The older one grows, the more one likes indecency—Virginia Woolf Lately, I’ve been on a Virginia Woolf reading binge. It’s been an assignment my daughters have given me, to, uhm, […]
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A new year and a brand new canvas! Thank goodness. It is time to move on and look toward a brighter time. And with that, how about some New Pipe […]
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Yes, dear reader, the Pundit has lost it! Blame it on lingering aftershocks of Thanksgiving stupor. Too much turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, cornbread, green beans, and […]
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Now that we have concluded America’s pressing business, well, so to speak, it’s time to move on to more important events. Such as, there is not much time left for […]
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Okay, so the world is coming to an end! Do not panic. Remember, this the “howling month” of Halloween. Do not despair. The Pundit says “supposed” final endings are passing […]
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September is always a good time to think about what’s next. Such as the end of summer, the start of fall, and football, maybe? There is always hope. I know, […]
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Remember the annals of a former time in the pipe world? An era when the old wood meant grabbing a beautiful smoking pipe off the rack or reaching for a […]
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Now that we are in the month of America’s independence, our national holiday celebrated, of course, July 4th each year, requires a moment of reflection. America’s founding fathers were pipe […]
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“. . . . I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” ― Vincent Willem van Gogh I’ve long admired Van Gogh’s […]
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The future ain’t what it used to be—Yogi Berra Despite the dark intrusion of Covid-19 into our daily lives, social joys and reality, and the end of baseball season as […]
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Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 659. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Rick Newcombe. Rick is a well-known author of several pipe books, and he is a prominent collector of Danish pipes, and vintage tobaccos. We catch up with him and see what he’s looking forward to at the Chicago pipe show this coming weekend. Rick was in Chicago when the show was first conceived of, and provides quite an interesting early days look at the show. Later, he chats with us about alternative sources of nicotine. At the top of the show in our Pipe Parts segment, Brian relays a quite interesting and nostalgic history and background on small batch and/or limited edition tobaccos.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 658. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Bo Parker. Bo is the new co-host of the Pipe and Tamper Podcast, which is the second longest running pipe podcast after this one. Bo started as the co-host in January 2025, and he is also a member of the Heretics Pipe Club. He is a professional coffee roaster and has the best “first time I smoked a pipe story” ever. At the top of the show, we will have another edition of the virtual tour of Brian’s pipe collection with four more Smio Satou pipes.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 657. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Ben Smith of Redeemed Pipes. Ben is a pipe restorer, buyer and seller. He helps collectors find the estate pipes they are looking for. He started Redeemed Pipes in 2022 at his first Chicago pipe show. He deals with all types of pipes from artisan to factory-made. He actually started smoking pipes in 2017, and soon became obsessed, and quickly progressed to collecting artisan pipes himself. At the top of the show Brian will discuss “Estate Pipe Buying 101”.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 656. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Nate King, the “King of Pipes” and of In-N-Out Burger. Most people know of Nate as an excellent pipe artisan. He also has an honorary Master of Pipes degree from the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club, and is a member of the prestigious Confrérie des Maitres Pipiers de Saint-Claude. Prior to becoming a pipe maker in 2005, Nate worked in the Indy race business as a transmission specialist. At the top of the show Brian will have a tobacco review of Low Country Atalaya. It is a Virginia/Perique blend made in the Cornell & Diehl factory.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 655. Our featured interview tonight is with Mike Morales. Mike showed up at the Vegas pipe show last year with a bunch of professional video equipment and spontaneously arranged interviews with show exhibitors and Brian. The video he produced was at a professional level of a TV show, so Brian had to have him on the show. Mike is a pipe smoking enthusiast that is quite intrigued with the community aspect and history of pipe smoking. He is on a journey to devour as much of this information and experience as possible. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Ahh, Spring has sprung! Cherry blossoms are sprouting into bloom, the weather is giving some of us a bit of relief (looking at you, allergies). But there is also the other side—the, uh, spring cleaning side. I’m talking pipe herd spring cleaning, of course. Over the years, the herd has become unruly and very inconsiderate. Pipes seem to arrive and begin elbowing for a spot in the numerous pipe rack stalls. So, I began a long journey this current spring to shoo away the unwanted, weed out the ugly growths, and start afresh. Dear friends, there are hundreds in the herd! See, Pundit began his pipe smoking journey and pursuit of happy hobby hunting in college. I admired my pipe-puffing erudite English Lit professors, the fuzzy history profs, and pomp and circumstance philosopher profs, one of whom entered the classroom, smoking a pipe and reciting “ Sic Parvis Magna,” or another of his favorite Latin phrases. I always loved hearing that prof walking in from the back of the classroom and spouting over his clenched pipe, that Latin phrase “greatness from small beginnings.” What wasn’t so much fun arrived at the end of a year-long study of Shakespeare. The Shakespearean scholar teaching the class penned a note at the end of the single exam we had all year, “Deus vobiscum,” God be with you. English Lit majors had to make a B or higher on the exam in order not to repeat the year-long study of The Bard. I was in my senior year, as were most of the Lit majors. Repeating the year was not the best of outcomes. I digress. Back to the herd. In all my searching, I always wanted to find an estate pipe carved and created (ahem, like me, of course) in my birth year. Now, we won’t go into the actual birth date itself, but let’s just say it ranges around World War II. I never found that estate pipe, but the herd is full of old and dated versions around that birth year. Some very new herd additions help ease that search. There are so many old memories and stories surrounding the ancients, though. One quick one for you. This happened on a beautiful catch-and-release Ozark Mountain river stream along the Missouri and Arkansas border. The stream was one of those mystical waters. Mists floating off the morning current whets the imagination in anticipation of mayflies or caddisflies emerging from larvae to pupae, rising to the surface, drying its wings and taking flight in a new form, promising me greatness from their small beginnings. I was enjoying my pipe, casting for wild trout when I heard a shout behind me. It originated from a rock-dimpled canoe. A large bearded fellow slapped the paddle beside me as the entourage of two bearded guys and two bathing suit clad ladies floated by. The loud smack on the water scattered the trout, ending fly fishing on that stretch. Time to retreat. As I slowly backed upstream, keeping an eye on the dented canoe, it crunched ashore on a nearby sandy stretch. The bearded guy in front got out and as one of the ladies was emerging, he snatched off the top of her bathing suit. I sped up my retreat as the shouting began. In the melee, I dropped my pipe into the stream, but quickly retrieved it with my fishing net. Pipes always produce the best memories and stories. Pipe Smokers of the Past: Albert Einstein, Mr. E=mc2 was born March 14, 1879, and died April 18, 1955. He was a celebrated theoretical physicist and pipe smoker, and seldom seen without his pipe and puffy plumes of Revelation tobacco floating above his bristly bushy head of hair. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough—Albert Einstein Albert King, Mississippi blues man, and guitar master, was born in Indianola, Miss., April 25, 1923, and died Dec. 21, 1992, in Memphis, Tenn. He was known as “King of the Blues Guitar,” and sometimes, “King of the Pipe,” since he often smoked his pipe while playing a blues gig. Rose Kiser has an excellent biography of King and his love of pipes in a Nov. 10, 2023, Pipe Line column at SmokingPipes.com. A quote from one of his blues songs: All your loneliness I’ll try to soothe, I’ll play the blues for you—Albert King, “I’ll Play the Blues for You”. A parting shot: Pipes provide us with fond farewells in our memory. They have been friends and family, there for all the happy times as well as the difficult days, as we all experience. It’s sad to see some leave the fold, but there are fresh rose-tipped horizons to be seen with a new kid joining the beloved herd.
