A Better Pipe Smoking Community

I just came across this very interesting article written over at the blog For Peter’s Sake titled: “Curious George 70 Years Later.”

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Curious George 70 years later

A few months ago we found a copy of the original Curious George book in a used bookstore. The girl loves Curious George—she watched the PBS cartoon pretty often and has her own stuffed Curious George that she sleeps with sometimes. Naturally, Curious George has been a frequent request for bedtime stories, so I’ve read it quite a few times now.

The Curious George stories are fun and whimiscal for children, but somewhat disturbing for adults. The Man with the Yellow Hat is by far the most irresponsible guardian I have ever encountered. His general supervisory approach consists of taking George to new situations and then leaving for extended periods of time. His sole attempt at responsibility consists of his oft-ignored admonition to George: “Be a good little monkey and don’t get into trouble.”

The newer incarnations of the Curious George paint the Man with the Yellow Hat as an innocent, cheerful fellow who works in a museum. But the original Man in the Yellow Hat of 1940 was cut from a distinctly different cloth. Rather than a naïve museum curator, he’s a shotgun-toting, pipe-smoking explorer with a square jaw, ruddy complexion, and perpetual five o’clock shadow. The Man with the Yellow Hat oozes post-colonial paternalism as he tells George that he is going to live in a zoo and that he will like it there. (That’s right! You’ll live in a cage, and you’ll like it!) This version of the Man with the Yellow Hat would be voiced by Clint Eastwood before Will Farrell.

The Man’s parenting skills wouldn’t come across so well today. George becomes a simian juvenile delinquent, complete with run-ins with the law, substance abuse habits, and incarceration. Of course, those behaviors were all much more tolerated in 1940 among children, so why not a monkey?

In the original book the Man with the Yellow Hat leaves George unattended, resulting in a false 911 call, George’s imprisonment, and a prison escape via stolen balloons that ends up gridlocking the traffic in the city. The Man then shows up, tucks the offending primate under his arm, casually tosses the balloon man a few coins, and hauls George off to the zoo. Not exactly a happy ending by today’s standards.

But the mischievous chimp was such an enduring character that he returned for many more exploits. Along the way, the Man with the Yellow Hat morphed from über-masculine Safari man to a wide-eyed and wimpy museum nerd. It’s probably a change for the better, and it appears to have had a positive effect on George, who managed to kick his smoking habit. There are still quite a few issues regarding insufficient supervision, much to PETA’s dismay, but without the Man’s inattentiveness, Curious George wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

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Note on copyrights: Unlike most posts on this blog, the copyright holder of the images used in this post has presumably retained all rights. These images are used pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 107, and the author has concluded in good faith that this use complies with the requirements of fair use. Specifically, the purpose and character of the use is transformative, intended to use the lens of time to critique a work created nearly 70 years ago. The images have previously been published many times, and only small, low-quality portions of the original work (Curious George) have been reproduced here. These low-quality images are not direct market substitutes and will not have a negative effect on the marketability of the images or associated creative works. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994).

1. Pipe smokers are classy, cigarettes are gross and trashy
2. Everyone (unless your a communist) loves the smell of pipe smoke. On the flip side everyone hates cigarette smoke.
3. Pipe smokers look at least 3 levels smarter than the average human. Cigarette smokers look dumb.
4. Pipe smoking is an art form, cigarette smoking is a habit.
5. JR Tolkin, CS Lewis, Bing Crosby, and Albert Einstein smoked pipes. Tom Arnold, Whoopee, and my uncle in prison smoke cigarettes.

I love classic shaped pipes.  Stanwell, and Peterson are currently my favorite brands because they smoke great, they break in quickly, good price point, and they have mastered the classic shapes.  I currently have my eye on a new Peterson Rosslare Royal Irish Black Sandblasted (106).  It is everything I love in a pipe, clean lines, beautiful sandblasted finish, acrylic bit, and stunning silver work.  I just simply wanted to share this beauty with my readers, and beg that someone out there want to buy me an earl birthday present? haha

Just curious what is your favorite pipe shape?

The following is an excerpt from http://pipes.priss.org/, a great pipe website that I highly recommend.  Enjoy!

Packing the tobacco in your pipe. If you’ve already smoked your pipe, cover up the bowl of the pipe and blow through the stem in case there are small bits of tobacco that are blocking the passage and which could clog your smoke.

I find that there are two key aspects to packing a pipe correctly. First, the tobacco should be only “somewhat” tight in the pipe—it should still be springy to the touch on the surface. Second, the pipe should be loosely in the bottom half of the pipe than at the top, so that it doesn’t get too tight down there when you tamp it while smoking.

Start by taking a wad of tobacco that looks like it might be a bit more than enough to fill your pipe. If the tobacco seems really stuck together, fluff it up a bit before you do this. Hold your pipe over the pouch (or tin) so that the pouch catches the tobacco that falls while you’re filling it. Push the tobacco in until the pipe is full and a bit of the tobacco is overflowing over the top of the pipe a bit. Don’t cram it in tightly; just make sure the pipe is well-filled. Slowly and carefully fill the pipe as if you were trying to measure how much tobacco the pipe would hold under “average” circumstances, not how much you can cram in.

Your pipe should now have some (or a bunch of) tobacco sticking out of the top and may look like it needs a haircut. Pull most of this off, then take your pipe tool (a “tamper” available at your pipe shop) and *gently* push any loose ends down into the pipe. This way, your tobacco ends up a bit more tightly packed on the top than underneath, which is what you want. Touch the tobacco on top lightly with your thumb. It should feel somewhat springy.

Lighting your pipe. Put the pipe in your mouth and take a few puffs of the unlit tobacco. Not only should it taste good, but you shouldn’t have to apply much suction to get air to pass through it. It should only give a little resistance, like drinking liquid through a straw. If you find that you have to draw hard on it, empty it out and start over— you have packed it a bit too tightly and it will not smoke well. Just pry it out slowly with your pipe tool.

Now, the fun part— lighting up! Big wooden kitchen matches work well, as does a lighter. If you try to use small paper matches, you may end up frustrated and with burnt fingers… As soon as the sulfur burns off, pass the lit match across the surface slowly and puff slowly but firmly, just enough to draw the flame down into the tobacco. Try not to burn the rim of the pipe. You can puff deeply, but not too hard. Hold the smoke in your mouth, but try not to inhale it. Let the smoke puff out of your mouth as you take the next puff. It can take a good 10-20 seconds to get your pipe lit. The tobacco should fluff up a little, perhaps a lot. Now take your pipe tool and flatten out the surface of the scorched and fluffed-up tobacco so that you have a flat surface on the top of your tobacco again (don’t apply much pressure).

You have just completed what is sometimes called the “false light.” It is called “false” because it is now time to light your pipe again. Pass the flame around the top of the tobacco, swirling it slowly to get all of the tobacco on top lit (which you just flattened). As usual, puff slowly, just enough to bring the flame down into the tobacco. This may take another 10-20 seconds or so and generate a lot of ambient smoke, which you will probably enjoy. Now you’re on your way… your pipe is lit. Take a slow deep puff every 5-15 seconds or so—more often if the pipe seems to be going out, less often if the pipe seems to be heating up a lot.. You can either hold the smoke in your mouth for a few seconds and just let it drift out and stop there, or you can take a puff, keep the smoke and the pipe stem in your mouth, then a few seconds later, take another puff, letting the previous puff escape into the air. Some smokers will swallow a small quantity of the smoke, which causes it to escape through the nose and look like you had inhaled it. But you didn’t. Some pipe smokers actually inhale the smoke like cigarette smokers, but the smoke is very strong and this is not recommended.

If your pipe goes out while smoking, no big deal, just re-light—this is pretty normal. Especially at first, you may need to re-light frequently. It’s always better for your piep to go out from time to time than to prevent it from going out by smoking it hot. Furthermore, there’s no need to panic and re-light your pipe the second it goes out if you don’t feel like it or if you’re busy doing something. You can come back to a partially smoked pipe a few minutes later if that’s more convenient. And if you’re smoking a bent pipe, you can carefully put your lit pipe in your pocket when you enter a non-smoking establishment and it will self-extinguish rather quickly. Every 5 minutes or so, or more or less, tamp down the tobacco a little, just enough to crush the ashes on the surface and to make sure that the tobacco that is lit is touching itself and continues burning. You don’t want to apply so much pressure that the tobacco underneath gets further packed.

As the tobacco burns further down, the pipe will heat up. It should get warm, but if the pipe starts to get hot to the touch, let it go out for a few minutes to cool down; you might be smoking it a bit too fast. Hot smoking can cause the tobacco to become bitter, in addition to being uncomfortable on the tongue. As well, it may create moisture build-up that is very unpleasant if drawn into the mouth (which is particularly easy to do if you are smoking a straight pipe).

If you are smoking a brand-new pipe, it will need to be broken in. Smoke only half bowls for a while (at least 10 times or so) until you start getting some carbon buildup on the lower sides of the pipe’s bowl. Try to smoke to the bottom as much as possible to get this carbon cake built up and your pipe will smoke much better later. On the other hand, if at any time your pipe starts to taste nasty, stop. Pipe smoking is always supposed to be pleasant and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t always be so.

Practice makes perfect (or almost). Enjoy!