Prose and Poetry Dept: The Poetics of Pipes

[Capn Jimbo]

Not just art, not just a receptacle for burning tobacco...


...rather an objet of "pipeness". Let me first speak to another such object, namely the classic copper pot still. Or the old Volkswagen Beetle. Both are versions of the notion of form as function. There isn't a part or parcel of the design of these that doesn't have a function, which is to do the best job possible of creating an end product that works and works very, very well.

Speaking of stills there are those that are almost blasphemous. I speak here of the handmade copper still of Lost Spirits which is more an expression of the maker's considerable ego than a vehicle for making fine spirits. This still has all manner of hard-to-clean crevices and other artistic embellishments but truth be told the record so far is that it hasn't created any great spirits.

OTOH the stills of Scotland vary widely, and are truly gorgeous but not for the ego of the builder, but for the spirits that they are meant to create. The angle of the lyne arm, the shape and height of the neck and all the other features all work to create very different spirits, with more or less reflux, heavier or lighter alcohols and the like. Each feature is meant to achieve a specifically desired result.


It appears the same is true of pipes

There are certainly pipes that are meant to be looked at, perhaps some of the artisan designs. And there are practical pipes that simply smoke well, like the corn cob pipes. But then there are pipes that - like the Scottish stills - are both but in the sense that they have a "pipeness" that is not overt, but a kind of art that is a combination. For example a pipe whose focus is on its smashing appearing may be hard to hold, or oddly distractive.

I urge you to read these articles on the Poetics of Pipes...

http://www.apassionforpipes.com/classic ... pipes.html
http://www.apassionforpipes.com/classic ... -pipe.html

Brilliant stuff, these...

[da'rum]

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14887?m ... e_stranger




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