by Erwin Van Hove

If by any chance you feel the need to show off your wealth and your standing, here’s
some advice for you. Purchase an ostentatious villa or a design loft with a panoramic
view. Parade your trophy wife. Wear a Rolex. Order a Petrus or an Yquem in a three star
Michelin restaurant. Drive a Beamer. Do not, I repeat, do not smoke a Bo Nordh. Without
a doubt, doing so, even with consummate studied casualness, would prove a crushing
disappointment. Who, I ask you, would suspect that the trivial object that prevents you
from exhibiting your perfect teeth, actually represents three months worth of salary of your
luscious personal assistant ? To flash your success, maybe, just maybe a Dunhill topped
with a fancy gold umbrella might do the trick. But a master carver’s pipe ? Forget it. It will
impress the gallery just as little as a pedestrian Stannie. Read more

The customer is always right. I really do try to conduct business that way but some of you guys really do take advantage of that. Sending pipes back to me from half way across the world because the bowl coating has slightly chipped off on a new pipe, a cleaner will pass easily but a fluffy cleaner won’t, it doesn’t feel right in the hand, the grain isn’t as nice as you thought ( that’s way I take photos and shoot video ) and my personal favorite, returning a pipe because a similar pipe sold on eBay for less then what you payed. I keep telling myself the customer is always right. Read more

by Warren Wigutow

I want to begin my stint as a blogger by illustrating some basic distinctions. You are here because for some inexplicable reason you have an itch. This itch is insidious and can only be relieved by scanning the products of maladjusted would be architects, artists and engineers to see what they’ve done lately with chunks of heath tree root. Conversely, I am here because I’m curious to see what drives you, what nurtures your malady and exacerbates this concupiscence. This is purely scientific. Read more

“All important decisions should be made within the space of seven breaths” – Hagakure; The Book of Samurai.

 Clearly, I’m not a Samurai (for that matter, I can’t even navigate a sushi menu), for I have been tossing around the idea of having a blog on this site for about a year. The reason for the hesitation should be pretty obvious to those who know me personally; I am a talker, not a writer. Read more