Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 569
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Kevin Godbee - Aug 8, 2023
- 1 min read
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 569. Tonight’s show will break out of our usual format in honor of the late Japanese pipe artisan, Satou Smio. Satou made high-grade pipes that are works of art, and wonders in engineering at the same time. He was trained in both the Danish and Japanese styles of pipe making, and combined both skill-sets in his masterpiece pipes. “Satou Smio, pipe maker, aged 79, died on July 16th, 2023, following a prolonged illness. While not as prolific as in his earlier years, he continued to make pipes until a few months before his death.” – From: “A Legend Passes: Satou Smio“. The author of that post is Sykes Wilford, founder and CEO of SmokingPipes.com, and he will join Brian for a memoriam for Satou for the entire show. Satou was interviewed on the show back in May 2016 on episode 192 here. We will still have the end-of-show segments for music, mailbag and rant.
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The Pipes Magazine Radio Show features interviews with pipe makers, tobacco blenders, pipe and tobacco aficionados, collectors, and more. Episodes air every Tuesday.
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Written by Kevin Godbee
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We’re in the dog days of summer, and in the heat and humidity I find my palate tends to become as erratic as the extreme weather. To be more precise, my entire biochemistry is busily making the continual adjustments that keep this finely-tuned machine old jalopy of a body in top form hobbling along, and my taste buds are a good indicator that the system is preoccupied with regulating itself. Therefore it’s no surprise that McCranie’s Roanoke, the tobacco that I’d been favoring since the winter months and regularly returning to between other review blends, just wasn’t hitting the spot anymore. We live in fortunate times that present no shortage of novel and interesting blends to try, so some speculation toward new flavors is in order. This month’s spotlight will thus fall on a couple of summer sequels, of a sort: first, the latest installment of Per Jensen’s Pipe Force line, Episode II to be exact; second, a new incarnation of Seattle Pipe Club’s Hogshead, this time with a bourbon barrel-aged twist. Much like The Empire Strikes Back improved on the previous film in that series, Episode II is a generational improvement on the English profile offered in Episode I. To my personal taste, while I enjoyed Episode I quite a bit, it didn’t have a definable hook for me; this iteration of a similar ingredient list hits much closer to the mark. Here again it is a Latakia-forward mixture presented with Katerini concoctions and stoved tobaccos, but with more variety and, for my money, more interest. From the tin: A mellow, sweet mixture of Bright, Red, and Stoved Virginia offers the exceptional base for smokey Latakia, floral Kentucky, spice of Stoved Katerini and the ambrosial berry and spice of Katerini Perique. 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Henry Jaynes Fonda, born May 16, 1905, died Aug. 12, 1982. Bennett Alfred Cerf, born May 25, 1898, died Aug. 27, 1971. Alexander Graham Bell, born March 3, 1847, died Aug. 2, 1922. Alfred Tennyson, born Aug. 6, 1809, died Oct. 6, 1892. If you saw the Hitchcock movie “The Birds,” you know what a “murder” of crows can do to your nerves. The master of scary suspense, Hitchcock is reported to have enjoyed Dunhill pipes and tobaccos, along with his love of cigars. With that said, I’ll take my backyard birds with a nerve-settling pipe. And I can’t depart without a quote from artist and pipe smoker Vincent van Gogh. He wrote in an 1875 letter to his brother, Theo, describing his pipe as an “old, trusty friend, and I imagine we’ll never part again.” Amen, brother.
Your memorial show for Satou Smio was a wonderfully respectful, insightful, and fascinating look at this pipe master through the eyes and remembrances of two friends. Nice job Sykes and Brian.
As we Greeks say, “May his memory be eternal.”
Perfect choice of music.
My advice to critics: “Don’t stone it, if you can’t own it.”
Thanks for a thoughtful show.
Dino
Enjoyable show. Brian and Sykes reminiscing about someone they really admired was quite touching. It is always sad when you lose someone you thought a lot of. I think the only phrase other than the ones you covered is “Sayonara” which means goodby or so long in Japanese. Yasuraka ni nemuru, Satou.
I guess we can refer to Brian as Brian-san from now on.
The music wasn’t bad.
When it comes to complaining I seriously doubt anybody can match the entitled among us. or the “Karen’s”.