Worlds view of pipe smokers. This is NOT why I smoke a pipe.

[maineyachtie]

http://societyofburnedlives.blogspot.com/2011/12/excursus-pipe-as-rhetorical-artifact.html
Apparently this is how the world views us modern pipe smokers. The author submits the viewpoints as "subculures of geekdom."
I smoke a pipe because I enjoy connecting with history, practicing a once dying art form, and because it's just a very pleasant disconnect from modern life.
Read the article and tell us why YOU smoke a pipe.
Edit: Made link to the actual individual post, rather than the home page for easier future reference and commenting on the post. - Kevin

 

[bigvan]

"Apparently this is how the world views us modern pipe smokers."
Not the world, just the author.
Actually I think there's a nugget of truth here. If there's a pipe featured anywhere in pop culture, there's always SOMEONE who "MUST" have that pipe. It's a bit geeky, but there's nothing terribly wrong with that.

 

[radio807]

I smoke for the aroma, the flavor, and the nicotine hit that I find relaxing. It doesn't go any deeper than that for me.

 

[havanarick]

what you said radio807, It's the Zen man!

 

[olderthandirt]

First and foremost I smoke for the nicotine. A pipe rather than a cigarette.

Flavor, mood, ritual etc. are secondary.
Interesting article though.

 

[brian64]

I think the real question is, why has pipe smoking become so unusual in modern times? The answer(s) to that, imo, lie in the aspects of modern society that have become neurotic and dysfunctional, but are not recognized as such because they are now mainstream norms.

 

[irishsmoker]

+1 Brian64

 

[maineyachtie]

@Brian64: Well put. That is another draw of pipe smoking for me. I recognize how neurotic society is; how commercially focused society is. Having a pipe sticking out of my head is a way to disassociate. For me this disassociation isn't so much a public stand as it is a signal to myself that I refuse to belong to said society.

 

[portascat]

I don't want to be cool

me neither. But it is a burden I bear faithfully.

 

[thebadkitty]

I rediscovered smoking pipe almost two years ago, after an unsuccesful first pouch in the mid 80s when I was in my late teens (Middleton's Apple...from my uncle). I've devoured info about it since, and even though I've been smoking other pipes for most of my life I've learned some about smoking tobacco pipes, most of which points to the fact that I have put myself on a quest that will last the rest of my life. Awesome! I should have started smoking pipe instead of cigarettes back when I was 21 (I started when I quit doing coke, but as you see I didn't really quit anything, just traded one addiction for another...what the heck, they helped me stop).
After almost a quarter century of smoking tobacco, I liked it for the first time instead of just feeding the iron grip of cigarette addiction. I'm still trying to completely give up cigarettes but have cut way down and have found after trying to quit them several times over the years that it's not so much the nicotine, which I am addicted to, but the additives that have me so damn hooked. That's a whole lotta other discussions there. Haha...stir that bowl.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the pipe. The smell and look as it wafts up out of the bowl, the taste on my lip, on my tounge, in my mouth. The smell as it passes out through my nose. The taste I'm left with after I've done it more properly, which began happening more and more often, and started to last longer with the more I learned, and THAT makes me hungry to learn more and get even closer to that Grail of a single smoke (honestly, I hope I never get there. Almost there, but not quite...this quest should never end). I am NOT a poetry man (haha), but f**k me, I really GET the lines I have come across.

 

[jchaplick]

I have always been enthralled with history, since I was little I always wanted to smoke a pipe, its what respectable gentleman do. So thats why I started

 

[brian64]

@maineyachtie: Yes, I feel basically the same way. As Bob Dylan put it in "Highlands" from 1997, "I feel further away than ever before."
@dgerwin11: Yes, your feelings and perspective are a perfect example, because they are rooted in the past when said neurotic dysfunctions were not the standard norm of every day life.

 

[markw4mms]

I have been smoking pipes for 40+ years. I don't pay a damned bit of attention to these pointy headed intellectuals and their psycho-babble about why some one chooses to smoke a pipe. I don't want to be part of a subculture, I don't want to be cool, I don't want to be hip. I want to enjoy what I enjoy in peace. Thanks for letting a crusty, grumpy old curmudgeon rant.

Thanks, I couldn't have said it any better!

 

[annapolispipes]

@maineyachtie

as it is a signal to myself that I refuse to belong to said society.

Beautiful! Well said.

 

[jaysin]

Wow they left out a whole group of pipe smokers.....Hillbillys. Not really being funny here Hipsters do it to look cool and to show off who has the most expencive pipe or blend. Intellectuals hwith pipes started when pics of enstine came out with a pipe. I have one inadated hippy friend who says when he was in collage all his profesors had pipes even if they didnt smoke them they would sit on the desk or hang from the mouth.

Most of the people talked about in the artical in my oppinion are going to be a passing fad.

Now I did bring up Hillbillys now I aint talking about a good ol boy redneck. I am talking true moutian folk like my best (female) friend is married to. They live in a true hand built log cabin (not one of these modren log cabin style houses you see) in the Appalachian Mountains. To these people the pipe is a way of life a way of life brought forth by our founding fathers one of hard work and decation. To these people after a day of hard work none of would ever think of doing sitting on the porch after dinner with the wife kids and dog is one of lifes best pleasures. Yeah they have it fugered out.

 

[lifeon2]

I smoke a pipe, cigars and cigarettes I also enjoy the occasional cigarillo. I enjoy smoking but honestly in the last couple of years cigs have just become a simple way to deliver nicotine when I am on the move. My pipes and cigars and yes the occasional cigarillo (Alta Gracia or Erin Go Bragh) are for my mellow moments and as a matter of fact they help create the mellow for the moment. Do I smoke a pipe to be hip? nope especially considering that most of my pipe smoking is done in my garage along with the used to be once a morning at work people are gonna have to swing by the house to witness my hipness. I smoke because I enjoy it no psycho babble analyzing needed.

 

[maineyachtie]

@lifeon2:

no psycho babble analyzing needed.

May we take it then, that we should NOT call you Herr Doctor of Psychology??

 

[romanza10]

Below is what I posted to that fellows blog as a response. I feel it's pretty level headed. Just my thoughts:
I am a pipe smoker. I smoke not because of a movie, books, or some hipster sub culture. I took up the pipe to stop smoking cigarettes. And it has worked. Not only is it cheaper, the quality of tobacco is light years away from what you find in cigarettes. That and I enjoy smoking, and being a "pipe nerd" with my friends who also are pipe smokers.
But it was not a "cultural thing" as your blog puts it, it was economics and nicotine delivery . The initial investment in a good quality pipe can be expensive, or it can be really cheap like getting a corn cob for 10$. As far as tobacco, there are as many options as you can almost imagine and taste and price for any one who should choose to pursue it.
Then the way pipes are smoked is different from cigarettes, you don't purposely inhale the smoke. Granted, you will from time to time, and you are still being exposed to smoke, but the quality of the leaf and how often one smokes is a lot different. I may get two bowls a day, and it does require some effort, but it subdues my nicotine addiction and is a pleasant experience. Almost like ritual, that the sake of doing it is satisfying. Where as a cigarette is, all now, now, now!
And that's why I smoke a pipe.

 

[mushjoon]

Those douchebags and hipsters will never understand the tranquility and joy of sitting alone on a couch and smoke a nice full bowl of Frog Morton on the Bayou

 

[simnettpratt]

The most annoying thing about the article is that the author thinks Sherlock Holmes and Lord of the Rings are movies. That is why he does not understand pipes.