It is a tan sandblast with vertical striations, I assume carved, against the grain. A handsome and good smoking, mid-level pipe.

Introducing:Pipe Of The Week

2009-03-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

In addition to whatever other random thoughts about pipes and tobaccos that I decide to share each week, I am going to focus on a different pipe from my collection each week. Usually it will follow the regular post of the week, but today I am beginning with it as an introduction.

The pipe pictured below was made at my request by American pipe-maker Mark Tinsky. Mark's American Smoking Company used to have its headquarters in Mt Pocono Pennsylvania near where Annie and I spent and continue to spend most summers. I visited Mark each summer, as I mentioned in my first post, I interviewed him for Pipe Friendly magazine and eventually was able to use his equipment to make my own pipe (not this one!)I asked mark to create this pipe modeled after the next pipe pictured below:

As you can see it is a traditional clay pipe that I bought from Olde World Clay Pipes by Stephen Bray, which I don't think exists anymore but used to make authentic clay pipes in the traditional manner. It is a fine specimen, but not too convenient for smoking. I loved the shape and the "look" of the pipe so I asked Mark to create it in briar as a sandblast. He did a magnificent job, did he not?

You can see the lovely grain of the pipe in this shot.

I am continuing to enter my pipes into the foundation database and therefore continuing to re-acquaint myself with some old friends. The newest edition of Pipe and tobacco magazine arrived in the mail today and I will take a close look at it tonight. Next Wednesday night is the monthly meeting of the Christopher Morley Pipe club of Philadelphia. I co-founded the club back around 1997. I used to attend regularly, but my schedule finally made it impossible. I haven't been to a meeting in a couple of years and the club has had to change locations a number of times due to the anti-smoking rules that have come into effect. I am planning to return to the club next week. It should give me something else to talk about in the blog.

Another Update - Out Of A Rut

2009-03-08T11:37:00.001-07:00

This really won't become a daily habit. It's just that I'm getting a variety of ideas, all of which helped spawn this blog, out little by little. I basically want to talk about Pipes and tobaccos Foundations. A wonderful web-based fellowship of pipe smokers. I can't imagine having time to utilize the chat rooms, but the forums are interesting and I have been able to peek into them a bit. But the best part is the pipe and tobacco organizational software that you can download from the site. It allows you to enter each pipe you own, accompanied by more information than many of us, or me at least, can supply. Obviously the name and carver or company, the shape, the type of bit and stem, whether it was purchased new or from an estate, measurements,value etc. I decided right away not to get obsessive about it and leave out those spaces for information that either don't mean much to a low level collector like me, or that are too hard for me to figure out. But by using it slowly to enter all my pipes (including photographing them) I feel I am accomplishing a number of long standing goals. First, for insurance or eventual inheritance, my collection will be documented. Second, there is a pipe log that allows you to enter every time you smoke, which pipe and which tobacco. I have always struggled to remember whether I've allowed particular pipes to rest sufficiently. You can pre-set you rest requirements and the software will tell when its ok to smoke that pipe again. More importantly, by actually taking my pipes out of the cabinet and taking a look at them I've reminded myself of many good smoking pieces that have languished simply having been usurped by more recent acquisitions. this weekend I've smoked nothing but pipes I haven't smoked in years. I feel like I went out on an enormous buying spree and it didn't cost me a dime. How many of us abandon perfectly good pipes simply because we've been attracted to newer one's? If you're like me you might want to use Foundations to help remedy that situation. There is a very modest membership cost. And if you prefer, just cull through your pipe racks and pick out an old friend and get re-acquainted. Get out of the rut!

Below is a shot of my regular smoking hang-out. The lo9unge at Holt's Tobacco shop. What an incredible gift in the day and age of diminishing venues to enjoy a pipe. I can walk there from home or work, have a pipe, get a cup of tea or coffee, read, shoot the breeze with the regulars of visitors. In the winter it is invaluable. Now as the days warm I'll use my back-yard or the park near work more often, but it is a true haven. If you get to Philadelphia dont miss it.

Maltese Falcon

2009-03-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

Yet another update between weekly "official"posts. In this one I want first to explain the name of this blog. I am not preaching to anyone about anything from my "pulpit." Although I hope that my enthusiasm for things related to pipes will do my preaching for me. Rather, the name of this blog is simply a reflection of my professional situation, which you might know something about if you've read the profile in the sidebar. I am a Rabbi with a congregation. Pipe Pulpit just seemed appropriate.

As to the subject of this post: Maltese Falcon tobacco by G.L.Pease. It is a traditional English blend, which, for those of you who may be novices, means a blend of Virginia and Oriental tobaccos with the indomitable presence of Latakia providing the central flavor element. It is usually the presence of Latakia the divides those who love English blends from those who hate them. For as long as I can remember I have been in the latter group. I can vaguely remember smoking the most famous of the English blends, Balkan Sobranie, back when I was in college. It was the must smoke blend of the college set. I hated it, though as a good adolescent I persevered in smoking it for some time. When I finally had the self-confidence to recognize that I hated it I was able to make the switch first to mostly milder Burley blends and then settle in with my regualar smoke for most of the last 25 years, Virginia/Perique blends. But I recently read a bit about Maltese Falcon in A Passion For Pipes and thought it waas about time I tried an English blend again. So I took out my personally commissioned Mark Tinsky created old clay pipe made in briar:

and went out to the front stoop which is my smoking room and fired up some Maltese Falcon expecting to be unhappy. boy was I ever wrong and man what have I been missing?! This was a remarkably smooth smoke and the Latakia rather than overwhelm as I remembered added a richness and depth that really transcends my poor verbal abilities to describe. At the same time I knew that I didn't want to smoke this tobacco all day. Perhaps that had been my mistake back in college. After dinner it goes well. In the morning? Not so much, I think. So yesterday morning I went back to my present regular smoke Stokkebyes Bull's Eye, but found that by late in the day I was beginning to anticipate the treat of Maltese Falcon.

Sure enough, after the flower Show Annie and I went out for Chinese food and when I came home I could hardly wait to get outside, this time in my Barbi billiard nose-warmer, and light up Maltese Falcon. It was deeper and richer than the night before. This is a heck've a tobacco blend. You should give it a try whether you typically smoke English blends or not. Until next time:
Smoke in the street

Second Light

2009-03-05T18:04:00.001-08:00

I told you there would be some updates, especially this first week as I get into this. I wanted to mention that in addition to A Passion For Pipes blog that I mentioned last time, I have been listening to a number of pipe podcasts that have been very informative and even inspiring. There are three such podcasts. I listened to a few episodes of the Old Toby podcast and decided to unsubscribe. Enough said. Then there is Pipe Talk, which has definitely grown on me. It is by two or sometimes three guys just kind of talking about pipes. Their enthusiasm overcomes their clear lack of expertise. some of their misstatements just really grate on me (I've had to email them about one) but in the end I must say I like it. But far and away the best is called the Oom Paul podcast. Olie Sylvester is the host. I know nothing about him, but he is clearly knowledgeable and almost all the shows are interviews with really interesting and important people in the pipe world. His questions and conversations with these folks is quite intelligent. Come to think of it, when the guys on Pipe Talk do interviews, those shows are quite good. Their interview with the pipe seller Frenchy was a gas. All of these are available in i tunes. You really should at least take a listen to Olie.

That's all I wanted to add. There is much more. Today I attended the Philadelphia Flower show. As close as I came to a pipe was this hookah in flowers:

Smoke in the Street

Charring Light

2009-03-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

That is the first rather tentative light of a pipe. Just enough to get things started, but not enough to keep things going. Hopefully, when the second light is applied, the pipe will burn coolly and continuously thereafter. I have chosen that phrase for this first post, as it is analogous. I am not an pipe expert not am I significantly connected to the pipe establishment either the professionals or the very talented amateur collectors and commentators who add so much to our hobby. I dabble in that world. I have a modest 100 or so pipes, many from well known companies or carvers. Usually the lowest price point those companies and carvers offer. I don't specialize and sometimes I can't even remember the name of a shape or all the parts of a pipe. I don't obey a lot of the rules about pipe rotation or (I must admit) even pipe cleanliness. Until this week (more about that later) I rarely experiment with different types of tobacco until I get entirely sick of one type. As I said, I dabble. I’ve been smoking a pipe since 1965 (that’s 43 years!) I've written two articles many years ago for Pipe Friendly magazine, an interview with Mark Tinsky and another with J.D. Boswell when both were pretty much starting out. I dabbled in tobacco blending and help a friend come up with a couple of blends that are still sold by Cornell and Diehl. And for a very short time I helped write the tobacco reviews in Trail by Fire in Pipes and Tobaccos magazine. My membership number in The Universal Coterie of Pipe Smokers (of blessed memory) is 778, which indicates that I have been around for a long time and own original copies of the Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris going back to 1971, only a few shy of a full set without having to buy the bound edition. I co-founded the Christopher Morley Pipe Club in Philadelphia, though my schedule has precluded my attending for at least the last 3-4 years. You can see I love pipe and smoking pipes and reading about pipes. I have also been blogging about bicycles and bicycle riding for the past almost three years. So I guess I like to blog. Either that makes me a narcissist or friendless or both. But for the last few weeks I've been reading some blogs about pipe smoking and listening to some podcasts about pipe smoking and I thought, this might be fun. First rule however: no way can I write about pipes every day. So from the beginning I’m going to make this a weekly blog with occasional updates between times. But this is going to have a publishing date, so to speak, each Thursday night starting tonight.

So much for introductions. I have a list of things I want to talk about and I’m going to parcel them out over time. For today I just want to say a few words about pipe blogs more generally. I must admit that I owe the provenance of this blog to the blog called A Passion For Pipes written by Neil Archer Roan. Neil is a prodigious collector of pipes, specializing in North American carvers. He has an astute aesthetic sensibility and best of all is one hell of a writer. The sheer love and level of discourse he brings to the hobby weirdly inspired me when it should have intimidated me. I have almost finished reading over three years worth of his posts from the archive and have learned an incredible amount. You should do the same. I may have a bone or two to pick with him before we’re through, but for the moment I have nothing put awe. So that got me started, but since then I’ve jumped in (as I am wont to do) and have, as I wrote, generated a number of other things I want to share with you. All in good time. Until next week or next update: Smoke in the Street.

Pipe Pulpit

Finally Attended A Club Meeting

Mini-Stems

Check Out My Cellar

Add Your Own Caption

Pipe Smoking and the Life of the Mind

Pennsylvania Meerschaum 2

Nautilus Pipe

Presenting Pennsylvania Meershaum

The Missouri Meerschaum Morgan

More Video

The "New" Medium

Mystery Solved!

The Mystery Of The Corn Cob Nosewarmer

At The Brew Pub

Pipe Pictures

Summer Reflections Continued

Blogging With Bloggers

It's Never Too Hot To Smoke

Tutorial

Jack Knife Redeux

Back to Burley

An Exciting New Tobacco

Celebrate International Pipe Smoking Day!

Evolution of a Curmudgeon

Pitchers and Catchers Report

Winter Break

Restored Favorite and Upgraded Cobs

Cases

Pouch Mixtures

The Benefits of the Fraternity of the Briar (or cob)

Anonymous Cob

So Far So Good

Cob Society

Baby It's Cold Outside

A Depressing Thought

Corn Cob Wisdom

Rad Davis Arrives

Its The Tobacco, Stupid

Peter Heeschen

New McClelland and New Cornell&Diehl

On To Classic Samsun

From Drama to Katerini Classic

Drama Reserve

Thinning The Herd

Let The Good Times Roll

Club Night

Pipe Smoking 101

Turkish Delights

New Pipes

Daughters and Ryan

Where Does the Time Go?

Club Night

Calling Luke Stevens

Stephen Downing Pipes

Guest Article

Askwith Morta Arrives

Winter@#&*!

Morta!

Kirstens

Finally cracked a new tin

VaPers

Askwith Arrives!

Steady Puffing

Featuring Askwith Pipes

A Busy Time

New Blends

A Contemplative Morning

In The News and In The Bowl

After A Long Hiatus

Traveling Again

From Seattle

Tampers

Fathers and Sons

Bamboo

Brian Ruthenberg

To Every Pipe Its time

An Extra Bowl

Pipe Photos

Introducing:Pipe Of The Week