The Art of Storytelling
xDutchx
Master
Back on Veterans day, I was scanning thru the stations, and happened to hit one that immediately caught my attention. A Vietnam combat Veteran was relating his experiences not only in Vietnam, but his experiences after he returned home. Following that moving account, was a triage nurse who related her experiences treating mortally wounded soldiers, and how it affected her short term as well as long term.
When I went to the website later the next day, I was excited to find a website dedicated to the art of storytelling. A large number of pipe smokers will agree, that nothing adds to the pipe smoking experience, like staring into the flames of a fire, as they experience a skilled storyteller.
I have included the link to the home page, as well as the link to the Veterans Day feature. I hope it will provide you with a unique companion, with which to enjoy your pipe.
Comments
Geoffery Lewis and his band Celestial Navigations are a sort of spoken word band with Geoffery telling his tales and a pair of keyboard artists providing the back-up music. The band put out several CDs and each one is excellent. Here is an example of their work. Many may remember Lewis for his work on several Vlint Eastwood movies - while horror movie aficionados like myself remember him from the TV version of Stephen King's mini-series "Salems' Lot" ... he played the gravedigger who eventually becomes a vampire.
Thanks buddy for the story site link....I have heard 2 very compelling Vietnam War stories.......I will enjoy that site.
My 9yr old daughter just got 4th place overall in her UIL meet for Storytelling. She did amazing on the prelim's but got nervous on the finals.
Oh, Christmas Tree!
Thursday, December 21, 2017 by Joshua Burgess
From Smokingpipes.comDecorating the Christmas tree is one of my favorite Yuletide rituals. Nothing fills the home with festive warmth quite like a Fraser Fir bedecked with lights, glittering orbs, and the heads of beloved Christmas characters cast in glass. Actually taking all this holiday paraphernalia from box to bough, however, is something of an ordeal. Fortunately, the Lovely and Gracious Allie enjoys it, and so my role in the process is rather small. I am DJ and bartender. As long as I keep Bing on the record player and martinis in the glasses, I happily pass the evening in my rocking chair, smoking a pipe, and watching the production unfold. But this year, things were a bit more complicated.
The trouble began with the search for the tree itself. We cannot, you see, select just any old tree. It must be "our" tree: the tree that was predestined from its seedling-hood to stand in our living room, to bear our ornaments, to be collected by our trash men once its destiny is fulfilled and we've hauled it out. We waited later than usual to find a tree this year, so it was on a rainy night in holiday traffic that we made the trek across town to one of the big-box hardware stores to select our tree from a large tent erected in the parking lot. These trees, we discovered, would never do. Our tree should be taller, fuller, less like the sad little tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas special. We came home treeless. On the next evening, we finally found our tree at a special Christmas tree farm--the sort of place that sells artisanal firewood and serves organic eggnog. It was huge.
I did not fully anticipate the ways in which this elephantine evergreen would challenge us. Our lights were too few. Off to the big-box hardware store I went. The lights I purchased were the wrong color. To the big-box hardware store I returned. When the proper lights were finally strung together on our tree we plugged them in, only to plunge the house into darkness. There were no martinis, no Bing Crosby dreaming of a White Christmas, and worst of all, no pipe. After four nights of troubleshooting some problem or another with our holiday decor we finally finished. It was nearly midnight. Allie and I stood back to admire our tree, to embrace and bask in its warmth. And then it started to lean. We caught our tree just before Frosty the Snowman's jolly glass visage shattered upon the hearth.
Capturing the holiday magic this year didn't come easy. Most things worth having or worth experiencing don't. As pipe smokers this should resonate with us. There are, after all, easier ways to consume tobacco. A pipe challenges us. It forces us to adopt a disciplined technique, and it reserves its pleasures for those who work for them. In this way, as in so many others, pipe smoking has much to teach us. The perfect smoke, like a Merry Christmas, is worth working for. May you find both in abundance this season.
Small Miracles
Monday, December 25, 2017 by Chuck Stanion
(Smokingpipes.com)It was a dark and stormy Christmas many years ago, and my brother and I were unsure our grandfather and the 10 Tobys (all of grandpa’s dogs were named Toby) would make it through the snow to our house for dinner. We had stopped playing Operation an hour previously to prop our elbows on the window sill and watch for him. His arrival, with his fragrant pipe and smelly dogs, was always an event, but the roads were closed and we’d not seen or heard even a snowplow that day.
Wind picked up the ground snow and swooshed it vertically into the air along the sides of our house, where the snowbanks continued to rise, and snow from the sky joined it from every direction. White-out conditions cloaked everything beyond our yard and the world appeared to be a swirling, indistinct impressionist painting of white and off-white.
I was a boy in a small farming village in upstate New York, and Christmas without Grandpa was unthinkable. Even more important than the smell of the Christmas tree was the smell of his pipe, which he smoked constantly and used for emphasis when telling outrageous stories. He was a ROC, though (he referred to himself as a Resourceful Old Coot), and had never missed a Christmas. We waited and the day became grayer as time passed.
Eventually, we thought we heard something. Bells? They grew louder and we began to differentiate a voice: "Now Toby! now Toby! now Toby and Toby! On Toby! on Toby! on Toby and Toby!" shouted my grandfather, sliding into the driveway on a sleigh pulled by 10 dogs, all in Santa hats, while he smoked his Falcon pipe from the back. It was a magical moment.
Here is one I wrought several years ago. Just thought I would share, obviously just tongue in cheek::
“I think I shall never see anything as lovely as a tree”…was that guy kidding?
Now mind you, I love trees. The tree has a way of lifting your spirit in spring after a long hard winter when the trees are full of newly formed buds. In the depth of the summer the dark and cool shade provided by the trees is something to enjoy. And what is more beautiful than the vibrant colors that appear in October. But November?
At this point in November….enough already. After spending three full days over the last month I have finally rid my yard of those awful brown and tan lifeless remnants of a time most recently past. I give up. I can recall as if it was yesterday the beautiful canopy above my yard. That was then…this is now.
Suddenly in November the yard appears to be enveloped in a series of brown drifts. Drifts so high and thick, and heavy as to make you wonder if it was really all worth it. After all in Spring I could watch nature shows on television and see trees beginning to bloom. In August I could always sit inside with the air conditioning turned down, no real need to go outside and even see the damn trees. In fall I could look at a pretty calendar instead of ever even looking out the window. In November I start to question who really needs trees?
But no….I live in the “country”, and leaf removal is a right of passage…year after year after year. So I get out the trusty rake and leaf blower, strap the blower to my back and I am instantly transported back in time. I rake and move leaves with the precision and effect of a military operation. I size up the battlefield, I divide and conquer. After what seems an eternity, I have many large piles of the enemy confined in strategic locations throughout the area. Then a large poly tarp is brought into play….and the defeated enemy is then drug to the street where the city then comes and does with them what only God knows. But…I have won again. I realize I have only won a battle, not a war. But I have won. I also realize that another campaign will be required next November whether I like it or not. Whether I am prepared or not.
So as I walk back up the hill and see the last few stragglers float to the lawn from the now nearly empty canopy above….I laugh. I laugh out of frustration for the effort, and I laugh because I know my work will be spoiled by the winds of winter when the leaves of adjacent properties and other nearby battles waged will blow into my yard despite everything I have done.
Mostly I laugh because I know soon I could be addressing an additional right of passage. The removal of snow. At least for the time being I am reasonably warm and comfortable. The next battle will be a winter campaign. I am ready.
As you suggest, the early part of Fall is beautiful as the leaves change colors. But once they turn that disgusting brown and begin falling from the trees into our yards they get ugly awful fast.
Advantage: Pipes
Monday, January 15, 2018 by Chuck Stanion
It's sometimes difficult for pipe enthusiasts to understand how anyone could prefer other modes of tobacco consumption. That's not to say that we don’t also partake of the occasional cigar or bump of snuff, but the pipe is always there for times of reverie and concentration, rather than just nicotine delivery. We return to it because it’s the Porsche in a stable of vintage Gremlins.
I suspect it has something to do with the control a pipe smoker has. A cigarette is one-dimensional; you light it and that's it. A cigar is similar, with perhaps a bit more nuance of flavor and burn. But a pipe offers a world of options beyond the comprehension of those who succumb to simplicity.
First, of course, is the number of different tobaccos available. Currently, tobaccoreviews.com lists almost 7,000 different pipe tobaccos. Some of those no longer exist, but it's safe to say we have thousands of choices of tobacco with an embarrassing wealth of variation for any mood. Then we have the different pipes available, with an astounding choice in shape, size, type, material, and maker. There's something for any taste whatsoever.
Furthermore, we prepare our tobacco to our own preferences. A flake may be rubbed out as coarsely or as finely as we wish, for example, for different burning characteristics. And many of us dry our tobaccos to different degrees of humidity according to our personal preferences. Some tobaccos work better if they are more dry; some can maintain quite a bit of moisture and perform remarkably. But it's our choice.
We also enjoy the control over the draw that a pipe offers. With practice, it isn't difficult to maintain perfect draw. When I smoked cigars regularly, I was sometimes disappointed in the draw; if it was too tight, there was little to do except poke a flue through the stick with a paper clip. But with a pipe, and with good tamping technique, however firm or easy a draw you prefer is easily attainable.
Maybe we all have a bit of control freak in us. Maybe those who are drawn to the pipe are people who prefer having direct command over our smoking experiences, rather than just accepting standardized and regularized, prefabricated tobacco consumption.
Or maybe we're just nuts.