{"id":3571,"date":"2010-03-12T23:04:18","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T04:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/?p=3571"},"modified":"2010-03-13T01:08:11","modified_gmt":"2010-03-13T06:08:11","slug":"a-man-and-his-pipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/12\/a-man-and-his-pipe\/","title":{"rendered":"A Man And His Pipe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I noticed today that I seem to have missed International Pipe Smoking Day<\/a> a couple of weeks back. I had meant to observe it this year, as an excuse to use the pipe I acquired a few years back, that’s been sitting unused ever since… but I guess I’m just not a pipe type guy (or possibly just not a “remember what I’m meant to do” type guy).<\/p>\n

I was really amused by this bit, at the end of that post though:<\/p>\n

As for fraternity \u2013 dude, you\u2019re smoking a pipe. Unless your fraternity involves steampunk and sly witticisms involving Satre, you\u2019re pretty much on your own. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m pretty much prepared to admit that smoking a pipe (at least, as the article contends, in people under 40) is pretty much always an affectation. I mean, that’s why I got a pipe–purely as an affectation. Sadly, I’ve never really had the chance to use it–I kept meaning to bring it out at a poker tournament, where affectations are welcomed and graded, but I never managed to organize it.<\/p>\n

Still it is a pretty cool pipe, and I can use this as an excuse to show it to you, especially since that’s probably all the use I’ll ever get out of it.<\/p>\n

At the time I decided that I should have the option of affecting a pipe, it seemed clear to me that what I wanted was a meerschaum pipe. I’m not sure what the source or sources of this bit of received wisdom was–I have a sense that I’ve read a number of things over the years that subtly created in me the impression that the pipe connoisseur would want one of them.<\/p>\n

Of course I then had to do some research to determine what meerschaum actually is, and where one could get a pipe made of it.<\/p>\n

What it is, was relatively easy to resolve: Wikipedia<\/a> to the rescue.<\/p>\n

Meerschaum is a soft white mineral sometimes found floating on the Black Sea, and rather suggestive of sea-foam, whence also the French name for the same substance, \u00e9cume de mer. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here you can see a pipe being carved from meerschaum:<\/p>\n

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That’s happening in Turkey, which apparently has a very-near monopoly on meerschaum; generally the pipes are made near the city of Eskisehir in the plains west of the capital city of Ankara.<\/p>\n

My research also lead me to sites that sell the pipes, and which provide sales information about why meerschaum makes a good pipe–all stuff I didn’t find out until I was looking for one already, so my internal notion wasn’t developed from this kind of info. It must have been stuff I picked up from reading fiction.<\/p>\n

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