Pipe lore: shot with his own pipe

December 30 of 1913

Isaac Bishop of Eagle township in Ohio was loading his clay pipe with tobacco after a very fine meal that his wife had prepared. Now the lights were kind of dim and he was reclining in his chair and he didn't notice that not only did he load tobacco, but he also loaded a 32 caliber cartridge into his pipe. He then brought the match to the pipe and of course the bullet went off and went through his cheek. He ended up with a scar on his left cheek for the rest of his life.

That must have been a fairly capacious pipe. The .32 ACP and .32 S&W are both nearly an inch long, and the old .32 rimfire is over an inch long.  In any case, I think we can safely draw the conclusion from this that one should not store one's ammunition and pipe tobacco together.

Heard on The Useless Information Podcast.

Pipe lore: "a pipe or two"

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.’

—Jerome K. Jerome, from Three Men in a Boat (1889)

Guy Fawkes effigies

With pipe.  Found here.

Macro shot: 1792 Flake

Click to enlarge.

Pipe lore: "the chimney of perpetual hospitality"

THE MARRIAGE OF THE ARTS

On Sunday, the 26I of August 1621, a comedy, entitled Technogamia, or the Marriage of the Arts, written by Barton Holiday, M. A., of Christ’s Church, Oxford, was performed by students of the same college, before James I at Woodstock. As a typical specimen of the allegorical piece of the olden time, this drama is not unworthy of notice. The dramatis personæ; consist of Polites, a magistrate; Physica, and her daughter Astronomia; Ethicus, with his wife Economa; Geographicus, a traveller, with his servant Phantastes; Logicus, and his servant Phlegmaticus; Grammaticus, a schoolmaster, and his usher Choler; Poeta, and his servant Melancholia; Medicus, and his servant Sanguis; Historia; Rhetorica; Geometres; Arithmetica; Musica; Causidicus; Magus, and his wife Astrologia; Physiognomus and Cheiromantes, two cheating gipsies. All these are attired in goodly and appropriate fashion. Astronomia, for instance, wearing ‘white gloves and pumps, an azure gown, and a mantle seeded with stars; on her head a tiara, bearing on the front the seven stars, and behind stars promiscuously; on the right side, the sun; on the left, the moon.’ Astronomia is the brilliant heroine of the play--the heaven to which Geographicus aspires to travel, of which Geometres endeavours to take the measure, in which Poeta desires to repose. On the other hand, Arithmetica has a more natural passion for Geometres, and Historia anxiously wishes to be united to Poeta. Grammaticus, in an amorous mood, solicits Rhetorica, whose flowers bloom only for Logicus.

These conflicting attachments cause great confusion in the commonwealth of learning; each of the enamoured personages endeavouring to obtain the object of his or her affections. Polites assists Geographicus; Magus employs his occult art in favour of Geometres; while the Nine Muses, as in duty bound, assist Poeta. Polites can with difficulty keep the peace. The gipsies, Physiognomus and Cheiromantes, pick Poeta’s pocket, but find nothing therein but a copy of Anacreon and a manuscript translation of Horace. Physiognomus is appropriately branded on the face, that all men may know him to be a rogue; and Cheiromantes receives the same punishment on the hand; and the two, with Magus and Astrologia, who had attempted to strangle Astronomia, are justly banished the commonwealth of the Sciences. Then Geographicus, discharging his servant Phantastes, marries Astronomia; Grammaticus espouses Rhetorica; Melancholia obtains the hand of Musica, and takes Phantastes into his service; Logicus, old and heartless, being left without a mate, becomes an assistant to Polites; and thus peace and harmony is restored among the Sciences. There is considerable ingenuity displayed in the invention of this plot, the dialogue is witty, and the professors of the sciences represented are humorously satirised.

One would have supposed, that the pedantic spirit of James would have been delighted with this production, but such was not the case. Anthony h Wood tells us that the king ‘offered several times to withdraw, but being persuaded by some of those that were near him to have patience till it were ended, lest the young men should be discouraged, [he] adventured it, though much against his will.’ And the Cambridge students, pleased that the Oxford drama did not interest the king, produced the following epigram:

‘At Christ-church marriage, played before the king, Lest these learned mates should want an offering, The king, himself, did offer--What, I pray? He offered twice or thrice to go away.’

It is not difficult to perceive what it was that displeased the king. Phlegmaticus was dressed ‘in a pale russet suit, on the hack whereof was represented one filling a pipe of tobacco, his hat beset round about with tobacco-pipes, with a can of drink hanging at his girdle.’ He entered, exclaiming: ‘Fore Jove, most meteorological tobacco! Pure Indian! not a jot sophisticated; a tobacco-pipe is the chimney of perpetual hospitality. Fore Jove, most metropolitan tobacco.’ And then, rather unphlegmatically, he broke out into the following song:

Tobacco’s a Musician,
And in a pipe delighteth;
It descends in a close,
Through the organs of the nose,
With a relish that inviteth.
This makes me sing, So ho, so ho, boys,
Ho, boys, sound I loudly;
Earth ne’er did breed
Such a jovial weed,
Whereof to boast so proudly.

Tobacco is a Lawyer,
His pipes do love long cases;
When our brains it enters,
Our feet do make indentures;
While we seal with stamping paces,
This makes me sing, &c.

Tobacco’s a Physician,
Good both for sound and sickly;
‘Tis a hot perfume,
That expels cold rheum,
And makes it flow down quickly.
This makes me sing, &c.

Tobacco is a Traveller,
Come from the Indies hither;
It passed sea and land,
Ere it came to my hand,
And ‘scaped the wind and weather,
This makes me sing, &c.

Tobacco is a Critic,
That still old paper turneth,
Whose labour and care,
Is as smoke in the air,
That ascends from a rag when it burneth.
This makes me sing, &c.

Tobacco’s an Ignis-fatuus,
A fat and fiery vapour,
That leads men about,
Till the fire be out,
Consuming like a taper.
This makes me sing, &c.

Tobacco is a Whiffler,
And cries huff snuff with fury,
His pipe’s his club and link,
He’s the wiser that does drink;
Thus armed I fear not a fury.
This makes me sing, So ho, so ho, boys,
Ho, boys, sound I loudly;
Earth ne’er did breed
Such a jovial weed,
Whereof to boast so proudly.

The royal author of the Counterblast to Tobacco must have felt himself insulted by such a song. Ben Jenson was wiser, when, in his Gipsies’ Meta-morphosis, he abused ‘the devil’s own weed,’ in language totally unpresentable at the present day; and the delighted monarch ordered the filthy, slangy, low play, to be performed three several times in his kingly presence.

From Chamber's Book of Days.  Thanks to Brer via email.

House of Westminster cherrywood

For previous posts about this pipe, see here and here. I picked this up today with its new stem. As I had said before, the old stem was in very bad shape and I had never attempted to smoke it; I just cleaned it up nice and took it to the shop for a replacement stem.  So here are some photos I took of it just now.  Click on them for larger versions.

UPDATE:  While I was at the shop, I picked up a tin of 1792 Flake as well, and used it to try out the new pipe.  Very nice.  The big bulk of wood in this pipe makes it smoke quite cool, and it has a low enough center of gravity that I can still grip it in my teeth without using a hand for long enough to type effectively.  This pipe will be one of my regulars.

Cowboys

Date unknown, but I think it's safe to call it late 1800s.

Steampunk pipe smoker #1

By MonkeyHeartless at deviantart.  When women smoked pipes and wore goggles.

Russian peasant with pipe, dated 1911

From My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck By Lightning, which you should probably subscribe to, in my opinion.

Picnicing at Indooroopilly

via LJMcK at flickr.

I once got a search hit on this blog for the search string "when men smoked pipes and wore hats." So I'm going to create a new category for photos such as this, if I find any more in the future. Exact date unknown.

Pipe quote: C.S. Lewis

“I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”

--C.S. Lewis

Miskatonic U

I think I have already established on this blog that I am also a fan of H.P. Lovecraft.  Therefore, I thought it important to point out a new webcomic called Miskatonic U.  It is so new that you can easily catch up on the archives if you wish.

I mention this because the story's main protagonist is a new student at Miskatonic, and he has just met his belching, pipe-smoking room mate.

"The Wickedest Man in the World"

If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger has two photos of Aleister Crowley, young and old, both with pipe, at The Wickedest Man in the World.

The comic art of B.K. Taylor

The Appletons from May 1980 National Lampoon.

Pipe quote: William Makepeace Thackeray

“The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.”

--William Makepeace Thackeray

"Lashing new ratlines in the rigging"

Lashing on new ratlines in the rigging

Aboard the Frances and Marion, a Portuguese trawler. Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1942.

Photography by John Collier Jr.

Bayou Night macro shot

I haven't mentioned it on this blog yet, but I recently got a halfway-decent digital camera, so I'm not restricted to relying on lousy cell phone photos anymore.  Here's a macro shot of some Bayou Night.  I hope to post more such photos in the future.  I cropped this one just a little to keep the container out of the photo, so it isn't perfectly proportioned for a computer desktop, but it's very close.  If anyone wants to save this for personal use as their desktop wallpaper, feel free.

This is the only photo I've taken so far on the topic of pipes & tobacco, but if any readers wish to follow my flickr photostream, just click the link to go there.  My new blog that focuses solely on my attempts at photography is With Camera Eye.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Feathertop" comic

Go here to read.  What does it have to do with pipe smoking?  Read and see!

Let Me Smoke My Pipe

From Mr.B the Gentleman Rhymer.

Albert Einstein: pipe-smoking party reptile

Although I've already covered Einstein as a "featured pipe smoker," I felt compelled to add this photo, which I came across just yesterday.