NOT SO COLOURFUL

Late lunch was chicken curry rice and probably far too much sambal, washed down with tea. Hot milk tea afterwards, then a stroll through the alleyways with a pipe in my mouth.
Nothing extraordinary, and extremely enjoyable.

There are a large number of people with typical Midwestern and Southern physiques visiting the city. It reminds me of the time when, checking out the total picture of a new distributor in a part of the country where we had almost no product representation, I read up on the city and region where they were located. Their financials had been good, their payment habits were excellent. They owned their own building and had been in business for a number of years. The city had a research hospital, three or four decent universities, specalized labs, and a diverse educated population. A region with sufficient rainfall, four seasons, gently rolling foothills. And among the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the nation.

It sounded quite lovely. Well, the obesity and diabetes aside.

Also several Asian restaurants and food shops!

So sambal was almost guaranteed.

Yes, I extended terms. Which proved to be no risk. They paid reasonably on time, and did not need many phone calls other than follow-up on orders. Briefly I thought of visiting that part of the world, but for one reason or another decided against actually doing so.

Probably too close to grits and red-eye gravy country.

Not entirely a comfortable environment.

Good people, though.



Our visitors seldom walk through many of the alleys.
I cannot fathom why.



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THE PERMA PRESSED LIFE

The blobbo who lost the last presidential election keeps speechifying to delirious people getting their boxers wet over his promises to kill the commies and preserve our precious bodily fluids, as well as bring back the past that conservatives want. Which was so lovingly illustrated in the ads of mid-century magazines. Colour teevees, hand-blown artistic glass doodads, a crocheted rug in the living room, streamlined refrigerators that looked like they could go over a hundred miles per hour on the freeway, luxurious dwellings in bucolic settings with all the modern conveniences, and happy well-behaved wife and kids.

The man of the family had all his teeth (white and shiny), a pressed shirt on with a tie, and carefully combed and creamed hair.

Oh, it was so lovely!

"Jeff, proud owner of two kids, a retriever, a cat, and a goldfish, sits on his Wildmoose Lawn Master with the personalized kidney comfort pad, with which he keeps his grass perfectly trimmed, while gazing at a brand new stationwagon parked in the driveway of his suburban Spanish revival ranch bungalow. His lovely wife Dorothy is fixing dinner in their kitchen, he can smell the coming feast from out on his lawn. Tuna casserole followed by lime Jello, his favourites, yum!"

"The tobacco in his pipe is Granger, the righ load for your pipe. It's mild and cool, keeps the bowl dry and the stem clean."

There is an order in their universe.


And, one expects, they still lovingly maintain great grampaw's backyard bombshelter.

For when the aliens invade. As you know they will.

The millenials with their communisms and multiple ethnicities and genders ruined all that! They don't shop at Sears Roebuck, they don't vote for righteous Christians, and they don't aspire to cottages by the lake. And they eat avocado toast! It's shocking, is what!


You know, tuna casserole sounds kind of disgusting. Also, not having a yard, I really do not aspire to a motorized lawn mower with adjustable heating in the seat. And I would probably like avocado toast, even if it is served by a godless heathen commie from outer space.

So I'll vote for anyone who isn't Trump and is hated by the fundamentalists.

And I'm looking forward to my next booster in a month or two.

Along with the microchip and antimagnetism.



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IT WENT BUMP IN THE NIGHT

The cat knocked over the priceless vase at around two o'clock in the night, and voiced her displeasure at the obstruction. It was my own fault, really. I should have remembered that Muffin liked the high ledge from which she could observe me. Or pounce and miss the bed by a foot at least. Which often also displeased the creature, fixated on warmth and comfort.
A lump like a toasty potato sitting on a plate, and a cold night.
It is time to spoon the human being.

It wasn't that cold last night.

And I do not have a cat.

I think she had lived here many decades ago, before I moved in.

That crash woke me up, and it took me a few seconds to realize that in fact it came from the next block over. Also, I do not have a Ming Vase, or any ancient porcelains looted from an Indonesian palace during the great age of shameless imperialism. Which makes me sad. Things are missing in my life.

This had been obvious when I was on the bus back to the city yesterday, with a dozen young fellows from Marin behind me. I heard scraps of their conversation. "I saw them [-indistinct verb-] at least fifteen times." "That's disgusting!" "She said I don't usually do this on the first date." "Oh yes you did." I suspect they may have been talking about baseball and a home run, that's the only reasonable explanation.

Sonny, in my day we did not go to a baseball game on the first date. Instead, we'd read our favourite passages from À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu, and compare notes. Then we'd order another pot of Oolong tea, at a parlour where we were in full view of our disapproving parents, with our hands above the table at all times. It was a gentler and much more frustrated age.

Actually, on one 'first date' we enjoyed hot chocolate topped with whipped cream together. On another one I was introduced to vegetarian food and declined a second date. There was a first date with Italian food. The best one was the first date with apple pie à la mode.
It became a relationship of many years, and she's still a very good friend.

None of them were interested in American sports.
Several of them admired nice pottery.

Not one lived in Marin.



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ICHESTER IS STAGGERINGLY POPULAR

One of the old men in the back is experiencing bowel issues, and because he knows we'll ban him if there is even one more occurence, he's been clenching like topsy, desparate not to become 'Pooh Man Two' and be banished to the outer darkness, where there is a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. I haven't said anything, but I think he would be much happier there. He'll be able to eat all the cheese he wants. Which he really shouldn't.

[The means NO Wensleydale, Greek Feta, Gorgonzola, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Pippo Creme, Danish Fimboe, Czech sheep's milk, Venezuelan Beaver Cheese, Cheddar, or Brie whatsover. None. Neithe a jot nor a tittle! Not a scrap.]

The marginally saner members of the syphilitic old fossils club in the back are aghast. And possibly fearful that eventually they too will have no place to philosophize rightwingedly, as the old bastards are wont to do, while watching televised balls, and two men naked in the wilderness with a chainsaw and bears or whatever that show is called.

Yeah, my piles bleed for old white boomers with bowels.
Truly, sincerely, warm heartedly.
Sarcasm off.


On the other hand, the members of the local pipe club are full of spirit, bravado, and derring do. Despite the average age being closer to sixty that thirty. The one thing seriously amiss with them is, perhaps, that there is always an excess of cheese at their monthly meetings. Oh, and maybe that all of them are male. There is not a single woman who has evinced the same interest in handsome briar smoking equipment, OR the fine substances with which to load them. Sad, because today for show and tell I brought a tin of Old Hollywood, a Cornell & Diehl blend, which I had purchased over a decade ago, and which was bulgy with age.

John had asked that we bring our square pipes (if we had 'em) to the meeting for show and tell. I own two: one is a Butz Choquin Roc Brune, the other is a Dudleigh from a Hollywood store (Richardson) that opened in 1930 and may have ceased existing sometime in the fifties or sixties. Quite a number of famous people loved the store: Leslie Howard, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Clark Gable, and William Faulkner among them. Hence the tobacco, which has NO connection to either of the two famous Hollywood tobacconists (the other one being John's, where my father shopped) other than that term Hollywood.

Either Clark Gable in between shots, OR a typical American badger

Didn't bother popping the lid on the sealed tin. It didn't look like anyone was interested in square pipes or a mighty fine blend which some have speculated was reverse-engineered from tobacco barn floor sweepings and discarded cigarette butts.
I rather like it, but I'm a litte peculiar that way.
It is no longer produced.

[Two types of red Virginia, plus Burley, Latakia, and Turkish. Pleasantly complex.]

Percy Dudleigh Richardson, the tobacconist, produced a number of private blends rather like it. Virginia and Burley mixtures with a dash of condimentals were not unusual then.

My father smoked something like that.

Obviously, I have met many more male pipesmokers than female pipesmokers. Of which there have been three. Committed aficionadas with a respectable plurality of pipes. As well as two occasional pipe ladies, with only three or four briars maximum. Men are a dime a dozen, women who smoke pipes are rare birds. The chance of being insane is just as great whichever the gender, the likelihood of being a tattooed freak with piercings and a dense beard down to the navel are considerable less for the distaff side.

The regular pipe smoker will need about six or eight briars minumum to have a rotation going on, in case you were wondering. The pipe needs to air and dry out, the complex chemicals deposited by the process of combusting tobacco must have time to dissipate and break down into simpler substances. Some men, filthy swine, end up abusing their pipes so badly that they have sewers on a stick jutting out of their faces.

It is an unfirmly held belief of mine that a woman pipe smoker will probably not need as many pipes as a man, because the female of the species is more careful about keeping her equipment clean. Some men are absolute pigs.

Still, ten to twenty pipes is not uncommon. A woman whom I knew when I was much younger had well over sixty. And knew her tobaccos.


By the way: the idea that fruity aromatic cavendishes are more naturally fit for women is complete horsepucky. The woman pipesmoker will at some point happily discover Balkan blends or fine Virginia mixtures, and not indulge in unseemly experiments with sweet crap (which is more suited to the tattooed pierced bearded freak in any case).

There are no women member of the pipe club.
Sad! All of us are well behaved.



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KARENS LIVE THERE

One of the first things I saw on Facebook when I got home this evening was a link to some of the dumbest things Americans have said on the internet. I was not disappointed. Some of my countrymen and women are amazingly stupid and ignorant. And those people are not all in Texas. Although, in all fairness, I've heard the phrase "Biden's America" used as explanation for something overseas being a complete pig's breakfast more often by an Irishman (resident of Marin) than from everyone else combined, and I hasten to add that there are intelligent Irishmen. More than I can list on the fingers of one hand.
Please don't drop your jaw.
Thanks.

However, they do use the metric system over there.
Which is of course a communist plot.
Depraved Hibernians!

The main reason I now refuse to visit most of the United States is that those people do vote, and they elect sherriffs. And school boards. Lord help them.

Besides, they come to SF. During the tourist season the prevalence of "Ameri-body" on the streets nearly doubles here. If I wanted any extended exposure to the "real America", I could simply go the nearest junkfood franchise cluster and observe them in all their glory, with their kids, and their "I got the crabs at Fishermans Wharf" tee-shirts.
Or turn on the teevee to Fox News.

THE COLOURS OF THE AMERICAN DIET

A friend who is a surgeon told me recently he leaves the room when most people talk about medicine. Personally, I feel that he's giving up. Apple cider vinegar, as everyone knows, is the best all-round cure for the American situation. Apple cider and a completely vegan diet, and avoid all vaccines. Whithin less than a generation there would be far, far fewer stupid and ignorant people in this country. Plus honey, ayahuasca, and urine therapy!

There's nowhere to go but up.



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AND MAYBE A DISCARDED MATTRESS

Urban residents are accustomed to neat lines. Without thinking about it, a canal yields a more comforting sense to some of us than untamed nature. It is orderly, and controlled, instead of wild and possibly disruptive. It says that all is well with the world, things are predictable, and there are no alligators going to rise up and snatch our poodle.

Yeah, okay, that's an exxageration, and betrays that unlike many Californians I grew up somewhere else, a more neurotic place. And I'll admit that I also like rivers, streams, and waterfalls. But I cannot imagine a restaurant terrace next to a big river rushing through the city were one might be comfortable snarfing down a local specialty. A canal-side cafe, yes.
An old building, perhaps, with wooden door panels stretching the length of the front.
Weather beaten tables, cane chairs. Small glass jars of chili paste.
Bottles of soy sauce so necessary for the tourists.
Or, in Europe, Maggi.

Two tables over an old man is smoking.
Dark shag, strong, handrolled.

Hot beverages.

燜肉麵 ('mun yiuk min') slow simmered meat with noodles in broth. Breakfast OR lunch. Or a late afternoon snack. Sunlight. The weather is just about room temperature, and there may be light rain later. Twilight takes longer in northern climes.
It is very bright outside.


Could be the Grand Canal (京杭大運河 'king hong taai wan ho' ) in Jiangsu (江蘇 'gong sou'), could be the Kloveniersburgwal near the Oudmanhuispoort, half a block or so distant from the poetry bookshop. Dutch has some phenomenal poetry. English lacks a bit. A youtube video my apartment mate was watching last night had some laudatory doggerel about Canada, which was absolute bollocks. Dreadful, quite.


The water is like a mirror, barely moving.
Minor flotsam drifts past.



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VARIOUS HUES OF MUD

You wake up and there are still ghost-images of somewhere very far away in your head. Colours not common here, and scenery only half remembered. Such as an autumn morning in a pleasant flat landscape with lots of moisture. California is not particularly moist. Most of the state is so close to being a desert waste that you half-expect a column of Sand People with glowing eyes to pad single file across Nob Hill, before stripping your car of all sellable parts. Except that you dont' have a car. And we've succesfully kept the Sand People at bay.

Tusken Raiders, as is well known, live in trailer parks.
There are several in the far suburbs.
Near the chicken farms.

[Hobbitses!]


I grew up in a colder wetter place. We moved there when I was two. My mother wanted to get away from the Los Angeles area, the air pollution there aggravated her asthma. And neither of my parents were particularly fond of Southern California, liking the climate of the Bay Area better. My father had spent a few years at college here, my mother had before she married my dad lived most of her life here.

The picture above shows neither the Berkeley Campus nor the Presidio, environments that meant much to them. It also does not show the North East Quadrant of this city (Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown, and North Beach) which are major in my life.

Early morning near a stream in North Brabant. I can still smell the tannins.

When there is moisture in the air, things smell different.

Stronger, and more decomposed.



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TEN THOUSAND FOO

Over on one of the language nerd pages someone posted the character for 'zero' in Chinese and Kanji. In meme format. Which resulted in multiple likes and wows. My favourite character in the numerics, however, is a scorpion.

That is to say, it started off as a scorpion. Eventually that word for scorpion fell into disuse, and was repurposed. In sealscript and prior script forms it still looks like a scorpion, but the modern script version bears less resemblance to the nasty creepy crawly:

萬

It crops up in the name of a Chinatown restaurant (萬壽宮餐廳 'maan sau gung chan teng'; Grant Place Restaurant, located at 737 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 Tel.: 415-982-3705) where it means ten thousand long lives (an auspicious phrase), as well as the standard phrase 萬富 ('maan fu'), a myriad good fortunes, which shows up in too many contexts to count, as well as well wishes.

It also shows up in the roundels on modern famille verte, jaune, or rose porcelain, especially utalitarian objects. Cups, bowls, plates, saucers, teapots, etcetera.

Whether sau or fu depends on the manufacturer.

The version shown above predates seal script (篆書 'suen syu'), being a scriptform employed for bronze inscriptions from two thousand years bce to about the third or fourth century bce: 金文 ('kam man') or 鐘鼎文 ('jung ding man'). Note that formerly 金文 was also sometimes referred to as Greater Seal Script (大篆 'daai suen'), thus conflating it with later styles.


I am fondly imagining the character above happily whispering "booga booga booga" to itself, thinking that it's still potent and frightening. And perhaps it lives under people's beds.


Booga booga booga!



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IT'S ALL ABOUT FREEZUMS

There is nothing quite like artificially intelligent Japanese voices singing military marches in a sprightly manner. Immensely cheering, and feverishly patriotic at the same time. Kudos to the people who are quite insane enough to create such things! This blogger is all about internet weirdos, and grateful that he can keep them far away from his apartment while never-the-less having them at his finger tips. The Marsellaise in girlish Japanese is particularly nice.

I myself also qualify as very feverish internetted "nicety".

Safe and wholesome from a distance.

Florida level.


Like the beloved character Red Hiney (Raoul Sinropas) on Cow And Chicken, you could even introduce me to your children. Educational, as well as pirate-like.
I'd teach them stuff. Like how to 'pianize', and be a mall cop.
Or, who knows, even geography!

THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE

And, unlike the current slate of Maganauts, I do not require pituiary gland extract to maintain my healthy glow. There are no vampire bats or Christian moms swooping low overhead when I'm around. Ron DeSantis and Kari Lake could learn from me. The My-Pillow Guy would finally stop drooling into his energy drink or fouling his diapers!

I am in all ways a shinging beacon of light!


Trust me. I'm not a Republican.



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SOUNDS TOO MUCH LIKE THEM

Per ancient tradition (at least several years) the bookseller and myself meet up once a week for drinkies after burgers. That is to say, he has a burger, because he's all esurient after a long day at the bookmines, and having eaten earlier I simply snatch some of his fries. This used to entail a glass of rotgut red for both of us, but I finally gave up on that wine there because I'm a wussy.

Then we head around the corner for beer, and whiskey to finish at a third place. Seeing as I'm on medications that might interact badly with alcohol, I simply have hot tea at both places. On top of the chilled caffeinated beverage I had at the burger joint I end up wired to the tits by the time I get home.

I like burgers. July Fourth is THE burger day. Can a person even be said to have observed the holiday if no burgers were enjoyed? By the way, Independence Day is also the day when vegans and pets hide under the bed because they're scared. Vegans because of burgers, dogs because of the thundrous racket that last night went on for over four hours.

There were no vegans hiding under my bed.
I'm sure of that, I always check.

Normally this beef and rotgut extravaganza occurs on a Tuesday, because of his and my schedule. It used to happen on Fridays, which was almighty interesting because while we were always modest drinkers, much of San Francisco was drunk out of their little pinheads by that time. It also happens earlier in the evening now because he gets off work sooner.
The worst that happens these days is white trash karaoke.
Neither one of us sings. Ever.
So we suffer.

To quote John Cleese: "I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse ... shut up!" The first and last part of that citation were from different bits.
But I'm sure he would say it at a karakoke joint, in exactly that order.


This week we gave the ritual a miss. Not to celebrate, but because there were far too many yobbos out, as there always are when the twenty something dude crowd has a convenient excuse to swill beer. New Years, Saint Patricks Day, Cinco De Mayo .....
Rosh Hashana, Labour Day, The World Series .....


The "pipe for watching rats in Spofford Alley" did not get smoked.
Last pipe of the day was a delightful old French piece.

Rubbed Virginia, touch of Fire-cured.
Quiet contemplation.



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THIS! THIS IS THE SMELL OF VICTORY!

Something that could easily be sold to the pipe smokers who suffer from severe handicaps in matters of taste would be a smoking mixture containing the following flavours or artificial aromas: vanilla, orange, honey, walnuts, rootbeer, blackberry, raspberry, cherry, whiskey and caramel. With a subtle top dressing of hibiscus. This is based on research that took me all of five minutes, which I will never have again.

The hibiscus odour was inspired by the most popular beverage masquerading as tea in this country when I returned years ago. Because real tea gets dumped in harbours. And many Americans don't like pure simple good quality stuff anyway, as is proven by the most popular choices down at the hot beverage franchise where they get your name wrong.

Hence all those added flavours. Eighty percent plus of the pipe tobacco sold in this country is souped up with that. Same goes for pipe tobacco in Europe and the rest of the world, which just goes to show that they're no better than us, snooty attitudes to the contrary.

The biggest consumers of cooked burley tobacco with fruit essences are the Danes. Which is understandable, and has a lot to do with their cuisine, I would guess.

[In all fairness, the Dutch (my people) invented Clan (possibly the worst tobacco product ever), as well as Niemeyer Scottish Mixture and Niemeyer Irish Mixture, but at least their food has more 'oomph'. The Danes have øllebrød.]

Vanilla, orange, honey, walnuts, rootbeer, blackberry,
raspberry, cherry, whiskey and caramel, with hibiscus

Naturally I would not smoke it. Because I'm not patriotic.

But I have it on good authority that George Washington would like this. It could remind him of cherry trees, for which he had a thing I believe. Probably also effective against space aliens.



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EVERYONE HAS A RECTANGLE

He just sat there when the others were already at the door. He had not eaten much, barely anything -- his more severely mentally handicapped brother had been disgusting, what with mewing and ingratiating smiles, as well as touching his food -- and the whole thing had left him feeling alone. He was still hungry. And he had not finished his soft drink yet.
All in all, it had been an extremely unpleasant lunch.

He didn't blame his brother. But he was resentful.
Also quite confused by the experience.
He too had issues.

The grandparents obviously did not understand their two defective grandsons. How very unfortunate that both of them would not be on the deans list (putting it mildly) and would need attention for the rest of their lives.

I had started paying attention to all of them at that table when it became apparent that neither boy could use chopsticks. Like the sullen brother who dawdled over the soft drink, I found the mewling boy's greasy smile quite irritating. In retrospect I understand that it's a useful tool for dealing with reality which he cannot grasp or deal with. But the sullen one seems much more likable, in retrospect, because sullenness is an intelligent reaction. Not quite fully normal, in his case, but it's infinitely more relatable.

Eating together is, in the Asian context, one of the most social acts. It affirms relationships, and allows the expression of necessary proprieties. It says that someone has people. No one should be forced to eat alone. In Western society that also comes into play, but far, far less. Individual servings, with everyone's proportion of string beans or mush carefully measured. And four Salisbury steaks of precisely equal size.

What if, as a hypothetical question, I don't want mush, and dislike stringbeans?
I imagine that in some severely Anglo families that's heresy.
Boy, finish everything on your plate!

There are people starving in Africa!

Sometimes one prefers to eat alone. There is scope for that. At a dimsum restaurant, given that it would probably be early in the day, people like me are a drag. We do like the selection, yes, but the caffeine and blood sugar levels have not hit cruising altitude yet, and our gears are not at functioning speed. By contrast, chachantengs are about taking a break, which sometimes means a break from other people.

I stay away from junkfood places. Too many families.
Nor am I a round table person, particularly.


Social relationships tend to enforce certain behaviours.
The smiling boy had all of his needs met.


I think the sullen fellow would have quite enjoyed simply sitting alone with his carbonated beverage for a while. But it was time to leave.



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FIREWORKS, DRUM MAJORETTES, AND WEENIES!

The great thing about this holiday is the Florida-man videos from all corners of this country, where less-than-gifted individuals do stupid things with combustibles and exlosives. Usually there are multiple examples of staggeringly moronic shiznit. Not just digits gone missing; garages and car ports transported to the next county.

This proves what a great country we live in. Because elsewhere the intellectually defective element wouldn't be let out on their own. Here, they probably have a drivers license. Suspended, yes, and for good cause, but they've tasted freedom.

Bless their freezums.


What we also celebrate, in addition to incendiary devices and combustibles, are a number of dubious foods, augmented with ketchup and bacon. Potato salad and bacon. Macaroni salad and bacon. Grilled "they-said-it's-all-beef" and bacon. Plus apple pie, and bacon.

Now, I like hotdogs -- they're one of natures most perfect foods -- but I've suddenly realized that there is no where within easy traveling distance of my apartment where a decent hot dog may be found. This is because the greasy spoons here are run by communist deviants from Mars (or North Africa), and the vegan healthnuts have viciously driven hot dogs out of town. This is what happens when the city is run by liberals who don't watch Fox News!

By the way: All the drum majorettes here are men. And they're fabulous!

I suppose I could go get a hamburger somewhere.

That, too, is very American.



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GEHAKTBALLEN EVERYWHERE!

The dumpling place was filled with meatballs. I like dumplings. And I like meatballs. But not when they are ambulatory. And one cannot just go up to them and ask "small humanoid, are you inbred?" Even when they are clearly from very white parts of the country and the answer, if they understood the question, would be a very clear "doh', thus proving that they were.
Let their moronic grins suffice instead.

The city is filled with visitors.

And restaurant staff are overworked and undertipped. Because the outsiders are so darn pleased to be here that they figure we are too. Surely their presence is enough reward?

When I still worked part time at a restaurant, years ago, holidays were the worst time of year. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, and everything between the middle of October and New Years. So I left a forty percent tip when I left the place.
I had enjoyed my plate of dumplings immensely.
And they had a version of Sriracha.
Quite tasty, to be sure.

Next July Fourth weekend, go directly for the meatballs.

Nothing is more American than ground meat.


One of the things I've started doing recently is counting how many American-type human bodies are out there whenever I leave my apartment. I've noticed that many Americans are shaped like seals or manatees, and it's become an obsession. They're probably all from the Midwest or the South. Or, exceptionally, the Central Valley. Previously I had counted street people, dogs, and tykes, plus maskiots (maskless passengers on public transit), but the walrusses are more easily spotted. Consider it another manifestation of neurosis.

Man of them are also meatballs.



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FAVOURITES

On one of the pipe forums someone asked people what their favourite aromatic blends were. The answers were instructive. Remind me sometime not to hang around with perverts or teenage boys. There are some people who like churchwarden pipes, dressing up as hobbits, drinking weak tea with extra sugar, second breakfasts, and tromping over the blasted heath of Mordor looking for elves. And butterflies! Or poncing around renaissance fairs during summer, speaking fake Elizabethan English and not washing for several weeks.

Sherlock Holmes, as is well known, was an aficionado of Captain Black Grape and Molto Dolce. As well as brutish sailors he picked up on the docks of the East End late at night.

The less said about rum-soaked cherry tobacco with chocolate shavings the better.


I myself tend toward severe Puritanism when it comes to pipe tobacco. It should only smell of repressed British public schools, savage wippings on sailing ships, malaria, typhoid, and black water fever in tropical hellholes, plus existential angst and despair.
Leastways, it should make you think.

Several years ago I smoked a very pleasant MacBaren's product ((Virginia Flake, in the little yellow tin) around some friends having coffee. One of whom said it stank, because of the subtle top dressing, and insisted that I go around the corner out of sight and smell.
It was actually very nice and I still have several tins of it.

I'm sort of okay with aromatics. Sure, they smell bad and suggest unspeakable perversion, but if that tickles your boat, that's fine.


In recent months I've been enjoying Hill Of Slane by Sutliff Tobacco on occasion. It's a soft mildly sweet coarse ribbon cut with what is alleged to be Irish Cream Essence. After pulsing it briefly several times in the microwave it's dry enough to smoke, does not bite, and smokes thoughtfully down to the bottom. Removing the excess moisture by microwaving it is far faster than spreading it to dry, and it neither ghosts the pipe or leaves it soggy.
It is not for purists. So I do recommend it, with caution.


An argument could be made that occasional degeneracy keeps society on an even keel.

TOBACCO INDEX


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THE STONE FORMATIONS

A reader wonders how I survived the seventy six degrees Fahrenheit heatwave we had in San Francisco a day ago. Oh man, it was horrible! Dead beanie babies up and down Van Ness Avenue as far as the eye could see! The agony, the heartache!

Actually, there are still people who have entire rooms filled with beanie babies.

Twenty years ago when I left one job I discovered that one of the managers there knew the names and backstories of every one of the hundreds of damn beanie babies in her office, but couldn't remember the names of half of the people in her department. She was, of course, considered perfect for her position. Detail oriented!

Perhaps unremarkably, all of the beanie baby boobies of which I'm thinking are Chinese American women. My apartment mate is also a Chinese American woman, and there are dozens of small critters in this apartment, but I'm the guilty party in this regard, and not a single one of them is a beanie. I think the crucial difference is that those folks are married or in long-term relationships, whereas neither myself nor my apt. mate has that going on.
And I'm not a Chinese American woman. I can't even fake it convincingly.

The small critters speak largely with her voice, however.
And sometimes say the most outrageous stuff.

The academic exercise painting above was done on the computer while listening to my apartment mate go on about something family-related. Seeing as I've met just one of her siblings, once, it didn't mean much to me, and I was in pain from being on my feet all day. But I let her talk, though. She needed to get it out of her system. I suspect that all of her kinfolk are on the spectrum. Several of them are engineers. That's almost a guarantee.

No, that's not Southern Marin. Or San Francisco. It's probably closest to somewhere in Arizona, okay? Just look at those rocks. Where the wild beanie babies roam.


The Dutchman is tired. He has had a long day. And he will probably call it an early evening and retire for the night soon.


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UPPER CHAMBER FOR RENT

One of the people I see occasionally is now sporting a large red SS tattoo on his face. Which is disturbing. The problem is that I know he's had brain damage and neurological impairment from chemical exposure, and even if he were all there would not be able to explain what the SS tattoo meant in his world. So I'd say he's well on his way to being too batshit to function.

[He's an acquaintance, not a friend. It's work-related. In Marin County.]

Of course, if someone takes offense to his face and takes a 2 by 4 to his skull -- which would be understandable, because this isn't Florida -- he may be unable to function a lot sooner.

I think he thinks he's playing at being an outlaw biker.
Sadly, he isn't playing with an entirely full deck.
He's recently acquired a Harley.

He's NOT playing at being a Supreme Court Justice.
Nobody could be that batshit.

As long as I've known him his fries have not been fully Frenched, and his parking meter has been stuck on idle. Not all of his cards add up to a ballteam, and his elevator is a few passengers shy of a picnic party.



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RABBIT RABBIT

Rabbit rabbit. The tradition is that ones first utterance at the beginning of the month should be the words "rabit rabbit". And, because between sundown on Friday and sunset Saturday this blog does not post, by titling this post "rabbit rabbit" I have obeyed ancient custom and demonstrated a very human level of neurosis. Because I am nothing if not human, precisely like you! I am not just observing and waiting for you to self-destruct. I participate to the best of my abilities in your activities, very human! If you prick me I shall bleed. Rabbit rabbit.

I am NOT a lizard.

Repeat: human.

Rabbit rabbit.

Please note that the pictured rabbit is smoking a handmade W.Ø. Larsen pipe, probably produced during the sixties when the esteemed company was at the top of their game. But unlike a typical Dane, she enjoys a nice Balkan blend, albeit one made by Scandinavian tobacco rather than an ancient British company, of which so very few are left.

Samuel Gawith is still around, thank heavens.

She describes Samuel Gawith's Squadron Leader as definitely excellent, the one tobacco that if the local store in some hellhole village out in the bogs of East Bucketshire carried that and nothing else except Captain Black Menthol, you wouldd say to yourself "maybe I can stay another six months here, the local yobbos actually have a rustic charm once you get past their crude customs".

If Taylor's of Harrowgate Yorkshire Tea was also available there, maybe Pigdbollocksham in East Bucketshire is as close to heaven as one can get. And the zombies are really harmless. Just like normal football fans, just more insensate, more often. Don't go into town on those days, just putter a bit around the pond the local grammar school drowned in decades ago. Perhaps fishing a small perfectly formed skull or femur out of the viscous tannic liquid.

Rabbit rabbit. It's good luck.



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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
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All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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