TERMINATING IN A FOUL ODOUR

One of the essays which always seems to pull in visitors is about pipe tobacco. Which is a subject that probably does not interest nine out of ten readers, especially the female of the species. I actually suspect that that demographic may have NO interest in pipe tobacco at all.

Rather a sad state of affairs.
I wish it weren't so.

You'd think that by now I would have figured out what women want, whether in a man to love or a block of text to absorb, but I'll readily confess that I haven't a clue.


None of the women I have known are good examples of the ilk.


MY EXPOSURE TO 'THAT' DEMOGRAPHIC
OR: "Read" astray by previous experience

My mother read Middle English, Old English, Old Irish, and Old Norse.
In consequence of which I was exposed to the language of Beowulf and Hengist at an early age, and her further fondness for Science Fiction and Mythology naturally contributed to many of my tastes.

My grandmother read Shakespeare and several other playwrights.
Which, naturally, I have too.

The woman who taught me more about pipes and tobacco than anyone else recommended Günther Grass, Thomas Mann, Mary Renault, Willa Cather, Marguerite Yourcenar, Nadine Gordimer, and Proust. I've read and reread all of that, as well as several books by Wyndham Lewis, which a mutual friend found fascinating.

One of my first love/lust interests perused gun manuals and weaponry textbooks, in addition to Mythology, Fantasy, and Science Fiction.
We had those last three in common.

My last love/lust interest revisited Brideshead Revisited so many times it was like she lived there. In addition to sucking up Barbara Cartland for the quotable lunacy, books about the tackiest celebrities in the world, Greek Mythology (probably for the strong murderous women), and several cartoon compendia. Plus Jane Austen and J. K. Rowling.
We both like Edward Gorey, Bloom County, and Calvin & Hobbes, as well as several other three-panels funnies.


[Somewhere along the line I also digested James Joyce's Ulysses, much by Isaac Asimov, and nearly all of Nabokov. Plus a lot of everything else. Much of it was accidental; I was bored, and sometimes just wanted to escape.]


There are at least a dozen specimens of womanhood whom I currently know and like as friends, but I do not know what they read, or if they even read. Well, anything other than whatever it is that women are supposed to read, which again I don't know what it is.

Several women I have never met in the real world give every evidence of having devoured huge amounts of high fallutin' literature, witty British stuff, Talmudica, linguistics, and exegesis. Which is all very admirable, and I find them to be truly great thinkers and comentators, but the chances of our ever meeting are slim to nil.


I guess that the only things all of the reading women whom I mentioned and I have in common are dictionaries, children's books, and comics.

That's actually a pretty decent selection.

It's a sound basis for friendship.

With a sense of humour.


IN CONCLUSION...

What was the post that drew in pipesmokers, I hear you asking. You are keen to read the one article which binds us all in a fraternity (0r 'propinquitas') of comradeship and hail-fellow-well-met.

It's an article about something incredibly nasty

CLAN, by Theodurus Niemeyer

I wrote that back in May of 2011.

It has been read ever since.

Every single day.

Pilgrims.


I'm fairly certain that the number of women who have seen that post is not even worth counting, a statistical anomaly. Tobacco that smells like a dead skunk in a pile of rotting fruit is not something that interests them.
Men, on the other hand, are like little boys in that regard.
They have an overwhelming urge to poke it.
See if it starts falling apart.
Or oozing.



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