Pipe Shape Choice. Idea Vs Reality

[Highlandpiper]

When I started on the pipe smoking journey 6 months ago and even now I had a concept of how great it would be to emulate my literary hero character's hobby. I am a huge AC Doyle fan and loved the iea of looking like Sherlock Holmes pondering his latest mystery.
Therfore my first two purchases were bent pipes but I have subsequently purchased two straight billiards.
The quandary is I enjoy the straight more but want to love the bent shape.
Four pipes in I need to make a decision and agonisingly I am leaning towards straight. Not what I had envisaged but that's part of the hobby. Exciting new discoveries every smoke . Thought I'd share, nothing wrong with letting the pipe chose the path now and again.

 

[Elric]

The beauty of bent pipes lies in their ability to hold comfortably in your mouth for long periods of time. Great for autopilot blends. That said, you should always smoke what you like. Just don't get rid of the bents yet. Life doth change.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

It doesn't matter to me what style pipe you smoke. But, to me bent pipes look all flaccid and sad. But, maybe that is the aesthetic you want to give off... even if you hate the pipes.

Get what you want. No one else is going to know that you went into this trying to look like Sherlock Holmes.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

In the stories, I believe Holmes smokes a clay, a Cherrywood, and a briar—it's not specified whether the briar is straight or bent, so you're probably good with whatever you decide.

 

[bullet08]

Hey, as long as it doesn't look like a dildo, who cares?

 

[Elric]

In the stories, I believe Holmes smokes a clay, a Cherrywood, and a briar—it's not specified whether the briar is straight or bent, so you're probably good with whatever you decide.

True. The bent pipe association came from William Gillette who found it easier to speak his lines around a bent.

 

[SBC]

bent pipes look all flaccid

Young men who haven't yet faced ED can enjoy bent pipes without self-consciousness, having nothing to compensate for by erect pipes ;-)

 

[yanoJL]

... my first two purchases were bent pipes but I have subsequently purchased two straight billiards...

Same. My first 5 pipes were bent. And I pretty quickly developed a preference for straight. I'm ok with partial bends, but I do not enjoy having the pipe touch my gloriously masculine chin when clenching.
And thus began a period of PAD where almost everything I purchased thereafter were straight billiards, which are now my most used pipes.

Related: I find it fascinating how our preference develop in the first year(s) as pipe smokers. Not just with pipes, but with tobacco too. Like so many others, my first tobacco purchases were aros and Latakias. Now it's Virginias and Burleys all day long.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Young men who haven't yet faced ED can enjoy bent pipes without self-consciousness, having nothing to compensate for by erect pipes ;-)

I don't think it's compensation. It just lets the right ones know that you're ready... Not... uggg, give me... a... ugg, a minute... hold on...

 

[SBC]

I had a concept of how great it would be to emulate my literary hero character's hobby

I get it! I've been interested in pipes since I was a kid looking at Tolkien with a straight billiard in his teeth on the back cover of my 70s paperbacks of LOTR. And actually I read more Lewis than Tolkien, so when I saw Lewis pics with a straight billiard in his teeth, my concept of pipe smoking was concretized.

Most of my pipes today aren't straight billiards -- I've come to love many other shapes just as much -- but the straight billiard is still my idea of The Pipe -- the original, the archetypie, the quintessence, the platonic form, whathaveyou.

I didn't wind up with any preference among straight, 8th bent, and quarter bent pipes.

I don't prefer deep bends, though, for the same reason I don't prefer very short pipes -- I don't like the smoke under my nose.

I have a few deeper bends that I do enjoy, though -- I just have to be more conscious of how I smoke them to avoid smoke in my nose.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Hey, as long as it doesn't look like a dildo, who cares?

"This is, I think, a double-dong problem" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Peterson makes Sherlock Holmes pipes that are straight - buy some!

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

FYI, Sidney Paget has a few illustrations of Holmes with a straight pipe - that's where the notions of what he smoked came from for the most part, the illustrations in the books.

So you've been validated!

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

It doesn't matter to me what style pipe you smoke. But, to me bent pipes look all flaccid and sad. But, maybe that is the aesthetic you want to give off... even if you hate the pipes.

Get what you want. No one else is going to know that you went into this trying to look like Sherlock Holmes.

That's why he took little blue carbuncles!

 

[ThermionicScott]

If you're trying to re-enact what Holmes smoked in the books, a clay (and I believe one with a small bowl/chamber) should be your next stop. Along with some strong dark shag tobacco to smoke in it; GH&Co makes a few. Why a small chamber? For one thing, chambers used to be smaller across the board. And because smoking three bowls in the space of 50 minutes (less than 17 minutes each) implies some combination of a small chamber, fast-burning tobacco, and/or a person who smokes like a freight train!

 

[mso489]

I'm not a Doyle scholar, though like everyone else (mostly) I admire the stories and the dramatizations.

However, it seems to me that one of the true Doyle scholars on the pipe group mentioned that the only specific description of Holmes' pipe in the stories described a straight stem.

The profoundly bent pipes, and especially the large briars and gourd pipes were embellishments chosen by film directors and prop people and not derived from the books at all. If that is the case, you are at your liberty to visualize whatever Holmesian pipes you choose depending on what you want to smoke that day.

One of the details in a story has Sherlock picking out bits of unburnt tobacco to economize. This suggests he was either obsessive compulsive or excessively thrifty or both, and is recommended by no pipe smoker, since the leftovers, the unburnt leaf called dottle, is usually bitter from soaking up all the tar and leavings from the ember left in the bottom of the bowl, acting as a sort of filter. So don't do that, I'd say.

I would suggest that the point of pipe smoking is the enjoyment, the ritual, the time to reflect, the flavor and the sensory input. If you are enjoying your pipe, you are in the zone with Sherlock and everyone else.

 

[kcghost]

Pick your poison. Your love of ACD/Holmes will not be affected.

Holmes was portrayed smoking a large bent calabash in the play titled Sherlock Holmes in 191X. The actor who portrayed Holmes felt the bent pipe gave the audience a better view of him speaking. The was the now the largely forgotten Willam Gillette. This man was much desired figure on the stage on the 00's and 10's. This play was later recorded as a silent movie and was a gigantic success. You can still get a copy of it today and it is excellent.

 

[Servant King]

Yeah, I think you pretty much have to let your tastes choose the direction, and more or less be in complete submission to them. Otherwise you may find yourself fighting a losing battle, trying to conform to some predetermined ideal. Not only is that a battle you aren't likely to win, but it will surely burn off (no pun intended) a lot of the enjoyment of the "new" feeling that first exists when you are in the early stages of pipe smoking.

When I first started, I emphatically disliked straight stems and any type of sandblast or rustication. I also only had an exclusive interest in billiards, and indiscriminately disliked all other shapes! Why? To this day, I have no idea. I tried, after the fact, to get into my headspace of four years ago when I was just starting out, but I cannot, for the life of me, ascertain a reason for any of these "preferences." Whatever the reasons might have been, my tastes in both pipes and tobacco have changed completely, although I still prefer bent stems to straight (as opposed to an outright aversion to the latter), and I still enjoy aromatics just as much, so long as they aren't a goopy romp in the PG.

Tastes can change with the direction of the wind. So I say just go with it. It's a journey!

 

[Doctor Chopper]

It doesn't matter to me what style pipe you smoke. But, to me bent pipes look all flaccid and sad. But, maybe that is the aesthetic you want to give off... even if you hate the pipes.

Get what you want. No one else is going to know that you went into this trying to look like Sherlock Holmes.

Cancelling my bent pipe order, ordering a long thick straight instead!

By the way, better check your avatar.

 

[shermnatman]

My pipe collection is mostly bent apples and straight apples.

I like the bents when I am in relaxation, no-brainer mode; and, I just let it hang without fiddling.

When I am in a more pensive mood or deep in thought, I like the straight to hold as I mull things over in my mind - for some reason I feel the straight pipe helps me think... go figure.

- Sherm Natman