Stygian Smoke

Altinok Meer Review

2006-02-10T07:27:00.000-06:00

I've had this smooth volcano-shaped meer for a few years now. The company, Altinok http://altinokpipe.com/default.asp, was very easy to deal with. It did take longer than expected to receive the pipe (about 8 weeks as I recall), but the wait was well rewarded. It came in a fitted case with a certificate that I've since lost. It's the only meer I own. The only meer I've ever owned, in fact. I don't treat it with kid gloves like some pipesters recommend. Perhaps this is why it hasn't colored as evenly or deeply as I hoped. At the same time, this isn't so important to me. The aesthetics of a nicely colored meer are nice, but the chief asset is the ability to smoke repeatedly with only limited need for rest. The pipe is made of quality block meerschaum and smokes well. It gets smoked fitfully. That is, there are months during which it sits in a drawer and others during which it gets smoked a couple times a day. I'm not sure why this is, but it is. It's seen exclusively latakia blends, and as one would expect, really highlights their smokey sweetness. I've let cake build up in it and rarely clean the interior or exterior of the pipe. Approximately once a year I reapply beeswax. I used to do this in a pretty involved way--qtips and hair dryers were some tools of the process--but now I just make sure the pipe is clean and rub a piece of beeswax on it as it heated up during a smoke. Again, I'm not sure if my laziness, the pipe's size, or its finish is the reason the pipe hasn't colored as well as I hoped.

The pipe has a delrin tenon and mortise insert, which was an important criterion for my first meer. Altinok did a nice job with this. The overall engineering is good, though not superb. For one thing, a few superficial scratches are noticable, probably unavoidable with smooth finished meers. More importantly is an airhole that is drilled a little too low in the bowl. Consequently, there's a trough down there that can be difficult to clear if it gets plugged. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, I have a bitch of a time getting the clog out. Other negatives include its weight and the plastic stem. The weight I accept as the tradeoff for a large pipe. The stem, though not as bad as a Grabow, feels too plastic-like for my taste, and I've been tempted to get it replaced. That being said, the stem has also held up well to my clenching and has a tasteful silver ring on it. Overall I'm very pleased with this pipe. It has a large capacity and stands up to abuse. The shape is nicely designed with strong sharp lines at the bottom complimented by a rounded variation of the volcano on top. The pipe was part of series themed by mountains around the world. I believe this is supposed to be Mt. McKinley, but I'm not entirely sure.

Because of my experience with this pipe, I will probably buy a lattice or figural meer in the future. The smooth just picks up too much dirt and uneven coloring is too egregious with no contours to obscure it. I would definitely consider buying from Altinok again and recommend them as etailers with the only caveat that buyer's gratification may be delayed.

Check out my cellar

2005-03-23T16:16:00.000-06:00

http://tobaccocellar.org/tinlist.php?cellar=16

Tobacco Review--McClelland #2035

2004-10-03T16:10:00.000-05:00

A deeply dark and rich tobacco available at a great price in bulk. The smoke is has a dense carmel-like quality to it and is very satisfying. But 2035 is simply too labor intensive to be something I smoke regularly. It is packed as such a dense, moist flake that it takes a long time to get it to the right humidity level, and even then its denseness makes it difficult to light evenly. But once you get it burning evenly--oh mama!, it's a fine smoke. It's just that I can't get that even, slow burn going until about half way down the bowl. For me, it compares nicely to Marlin Flake with the molassis note that remains coy there being bombastic here. Again, I really like 2035, but she just demands more work than I like to give. 2035 is like that girlfriend with whom the conversations are good, the sex is mind-altering, but she wants to talk everyday on the phone for hours and make plans for the holidays 9 months in advance. Sorry 2035, your one fine lady but I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment.

[the above posted to www.tobaccoreviews.com as well]

A Real Tobacco Shop

2004-09-27T20:48:00.000-05:00

One of the best things about moving to Lincoln is the fact that I now have a real tobacco shop to go to. Actually there are two, though one of them doesn't have a great selection of pipes. But Ted's Tobacco is a great shop with an informed proprietor. Every time I've gone there I've had a great conversation with him about pipes and tobaccos, and he has a wide variety of good tobaccos instead of just the range of bulk Lane's that I'm used to seeing in tobacco shops. But my enthusiasm for this local business has presented a dilemma I haven't had to deal with in my prior years of smoking: to support the local business or to save money on-line. Before I always could always excuse not supporting the local tobacconists because they were really discount cigarette shops. But now there is a viable tobacconist that I feel ethically obligated to support. "Ethically obligated you say, Thrasymachus? Why is that?" Because I believe that the community presence of a tobacconist is important to the continued growth of our hobby. Because refuge for the smoker is increasingly difficult to find. Because world-wide virtual communities do not have nearly the political agency that real local ones do. "But Thrasymachus, Do not the presence of on-line retailers also contribute to the hobby's growth, support small tobacco blenders and artisan pipe makers, and create a broader sense of community with a broader political power?" I suppose that's true, so I'll have to support both.

Confessions of a nicotine addict (1)

2004-09-26T13:52:00.000-05:00

My name is, and I'm a nicotine addict. I've smoked 4 pipes today in as many hours. I have eaten nothing. I don't like the fact that I smoke constantly and feel jittery when I do. I smoke out of boredom, I smoke to keep my mind and hands busy rather than do what I need to do. The backs of my teeth are stained from the smoke and I get extremely impatient when I haven't smoked for more than three waking hours. I am an addict, and I wish I weren't.

My name is, and I smoke. I enjoy a good pipe. I enjoy nicotine in my blood. I'll grant to you anti-smoking control junkies that it probably isn't the healthiest thing to do. But then again, neither is stressing oneself out about what other people choose to do with their lives. The globalization of trade, the economic foundations of this country, can be directly attributed to tobacco. It is our cultural heritage, and you spit on it. Tobacco has for hundreds of years brought people together. Yes, it is a drug; but so is aspirin. And like aspirin, its mild pharmacological effects has helped and continues to help millions of people get through daily hardship, pain, and hunger. You feel anxious about your own death, transfer that fear onto the rest of society, and say it is all for the children and the common man. Your attempts to create a smoke-free world for yourselves smacks of class warfare or burgeois paternalism when riteously justified by a concern for the worker, concern for the children. Face your fears. Find religion. Do something besides imposing your all-too-powerful will upon your fellow (wo)man. I am a smoker, and I deeply resent your lust for control.

2004-07-07T17:50:00.000-05:00

(4pm) Deacon's Downfall in Radice Billiard

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Going to Lincoln tomorrow. I'll pack 4 pipes for the 7.5hr drive. Hope to find an apartment. Wish me luck.

Tinsky Cabernet Bulldog

2004-07-06T13:22:00.000-05:00

(1pm) Hal O'The Wynd in Tinsky Cabernet Bulldog
(5pm) LNF in Tinsky Tanblast Rhodesian
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Based on a true story:

This is the most valued, valuable, and one of the few pipes I've received as a gift. It came by mail with an unsigned note attached that said only "Congratulations" in a careful, feminine script. The post mark located it coming from Wisconsin, but I couldn't think of anyone I knew who lived there. Odd. While I appreciated the gift and was excited about the pipe, I was a bit trepidatious. Very few people even knew I smoked a pipe, so who could this be?

An email arrived a few days later asking if I'd gotten the pipe. Love, Ilona.

I hadn't talked with Ilona since high school. In my senior year, her junior, she moved away with her family. It was kind of a crisis moment for her for a lot of reasons and we talked through some of it together. I thought of her rarely, but always with a certain sadness. She was a beautiful girl who hadn't known her own beauty, hadn't known how to wear it. She found no comfort in her own skin. Awkward and self-conscious. Full of undirected intense sexual energy. To me, she seemed young and morose. But she would mature and gain perspective on it all. So whenever I thought of her it was with mild curiosity, warm affection, and the pang of nostalgia. [An elided scene I regret of abandonment and a porch.]

So now I knew. But still...there were gaps in this story. How did she know about the pipe habit? It was an enormously generous gift just to say hello.

She had done some internet research and found my few comments on ASP, found out what I liked and commissioned a pipe from Mark. In an serendipitous coincidence, I had commissioned a set of rhodesians that were in the same Days Work and had already admired this pipe when I saw it there.

Shortly thereafter she came to town and we spent an evening out together. She is a stunning, sharp woman and we had a nice time. We have not talked for a couple years. But I am still grateful for her gift, which was/is a friendship unique, strange, and special. The pipe is a generous reminder of that. So thank you Ilona. I hope in this sketch I haven't misrepresented you too much, though I know I have altered a few details and left out many others.

Movie: Fog of War

2004-07-02T12:44:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching The Fog of War. This documentary on Robert McNamara is an amazing piece of history and a compellingly told story. The film centers around interviews with the former Defense Secretary and allows his sense of narrative to structure the story. Consequently, its linearity is often circumscribed by digressions and asides as great tales often are. Though we often see him telling his story, contemporary footage and images intersperse and superimpose McNamara's words. The film also draws from recorded conversations with presidents that, when set against war footage, are hauntingly disembodied voices of the most powerful mouths of the time. McNamara's tale is not only historically and philosophically interesting, it is moving. The mentally acute octogenarian draws from deep and honest emotional reserves not to tell a story of regrets, but one of emotional significance. At one point, his eyelids red and slightly tear-brimmed, he firmly asks both rhetorically and with sincere interest in an answer, "How much evil must we do in this world to do good?" (Throughout, Glass' score wonderfully undergirds this emotional depth without making it maudlin.) The cogent mixture of the intellectual and emotional import of this film is best illustrated when McNamara quotes TS Eliot in the film's final chapter.

Though I had heard great things about it, I avoided The Fog of War because I never seemed to be in the mood for a documentary, especially about so heavy a subject as the Vietnam War. I was wrong about what I had anticipated the tone of this movie to be. Even with such a serious subject, it is thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking in an entirely stimulating way. No heavy-handedness here. Highly recommended.

Tinsky X-mas 2000

2004-07-02T06:52:00.000-05:00

(6am) Deacon's Downfall in Tinsky X-mas2000
(8am) LNF in Cavicchi 4C Slug
(1pm) Deacon's Downfall in Stanwell Nordic
(9pm) Decon's Downfall in GRC Volcano

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A commemorative pipe, but 'twas not Christmas

Considering yesterday's anti-commemoration note, today's first smoke comes with a dollop of irony. This is the one pipe I have that has a strong association with an event in my life, though there is no moment in memory to which I attach it. It's more a long process that I went through that became complete at some point (that point seems so blurry, folds into some larger, amorphously and emotionally defined part of remembrance) rather than a commemorating event. When I pick up this pipe, I am reminded of a struggle and an accomplishment that entails no single moment in my history but rather a state of being that is important to the way I understand my past and identity. So along came a day, on an actually recordable hour and minute, that I celebrated my BA by firing up this pipe and forever linked it with a memory, but not the memory of that particular moment (I have long since forgotten). Though it was meant to coincide with graduation, it signifies what led up to it instead.

It's a beauty of a pipe. Tight grain all around with stunning birdseye heal. The ball shape sits comfortably in the hand and is a well-balanced clench. Though it's drilled a little high, it usually smokes dry to fine ash. I can't seem to find the perfect tobacco for it though. Don't get me wrong, it smokes everything well, but I have a feeling there's a tobacco it really makes sing. I wanted it to be a Va/per but think its going to be a latakia instead. I like my Va/per pipes to bring out a certain bright edge, and this seems to bring out the deeper tones that I like in my latakia blends. It doesn't look it, but this pipe is a bass-baritone without the extreme high or low registers of either.

2004-07-01T15:06:00.000-05:00

Cavicchi 4C

New Cavicchi

2004-07-01T14:16:00.000-05:00

(8am) 2 American Spirits
(10am) PS Lux Navy Flake in Cavicchi 4C Slug
(2pm) PS Lux Navy Flake in Cavicchi 4C Slug
(10pm) 4 American Spirits

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Breaking 'em in

For the past few years I've broken in every pipe with Navy Flake. Though it's fairly uncomplex, I know the flake's nuances better than any other tobacco and it leaves no ghosts. With a simple and familiar tobacco like this, I feel that I can focus on getting to know the pipe's smoking characteristics and am more aware of any problems that may emerge during that critical and vulnerable period.

The new Cavicchi is a pipe I bought a while back from Skip Elliot at thebriary.com...or was it from Synjeco's? (I bought two Cavicchi pipes at around the same time and ain't sure which is which.) It's been sitting in my drawer waiting for a special occasion. Well, when a special occasion came about it really didn't seem that special, so I left the pipe in the drawer. I decided yesterday that since those moments tend to feel so routine, so anticlimactic when they fruit, that I might as well fire her up, break the briar hymen, and get on with life. Celebrate (if you'll allow an overstatement) without commemorating one damn thing.

God bless,
-Dizz