Pipes made of cadaver bone

[mortonbriar]

If you are carving bone, any bone, use a dust mask! That shit does stink (to make no bones about it) but also the fine dust will settle in your lungs and you want to leave plenty of room in there for tobacco smoke!
As for human bones being used for a pipe I guess if the person is dead they will not be offended but it still seems disrespectful, somehow I do not apply that logic to other species...I am assuming that stems from my belief that humans have a soul, although I have to ponder/analyze/smoke a bowl that whole idea a bit deeper to better understand why I think that, so maybe I will answer that again differently later.
Isaac

 

[hakchuma]

I recently finished reading In the Heart of the Sea. True story.of.the Essex. Those fellas were not smoking the bones of thier mates they were sucking the marrow from the bones bones of their dead mates!
Got what they deserved in my opinion though considering their convoluted respect for the Sea.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

If you are carving bone, any bone, use a dust mask!

What things are safe to carve without wearing a mask? :wink:

 

[davet]

What things are safe to carve without wearing a mask?

Turkey ?

 

[drwatson]

This Place is Getting Strange!

 

[edgreen]

I'd rather smoke from human bone than a skunk's ass (eg Baron Ambrosia from the latest issue of Pipes and Tobacco magazine)

 

[zack24]

I actually have cadaver parts. Blew my ACL in my knee on a slalom course in Vail. They gave me a choice between chopping into my perfectly good right knee for the required part or using cadaver tissue...
You might say I'm the Walking Dead....

 

[mortonbriar]

What things are safe to carve without wearing a mask?
Turkey ?

ha! also waves, as any fellow surfers will know...
Isaac

 

[deathmetal]

This Place is Getting Strange!

Good. But it always was, just cryptically.

I actually have cadaver parts

Did you read Frankenstein to celebrate? This post was inspired by an acquaintance who is getting cadaver bone in his neck to repair some damage. His hope is to play guitar again. Than, and the $^#$%$# starbucks cups!

 

[mrbigglesworth]

When I am dead I will be gone and have no more use for this place. I will not be looking down from heaven; for I want nothing more to do with this earth. It's an evil, selfish and uncaring place, so I find. So you may have my bones to do with as you please. I will not have a need for them. Make pipes or candlesticks or whatever your heart may fancy.
I do not want to be embalmed, placed in a casket, and buried in the ground. I find it a rather strange concept to litter the earth with chemical-filled bodies that will not decay. Except sometimes I think I'd like to have a place my children can visit. I have thought often that I'd like to be cremated, but you'd better make darn sure I'm really dead first.
I've told my wife that if it were legal I'd prefer to be left to rot and be eaten by the vultures so that there is nothing left in the end, and that I might return to the ground as the dust from which I came.

 

[wannashmooze]

Burning human bone smells not so good. I work with bone daily as an orthopod, anytime we burn bone during surgery with a hotknife or drilling thru it, the room fills with a kind of acrid smell thats hard to describe but not one that you would want to inhale.

 

[hawke]

I stopped reading halfway thru the 1st page.... As hakchuma stated it kinda depends on the culture in these regards. I'd like to keep an open mind as to what others want to do even if I can say I'm not attracted to the idea. I have made a few handles for knives and such from deer antlers which when cutting with a dremel will emit a very bad smell akin to the dentist drilling out a cavity. Not pleasant. My wife would not be pleased when I did this work in the house. I have heard some comments that antler pipe bowls do not taste very well. Antlers are useful as stems I'd think however. Antlers are bone correct?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Antlers are closer to being hair or fingernails than bone. But close.

 

[chapu]

What an interesting topic. As an atheist I can relate to what Lee said: I don't believe in an afterlife, and I'm not inclined to partake in rituals, although of course I know there's people out there who do, and I respect their customs. That being said, I would like one of those viking funerals: just put me in a canoe with my pipes and my bows and my portable videogame consoles, set me aflame and watch me go while having a nice cold beer and a good bowl :lol:
But seriously, the wife and I agree: when we go, let them harvest whatever's of use for someone else (organs and such), and since something has to be done with the remains, cremation sounds great. No storage space necessary!
In regards to the more political/philosophical issue that came up, I'd say it's quite inevitable for them to show up. We are, after all, social animals, and politics is but a very refined form of understanding and problematizing our society. It's only to be expected that we think politically about almost everything, in a broad sense of "political". And as for plurality... I can see the term has had some bad press, probably because it has been misused to justify a whole range of things not originally related. But I say let everyone have their go at things, as long as they don't tramp on my or anyone else's ability to have our own ways in the process.
EDIT: and just to keep on the safe side of "on-topic", let me add that I am curious about how a bone pipe would smoke too. Not necessarily human bone, mind you, I think all bone is pretty much the same and we could do without the moral issues hassle. I imagine it would be something akin to meerschaum?

 

[danielplainview]

Ed Gein made furniture from dead bodies. See if there was an estate sale.
I wouldn't fall asleep around your friend. Horus be praised.

 

[mrbigglesworth]

What an interesting topic. As an atheist I can relate to what Lee said: I don't believe in an afterlife, and I'm not inclined to partake in rituals, although of course I know there's people out there who do, and I respect their customs.

For the record, I am not an atheist. I am a Christian and do believe in an afterlife. Which, if it's anything like The Good Book says, I cannot wait to experience. Thus, as being a Christian, and an outsider at that, have never felt that this Earth was my true home.

 

[chapu]

Duly noted. I misinterpreted the bit about "When I am dead I will be gone and have no more use for this place". Anyway, I believe we can both agree on our disinterest in burial rites, and on a more general note on the fact that once we're gone from here, we're gone for good, hence our general lack of caring about what happens to our remains.

 

[elbert]

An old story I remember hearing about Diogenes the Cynic. As Athens' resident gadfly was nearing the end, he was asked by the Athenians what should be done with his earthly remains. He instructed them to throw his body over the city walls.
"But what about the buzzards and the dogs?", they asked.
"Well, of course you'll throw a stick over with me so I can defend myself", he replied.
"But if you're dead, how can you use a stick!?"
"If I'm dead, why do I fret about the buzzards and the dogs!?"

 

[edgreen]

I think I've changed my mind about being buried. The above would make such an awesome epitaph.