Pipe Myths

[UB 40]

When it comes to pipe myths, pick your own poison. Much of what people believe about pipes are most likely myth.

Regardless, myth shouldn't be written off so quickly. It serves a valuable purpose; mainly to provide a basis for maintaining and perpetuating the traditions of associated with any custom or endeavor.

When we break everything down into a simple algorithm or theorem, all that is left is a recipe.

That's fine for replicating a cooked meal, but a meal is much more than that. It is the people gathered around the table, the linens, the plates, and the customs and traditions that occur before, during, and after.

Myths are NOT falsehoods. Rather, they contain elements of a larger truth; truths that help aid in continuity, tradition, and assist in creating the future.

Tobacco burns hot, briar is a wood that can for the most part contain that heat, and sometimes a Grabow smokes as well as any other name brand pipe that was ever made.

Beating up on the mysteries associated with pipe smoking doesn't make one smarter. It just makes them no fun to party with.

The opening paragraphs sound a lot like going back to medieval settings. Myths have had their functions in tales and religious beliefs in former societies. But now we are living towards a post industrial age. Immanuel Kant was already there to tell people to use their own brains to the fullest.

That doesn’t mean we’re reducing things to simple theorems, they might be more complex as any ancient myth in any times before. Defiances are at the door already.

The constituent role of music, art and writing even electronic and digital media in our western society is still there. Fortunately we are not living in Iran.

But know different stories have to be told, ancient (pipe)-myths don’t serve my needs no more.

Maybe we’re not going to party.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Beating up on the mysteries associated with pipe smoking doesn't make one smarter.

Nor does propagating them.

 

[Ray Popp]

The paper bursting into flame at that temp is widely disproven, including by the fact that paper comes in different densities and even materials and humidities and all that. So there really couldn't be a single invariable temperature that bursts paper into flame. It's kind of like saying all cats will rub against my leg after the second who is a pretty kitty?!

Unless it is Schrodinger's cat ...

 

[Briar Lee]

Only the smallest fraction of the public paid any attention to the Schrödinger’s cat lecture and have not the slightest idea there’s a controversy over whether William Shakespeare wrote the Shakespeare plays, and couldn’t name Einstein’s or Tolkien’s favorite pipe blends.

Not only are we’uns codgers, we’uns is well read codgers.

Public education destroys myths.

It takes little hillbilly boys who could see Bug Tussle from their house and puts them in custom hand sewn Super 120 thread count suits for forty years.

Pipe smokers think about and discuss things, most people are blissfully ignorant of.

If we live longer it’s because we are better, at minding the arrows.

We need a few myths to get through life, you know?

 

[Chasing Embers]

We need a few myths to get through life, you know?

No

 

[The Clay King]

I think it is practical and convenient to sell pre packed pipes, especially at the pub during that era (with out having the market at your fingertips). Think of it this way: a strong majority of cigarettes are sold prefilled and often sold in bars st a premium before the vending machines were outlawed. With the average clay pipe life span of 2 years, the pipe could be refilled (similar to popcorn at the movie theatre).

Here is a historical business that sells just the clay Penny Pipe for $3 (and other clay pipes cheaper the SPC or PC. A penny for a pipe and chamber's worth of tobacco seems like a fair price, but I have no dog in this fight.

Penny Pipe

Stem length is about 2.75 inches to the base of the bowl. The bowl design is a tight grid pattern and the bowl is very small, about a half inch in diameter. The stem has a wave and dash design. This size pipe would often be sold as a pre packed pipe in the 18th century.

www.samsonhistorical.com

@The Amish Tyrant Interesting site; I don't need to buy any more clay pipes this year as I have 4 boxes already.
Do you think this outlet would suit the Clay King ???
Smoked a clay with one of the Sealed Knot re-enactors in Nantwich last Saturday; I told him they call me the Clay King !
He showed me how to tap the ash out of a clay pipe without breaking it, simply by tapping it gently across the back of my hand .
I've broken 2 clays already this year...

 

[SBC]

Without getting into the nature and role of myth -- and the somewhat different question of why some do or don't enjoy thicker culture surrounding an activity -- I think that the OP regarded unnecessary fears in pipe management. In which case, I'm surprised that nobody yet has mentioned the removal of a stem before the pipe has fully cooled.

 

[Briar Lee]

No

On my 35th birthday nearly 30 years ago my old friend Jack came to my office and said, at age 35 you’re half of three score and ten, exactly at the middle of life.

The good news is, in the last half of your life you’ll find making your way is easier. You’ll have more money, things will worry you less, and you’ll not struggle as much.

The bad news is every day you’ll get older and sicker and grayer and bent and stooped and someday lay down and croak. And the world will go right on turning without you in it.

Jack was nearly 90 when he went to sleep and woke up dead.

I expect to see Jack again some day, where the roses never fade.

The first thing I’ll do is light his Dutch Masters, and ask how he’s been.

 

[sablebrush52]

On my 35th birthday nearly 30 years ago my old friend Jack came to my office and said, at age 35 you’re half of three score and ten, exactly at the middle of life.

The good news is, in the last half of your life you’ll find making your way is easier. You’ll have more money, things will worry you less, and you’ll not struggle as much.

The bad news is every day you’ll get older and sicker and grayer and bent and stooped and someday lay down and croak. And the world will go right on turning without you in it.

Jack was nearly 90 when he went to sleep and woke up dead.

I expect to see Jack again some day, where the roses never fade.

The first thing I’ll do is light his Dutch Masters, and ask how he’s been.

I like hearing Gospel, but my son's dog, who's decided I'm her human, looked up at the computer when the feller commenced to singin', pulled her ears back, got up from her bed, and left the room.

Everyone is a critic.

 

[telescopes]

No

The brain is a myth making machine. Even the most ardent scientist, with all of their training, machines, calibrating instruments, harbors myths that are used to fill in the blanks.

Up until recently, I suppose one myth was not to allow cake to build up in a meerschaum as it prevented coloring.

Now, that concept is put forward as a myth.

Regardless, our minds are myth making machines used to create narratives strung together as stories to help explain reality. Exploring myths, not mocking them, but exploring them, testing them, understanding where they come from and why they somewhat explain an answer to a question allows the observer to better understand reality.

But why mock them?

Unless of course, one is next to God in their own intelligence then feel free to throw stones at other people's glass homes.

 

[telescopes]

The opening paragraphs sound a lot like going back to medieval settings. Myths have had their functions in tales and religious beliefs in former societies. But now we are living towards a post industrial age. Immanuel Kant was already there to tell people to use their own brains to the fullest.

That doesn’t mean we’re reducing things to simple theorems, they might be more complex as any ancient myth in any times before. Defiances are at the door already.

The constituent role of music, art and writing even electronic and digital media in our western society is still there. Fortunately we are not living in Iran.

But know different stories have to be told, ancient (pipe)-myths don’t serve my needs no more.

Maybe we’re not going to party.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Shakespear... or maybe not....LOL

Kant, for all he was, doubtfully was thinking about whether to cake a pipe first or smoke it full blown.

I am fairly sure it would be impossible for me to burn out one of my father's pipes as they are caked really heavily.

He built that cake to protect them from burn out. He built up the cake systematically.

Now, it is true, if you don't smoke like a steam engine, but a float like a gentle butterfly instead, you can begin with a full load in a new pipe and you aren't going to burn it out.

The myth of cake burnout protects the steam engine smoker by having them build up a cake. It also allows the smoker to get to know their pipe first by slowing down their abusive smoking so they build up a cake.

What gets lost in the translation here at Pipesmagazine is when the parade of myth busters goes right to decrying building up a cake through a careful process stating it is unnecessary. What they leave out is that the freight train will charge down with his Walbash Cannonball and proceed to scotch the pipe.

Life, as best as can be understood by any one person, is an illusion in many ways. Whether a holographic projection of energy emanating from the quantum level, or a program in some other programs computer, or you fill-in-the-blank- life is an unknown for many things and many things will remain unknown.

Love, forgiveness, hope, absolution, these are all things that should not be and yet, they are.

The "new man": I wonder, is he really any better off or is he/she/they only imagining themselves to be something better than what has come before.

 

[bobpnm]

1 Pipe can be smoked countless times in a day, with no rest. As long as it is kept clean, the smokes will only get better. Whether it’s briar, cob, or meerschaum.

My grandfather had one pipe he kept at his desk and smoked all day at the paper mill. At home, he had two pipes in a rack beside his chair, one of those pipes he smoked at home. One he called his Sunday pipe and he smoked it out and about. I knew him for 16 years. I never saw him with a new pipe. I rarely saw him without a pipe in his mouth.

 

[OverMountain]

Smoke, and dust, and anything other than pure fresh air isn’t good for us to breathe.

Pipe and cigar smoking are less bad than cigarettes because usually we don’t inhale the smoke deeply in our lungs.

But, I’m convinced nicotine is good for the soul, as it releases dopamines.

Whether the well being effect nicotine releases is greater than the risks of smoke inside the oral cavity might be debatable.

Those damned cigarettes are such an efficient nicotine delivery system we pipe smokers, only about one per cent of nicotine slaves, get understudied.

Tex Williams died of pancreatic cancer at age 68.

I think that is true. It’s hard for medical professionals to make quantitative judgements without properly designed research studies.

What I’m more interested in is doctors “practice”. Namely their informed observations over time of pipe smokers. A qualitative approach based on their experience.

An example: my last dentist told me occasional use isn’t a problem. That he enjoys a cigar from time to time, and that it’s the dose that makes the poison.

 

[mortonbriar]

I have had some pipe NEAR myths, but then I have a VERY strong lispth.

 

[The Clay King]

I think it is practical and convenient to sell pre packed pipes, especially at the pub during that era (with out having the market at your fingertips). Think of it this way: a strong majority of cigarettes are sold prefilled and often sold in bars st a premium before the vending machines were outlawed. With the average clay pipe life span of 2 years, the pipe could be refilled (similar to popcorn at the movie theatre).

Here is a historical business that sells just the clay Penny Pipe for $3 (and other clay pipes cheaper the SPC or PC. A penny for a pipe and chamber's worth of tobacco seems like a fair price, but I have no dog in this fight.

Penny Pipe

Stem length is about 2.75 inches to the base of the bowl. The bowl design is a tight grid pattern and the bowl is very small, about a half inch in diameter. The stem has a wave and dash design. This size pipe would often be sold as a pre packed pipe in the 18th century.

www.samsonhistorical.com

@The Amish Tyrant It was re-enactment that got me interested in clay pipes after seeing costumed re-enactors smoking them. I bought my first clay pipe at Chesterfield flea market in 2018 after moving out of my parents' house. Dad thinks I live on beer and pipeweed

 

[The Clay King]

I think it is practical and convenient to sell pre packed pipes, especially at the pub during that era (with out having the market at your fingertips). Think of it this way: a strong majority of cigarettes are sold prefilled and often sold in bars st a premium before the vending machines were outlawed. With the average clay pipe life span of 2 years, the pipe could be refilled (similar to popcorn at the movie theatre).

Here is a historical business that sells just the clay Penny Pipe for $3 (and other clay pipes cheaper the SPC or PC. A penny for a pipe and chamber's worth of tobacco seems like a fair price, but I have no dog in this fight.

Penny Pipe

Stem length is about 2.75 inches to the base of the bowl. The bowl design is a tight grid pattern and the bowl is very small, about a half inch in diameter. The stem has a wave and dash design. This size pipe would often be sold as a pre packed pipe in the 18th century.

www.samsonhistorical.com

@The Amish Tyrant Looks an interesting site; some good stuff there!

 

[The Clay King]

I think it is practical and convenient to sell pre packed pipes, especially at the pub during that era (with out having the market at your fingertips). Think of it this way: a strong majority of cigarettes are sold prefilled and often sold in bars st a premium before the vending machines were outlawed. With the average clay pipe life span of 2 years, the pipe could be refilled (similar to popcorn at the movie theatre).

Here is a historical business that sells just the clay Penny Pipe for $3 (and other clay pipes cheaper the SPC or PC. A penny for a pipe and chamber's worth of tobacco seems like a fair price, but I have no dog in this fight.

Penny Pipe

Stem length is about 2.75 inches to the base of the bowl. The bowl design is a tight grid pattern and the bowl is very small, about a half inch in diameter. The stem has a wave and dash design. This size pipe would often be sold as a pre packed pipe in the 18th century.

www.samsonhistorical.com

@The Amish Tyrant Townsends is another retailer selling 18th century re-enactment goods:

Townsends

Townsends is dedicated to exploring the 18th century living, cooking, clothing, and much more.

www.townsends.us

https://www.youtube.com/@townsends/videos

 

[Zeno Marx]

The myths I see today are that pipe smoking has rules and definitive techniques. "Should I be lighting my pipe from a 90° or 92° angle?" Some of the detailed wankery I see on social media has me scratching my head. "I just got into pipe smoking, and I was hoping to find the fifty definitive rules to piping so I don't have to forge my own path, so I don't have to do any experimenting, so I can shrink the learning curve from years into three days, and so I do it exactly right." And we almost always oblige this lack of genuine curiosity and general lack of problem solving; thus, encouraging it to not be a past time, but yet another task to conquer and dominate.

 

[UB 40]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Shakespear... or maybe not....LOL

Kant, for all he was, doubtfully was thinking about whether to cake a pipe first or smoke it full blown.

I am fairly sure it would be impossible for me to burn out one of my father's pipes as they are caked really heavily.

He built that cake to protect them from burn out. He built up the cake systematically.

Now, it is true, if you don't smoke like a steam engine, but a float like a gentle butterfly instead, you can begin with a full load in a new pipe and you aren't going to burn it out.

The myth of cake burnout protects the steam engine smoker by having them build up a cake. It also allows the smoker to get to know their pipe first by slowing down their abusive smoking so they build up a cake.

What gets lost in the translation here at Pipesmagazine is when the parade of myth busters goes right to decrying building up a cake through a careful process stating it is unnecessary. What they leave out is that the freight train will charge down with his Walbash Cannonball and proceed to scotch the pipe.

Life, as best as can be understood by any one person, is an illusion in many ways. Whether a holographic projection of energy emanating from the quantum level, or a program in some other programs computer, or you fill-in-the-blank- life is an unknown for many things and many things will remain unknown.

Love, forgiveness, hope, absolution, these are all things that should not be and yet, they are.

The "new man": I wonder, is he really any better off or is he/she/they only imagining themselves to be something better than what has come before.

“It is very probable, as a friend remarked to me, that Kant‘s works would not have been written in such a curious and bad style had he not smoked so much.” Leo Tolstoi committed about Kants writings. And yes Kant didn’t know the fear of burning down briars, he used clay pipes as far as we know.

To interprete the “heaven and earth” statement we need to take a look at the Elizabethan world view. That was a time when one star crosses the other and Romeo and Juliet fell in love.

So the heaven and earth statement appears in certain sense that is in lightened to the doomed beliefs of the Elizabethan era, and just means there might be more stars, and so far, more inescapable fate to come.

Yes of course there might be things between heaven and earth we cannot even think of.

But we are not talking about rocket science when it comes to pipes smoking. We know quite well about how briar behaves, and it is a sturdy and heat resistant peace of wood.

That’s not an illusion. It’s real. Maybe your father got the illusion to protect his pipes further by building up a cake. A lore which I doubt. Or he might have been just to lazy to clean his pipes, who knows?

So long, telescopes, we may party some day because you didn’t forget to mention one thing, that’s love.

 

[K.E. Powell]

The myths I see today are that pipe smoking has rules and definitive techniques. "Should I be lighting my pipe from a 90° or 92° angle?" Some of the detailed wankery I see on social media has me scratching my head. "I just got into pipe smoking, and I was hoping to find the fifty definitive rules to piping so I don't have to forge my own path, so I don't have to do any experimenting, so I can shrink the learning curve from years into three days, and so I do it exactly right." And we almost always oblige this lack of genuine curiosity and general lack of problem solving; thus, encouraging it to not be a past time, but yet another task to conquer and dominate.

Boy, did you hit on some powerful stuff here. This is an excellent post!

I'm of mixed mind about this. Surely, you are absolutely correct, i.e. the wealth of digital information has made people quick to take intellectual shortcuts and avoid as much trouble from trial-and-error as possible. That has engendered, somewhat ironically, a sense of incuriousness in some people; why be in a hurry to devote time and energy into learning something when you can find it online whenever you want? When you have practically all the accumulated knowledge of our species at your fingertips, the impetus to cultivate one's own wellspring of knowledge and experience diminishes because it is already there. Of course, there are people whose appetite for learning is insatiable, and that means the internet is a boon for them. But for every person like that, it seems there are three telling you to "Google it" and other nine who go to "iamrightabouteverything dotcom" to just confirm their own prejudices and biases.

On the other hand, that same wealth of information has made it so certain kinds of knowledge and practice remain with us long after they would have been (or already were) disposed of. Pipe smoking is a good example of this. I know one other pipe smoker personally, and he also learned by digging online. Without that resource, the likelihood of me giving this hobby a try would have been remote, because I would have had no foundation on which to build. This has allowed a sharing of knowledge, experiences, practices, and cultures across time and space, a sharing which would not have been possible to this degree in even the best furnished of libraries of even 50 years ago.

I guess I'm saying that those who will, will. Those who do not, won't. The internet has made it easier than ever for those who will. But it has, paradoxically enough, made the numbers of those who will not greater.