Latakia blends

I used to love smoking different latakia blends, but slowly turned toward more Perique-oriented tobaccos and now prefer them.  But, I've recently been going into my cellar and smoking some of the older stuff just to get it used up.

I'm sure some readers will sniff in indignation when I say that I was not impressed by Maltese Falcon.  I bought a tin because I had read so many people singing praises about it, but to me it just seemed like too much latakia and nothing to balance it.  So...sorry, but I can't recommend it.

On the other hand, I has just popped open a tin of Samuel Gawith's Balkan Flake.  Oh, man, this stuff is fantastic.  Highly recommended.

"The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Sultan of Turkey"

"The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Sultan of Turkey" by Ilya Repin (1844-1930).

Wikipedia link.

Click to enlarge and see how many pipes you can spot.

Thanks to Books and Art and My Ear-Trumpet.

Where there's fire, there's smoke (rings)

This has nothing to do with pipe-smoking, but I thought it was amusing and interesting.  Sometimes, when everything is just right, a conventional fire (or lightning strike) can generate a natural smoke ring.  Read all about it (with pictures and videos) at Big Black Ring Spotted Over Britain (from Who Forted).

This is old news...

But new to me, because I just found out.

Three Nuns is back in the U.S.

I've looked around, and it's available now from a wide variety of online suppliers.

Yay!

Wilhelm Bendz: A Smoking Party

Here we get a glimpse into a home of the Copenhagen Golden Age, where the son of the house (the future Professor Christian Jürgensen) has invited his friends to an evening with tobacco pipes and conversation. Bendz was one of the Golden Age’s most ambitious painters, which is also apparent in this work’s complicated shadow effects. Unfortunately his career was cut short when Bendz died, only 28 years old, on the obligatory cultural tour to Italy.

Wilhelm Bendz: A Smoking Party

Einstein's pipe

Albert Einstein's desk at Princeton University.  Photo taken a few hours after his death. From The Day Albert Einstein Died:  A Photographer's Story at Life Magazine.

It's a very good pipe!

From Fingerpori (Facebook link).

Jan Steen - "The World Turned Upside Down"

From 1663.

Thanks to Daily Window On a World of Wonder.

Vintage Ad (1947): Westinghouse radios

Vintage Ad (1950s): Three Nuns

Received via email from a reader, who says that he believes this is from a 1950s-era Reader's Digest.

Oh, how I miss Three Nuns!

The b-pipe

From Bizarro Comics.

Vintage Ad (1947): Lord Davenport pipes

Undated photo, Medico pipes

An undated but obviously "vintage" photo of a liquor store, with a sales display of Medico pipes at the upper left.  From Roger Wilkerson.

Early Kodak camera photos

From 11 Photos Taken With the First Kodak Camera.

Pipe smoker quick fix: Gimli

Or at least a character who certainly appears to be Gimli, by artist Adrian Smith.

And that strange cement pond

From Bizarro Comics.

Anti-suffragette poster, 1908

click to enlarge

From The Appendix:

This 1908 image of women smoking and drinking was intended to be a horrifying glimpse of a post-suffrage future.

I spotted two pipe smokers.  Orignally in Puck Magazine, March 18, 1908.

Pipe Smoker: Joe Williams

Joe Williams (1918 - 1999)

Born Joseph Goreed in Cordele, Georia, his father abandoned his family when Joe was young so his mother moved them both in with her parents, then moved to Chicago alone and worked until she had saved enough money to bring Joe with her.  It was there that he was exposed to Chicago's thriving jazz scene and fell in love with the music.

As a teen he taught himself to play piano and formed a gospel quartet that sang at local church functions.  He later began singing solo with various local bands and began earning a little money.  At 16 he dropped out of school to pursue a career in music, at which time he adopted the last name of Williams as a stage name.

In 1938 he got his first break when jazz musician Jimmie Noone hired him to sing with his band.  He became more and more well-known, eventually being hired as a replacement singer for Lionel Hampton's band in 1942, but then lost that job when the regular singer returned.  But during his time with Hampton, his fame grew in leaps and bounds.

In 1954, he was hired as the male vocalist for the Count Basie Orchestra.  He stayed with Count Basie until 1961.

Williams continued to sing for numerous big names in jazz, and in the 1980s was cast in a recurring role as Grandpa Al Hanks (Heathcliff Huxtable's father-in-law) on The Cosby Show.

He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983, next to Count Basie's star.



Links:
Wikipedia
YouTube
Allmusic.com
imdb
Discogs

Pipe Smoker quick fix: Samuel Clemens (again!)

Mark Twain and his dog.

Vintage Ad (date unknown): Knapp-Felt hat

From Found in Mom's Basement.