Great Expectations

G. L. Pease Some pipes don’t treat us well. They seduce us with their beauty, their charm, only to tease us cruelly, never delivering what they appear to promise. They can be likened to horrible relationships that we keep revisiting, either because of the intensity of our shallow lusts, or because we keep forgetting how …

Out of the Ashes

Lights, Smokes & Leaves

The Care & Feeding of the Pipeman – by G. L. Pease Indulge me. Take a moment to close your eyes and reflect on your earliest experience as a budding pipe smoker. It could have been months ago, years, or even decades. Imagine that first bowl in as much vivid detail as you can conjure. …

Out of the Ashes

Covering My Ash

G. L. Pease I’ve been saving the ash from my smokes for a couple weeks, partially in response to some vocal claims made by a few that smoking to the bottom is either nearly impossible, or that doing so almost guarantees destruction of the pipe through burnout. Truth is, I’m actually pretty far away from …

Out of the Ashes

Bowl Coatings – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Part II

G. L. Pease Last month (see Part I), we asked the the question, “why coat the bowl?” and looked at some of the common reasons coatings might be used. Response to the article was just what I expected it would be, with people taking up residence in one of the three camps I mentioned—hate ’em, …

Out of the Ashes

Bowl Coatings – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Part I

G. L. Pease One of the most contentious of the long-running debates in the pipe community is the issue of bowl coatings. Why something so seemingly innocuous can drive discussions to a fevered pitch is intriguing, since, on the surface, it seems a fairly innocent thing. When I’ve discussed the subject with other pipemen, the …

Out of the Ashes

Blinded by Science

G. L. Pease Pipe smoking is at once the simple affair of filling a bowl with some chosen leaf, getting it smouldering just right, and spending an hour or so enjoying the fruits of the effort, as well as a deceptively complex equation of too many variables to keep sorted. There are the obvious influences …

Out of the Ashes

Mélange a Trois

G. L. Pease I’m a collector. It’s not just pipes that stimulate this peculiar but fortunately not uncommon affliction. There are a lot of things I find difficult to resist. The books are probably the heaviest, overall, or maybe the wine. Wristwatches have always appealed to me, and fountain pens, pocket knives, old coins. The …

Out of the Ashes

Learning to Fly

G. L. Pease I’ve been smoking a pipe for about 30 years, now, and I’m starting to get the idea that I just don’t know how to do it. Seriously. It’s not that I can’t stuff tobacco into a bowl, get it smouldering, and even keep it going more or less until I get to …

Out of the Ashes

Have Your Cake…

G. L. Pease I love the first bowl in a new pipe. The courtship. The anticipation. The excitement. I fill the bowl carefully, taking time to appreciate the workmanship, the grain, the balance, the cut. I test the draw, then strike a match, and slowly tease its fire over the surface of the tobacco, drawing …

Out of the Ashes Pipe Shows

Kansas City Made Me Sick

G. L. Pease Not really. Actually, it was some joker in the airport who decided to sneeze and cough all over everyone in sight that made me sick. But, it happened in Kansas City, and it made you look. I’ve been back from the KC show for a few weeks, now, and I am still …

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