Only the best survive.

“Books survive only because people love them – there’s no other reason why a book survives ever,” says Salman Rushdie in a recent interview in “Poets and Writers” magazine (September/October 2017).  Is that true of cigar brands that don’t survive? Because people just don’t like them?  

Run that last paragraph through your brain sieve.  Think about the brands that have stood the test of time.  Could there be a direct correlation between liking a brand/blend and not liking a brand or blend and its pedigree on shelves?  

My guess is that few cigar manufacturers stop producing a cigar that sells.  My guess is fewer cigar manufacturers stop churning out a blend that’s popular.  My guess is that even fewer cigar companies are out of business when they know they have a hit on their hands.  So what is it?  It’s the cigar!

Salmon Rushdie, “The Titan of Letters,” has released a new novel, “The Golden House.”  The magazine published an in-depth interview with the famed author of “The Satanic Verses” (1988) whose work angered the Islamic community to such a degree that ”many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief and in 1989 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwā ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie.  The Iranian government backed the fatwā against Rushdie until 1998, when the succeeding government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said it no longer supported the killing of Rushdie. However, the fatwā remains in place.” (Wiki)

Today he lives an ordinary life that has taken on extraordinary meaning.

His interlocutor, Porochista Khakpour, (also a famed author and writer of letters for publications such as the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal) began her article with the usual back story on Rushdie, and of course, highlighted his new novel.  Her first question was “Here you are now at your thirteenth novel.  Or should I assume you are on to number fourteen now?”

His answers are intriguing, on point, and the contrapuntal interview continues to weave questions that touch on who are stylistic writers and who remain language ones and how, despite the severity of the reaction of the 1988 tome, how “funny” The Satanic Verses” actually is.

Then she pops the big one, “You’re not perched by your phone on Nobel announcement day?”  His answer is calming and introspective, “No, I mean, of course, it’s nice when you win and it’s not nice when you don’t, but I really don’t care.”  He goes on to say that his interest is if the books endure, “that hopefully (the works) will be around long after (I’m) not around.”  

He expands with his answer that begins this post.  Which brings me back to the question, what does this say about all the boutique cigars, and not even the cigars themselves, but the brand they portend to be interested in building?

I could easily name twenty to fifty brands that came out of the blue within the last few years producing showers of praise, adulation, and generous compliments and ask the question. “Where are they today?”

There are myriad reasons for this perpetual David Copperfield disappearing act. Methinks it’s simply – the cigar.  It didn’t hold up.  It was released with a bang! And ended up a moist fizzle in a rancid ashtray or in the five-packs at many a cigar store.  

Is it fair to compare cigars with literature?  Why not?  The raison d’être is that the author, the writer, the blender or the hopeful cigar enthusiast went through all that trouble, money, angst, and fear that his or her cigar would pulsate the public’s appetite into becoming one of the best.

Of course, there are always going to be one hit wonders.  But then there are the ones who become monuments such as – Davidoff, Hoya de Monterrey, Romeo y Julieta and Updike, Rushdie, or Twain.

And isn’t that what anyone with a creative mind really wants?  “Affection is the only thing that makes literature (cigars) survive,” Rushdie says.  “That’s all there (really) is.”

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“I now pronounce you . . .”

Fabrics and Cigars.  A pairing.  Physically and intellectually.  There are more, but I picked out several quotes from the article “Dream Weaver: With her exquisite one-of-a-kind textiles, Sylvie Johnson has become the starchitect’s couturier,” an article written by Stephen Heyman in W Magazine – November, 2016.

A bit of backstory: Johnson was born in Dakar, grew up in West Africa but feels at home in Paris.  She “fell in love with textiles at an exhibition she saw while on vacation in Brittany.”  She apprenticed for Christian Lacroix and Chanel and launched her own company in 2003.  She spoke with the author at her atelier, “a narrow apartment building across a courtyard.”  

The entire article centers around her fascination with rare and exotic textiles and how she custom weaves for mostly private homes, due to the expensive and rare materials she chooses to use.

Sound familiar?  It should.  There are cigar blenders and there are cigar blenders.  Some perch themselves upon the marketing tree to be seen by everyone with products that they hope will reach the entire universe.  And then there are those blenders, who take the approach that Johnson has, and are quite satisfied by filling a niche that is for a select few – the lucky ones if you will.

“What she does is very rare and difficult to explain.  It’s like she puts her soul onto the fabric,” says Jacques Grange – who is himself a “design-world heavyweight.”  Go ahead start limning the unique blenders of today in your mind and this will all gel into a phantasmagorical phenomenon.   It won’t take you long.  Get my drift?

She does not concern herself with pop-ularity. “Says Johnson, “It’s like with Matisse.  He started by doing complicated things, and finally, it was just a line.  If you have a complicated panel, you’re going to lose all the poetry of the material.”  How can you not begin to connect these dots?

She can, the author writes, “get a little carried away when talking about her yarns.”  But she satisfies that urge by acknowledging “I know for some people this is just a warp and weft – it’s nothing.  But for me, that nothing is everything.”

Her work takes time.  “With some designs, eight hours of weaving will yield just under eight inches of fabric.  The turnaround time is usually two to three months.”

Johnson sees her work as art.  It isn’t just a commissioned commodity for commerce. Heyman writes that even though she embraced her creative side later than most in art and design “she credits her maternal grandmother, Marie-Augustine, who passed away in February “for her keen desire and passion for what she does.  She knows everyone has a way they perceive art and design, but adds, “Water is not always water.  If you put it in a beautiful glass, it becomes something else.”

As it is with the blends that are now streaming out of the minds of men and women who have created and are continuing to produce miracles with the various blends of the tobacco leaf, fermentation processes, and the vivid imaginations of what if this leaf were married to that leaf.

I can say this, without hesitation or doubt, it will be, as it has been for Sylvie Johnson, those blenders who shy away from the gravitational pull of fame who will produce the best, the most unique, the most satisfying, and the longest lasting cigar brands offered in the marketplace today.

Fame is fleeting.  Passion is permanent.

-30-

Bolivar, Romeo, Partagas, Tharp.

Just the other day, I received Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s schedule for the rest of this year and the beginning of 2018.  All events will be staged at the Edlis Neeson Theater (as opposed to the elitist spelling “Theatre”).  This theater is named after local philanthropists Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, in what the museum called its largest gift of art from the couple ($400,000.00 plus, including nine Warhols and a variety of works by Jasper Johns among other contemporary artists) in its history and a coup for the institution and the city.  So it goes to reason to name a venue after the two generous patrons of the arts.

History be damned, we move on.  Anyway, I naturally slid my finger under the translucent orbs of sticky tape keeping the brochure tight and fit for mailing and began to peruse the performances that were being offered.

And If I go too fast, my apologies, this is not an article on the arts it is an article on cigars. So, moving on, I had a choice for the remainder of 2017 of 600 Highwaymen – The Fever; Faye Driscoll’s, Thank you for Coming: A Play;  Twyla Tharp’s world premiere of Minimalism and Me.  Then going on to 201. . . . . . . . . . .Stop!  Read that again?  Twyla Tharp’s world premier of Minimalism and Me?  At MCA Chicago!  No way!

“For the first time, the MCA presents one of the most acclaimed artists in contemporary dance, for the world premiere of Minimalism and Me, a program created specifically of her seminal works from the 1960s and 1970s and her experiences while living among major visual artists of the time.” (brochure)  

I immediately got out of bed and went into the office to turn the computer back on and went to the site www.mcachicago.org/stage.  And I’m glad I did, I noticed when I was trying to locate good seats 85% of the house had already been booked.  Best in the house were in row L, but with good sight lines nonetheless.  I proceeded to purchase those tickets.  And being a member, I was given the discount price and lo, I became a part of what I know will be one of the most exciting evenings of dance in Chicago this year.

After I clicked purchase, I could feel the tingle going up and down my spine, the eroticism of excitement filling my body, and the smugness that I didn’t miss out on this one like I did with Patti Smith when she was in town.

In brief, “In 1965, Ms. Tharp (1941) founded her dance company, Twyla Tharp Dance. Her dances are known for creativity, wit and technical precision coupled with a streetwise nonchalance.  By combining different forms of movement – such as jazz, ballet, boxing and inventions of her own making – Ms. Tharp’s work expands the boundaries of ballet and modern dance.”

I quickly glanced over to the 2018 offerings, but that was with a shrug and disdain – how can you beat Twyla Tharp – in F*cking person?  Even when Karen Finley was in town I beat myself with shards of stupidity for days and I wasn’t about to go through that again. Ever.

Ok.  You’ve been wise enough to stay with me up to this point.  Where do cigars come in? Right there blödmann.  In front of your eyes!  Most guys buy cigars that they are familiar with.  They recognize them.  They get excited about them.  They purchase them because there is so little risk involved.  They buy what they know.  We all do.  But what a treat to watch someone who extended the boundaries of dance or smoke a cigar by a blender who has no fear.  Keep in mind that the standard cigars were once unknown brands.

Now that’s exciting.

-30-

 

 

Bad Cigars. Bad Cartoons. Same Sh*t.

 

Ok.  You can’t win the Pulitzer Prize every time.  Most whatever’s don’t.  But The New Yorker Magazine has certainly put this issue in the no-win category.  And I’ll say it’s because of the cartoons!  The New Yorker has had a halcyon history of a collective concatenation of cartoons that hit the social, political, and satirical nail right on the head with quintessential class – to make a point.  But please David, David, David, Mr. Remnick, where has all that inside, elitist panache gone?  Are you on an intellectual editorial vacation?  Are the cartoonists somehow convincing you that the comic takeoffs they’ve submitted are actually funny, socially relevant, or, or, or – what?  What the hell is happening on 1 World Trade Center’s 38th floor?

Lars Kenseth

Harry Bliss

The iconic magazine has been publishing prize-winning cartoons since it began in 1925.  Some of the greatest cartoonists have graced its pages including, Charles Adams, Peter Arno, Ed Koren, Saul Steinberg, James Thurber, Roz Chast, and David Snell.

 

Now we’re being inundated with graphics from Harry Bliss, Lars Kenseth, Edward Steed, and Maddie Dei.  Yes, cartoonist all.  But what’s their bent?  Humor or hubris.   The cartoons hold the magazine together.  They always have.  They always will.  What’s up???

Edward Steed

Madie Dei

Ok.  I’ll give it this, the August 21st, 2017 hit a bump.  A bad run.  That’s all.  Calm down. (Yes, I’m speaking to myself now, too.)  It’s a magazine for crying out loud, albeit $8.99 on the newsstand.

So, the next time you get a sour cigar, one with a warped taste, or it turns into a congealed gel of gluck – just chill.  Sit back. Light up another one next time.   (I’m assuming you’ve thought of that by now.)  And look forward to reading next week’s New Yorker while you’re puffing away on that better cigar.  I promise you, this issue is a fluke.  (Or my sense of humor is going into another, inexplicable Dr. Who-like dimensional vortex, which is possible.)

Keep in mind – tastes change, cartoons change, editors change, blenders change, you change, I change, all God’s creations change.   BTW.   “And bring me some rye bread.”

-30-

Me. Me? A Cigar Snob?

Today I actually felt the overwhelming shawl of disgust come over my entire cigar psyche.  I think I’ve turned into an impatient (not new) “cigar snob” (new).  I went out for a walk with Flo, but before I did, I ran downstairs to the humidor to pick out a cigar.  I looked ‘em all over and decided to light up a P—–.

So off came the cello, as I headed out from the basement onto the porch to the back door, and took my lighter and opened the top, clicked on the starter and, as I usually do, pulled air through the cigar before we both hit the road.  Except for this time, I got nothing but resistance – and a tad bit of smoke.  No problem.  I reached into my jean’s right pocket, retrieved my cutter and snipped off just a bit more off the cap.  Flo is patiently waiting by my side, as she is wont to do on these occasions.  I drew again.  Less smoke than the first time.  Rat bastard.

But not to be deterred, and having the responsibility of allowing Flo to relieve herself, I torched that mother and drew like Vincent sipped from the straw of the $5 milkshake at Jack Rabbit Slims in the film, “Pulp Fiction.” Instead of a creamy compliment, I damned the cigar right there and then but kept on walking the dog as I valiantly tried to get this ersatz cigar to give me what it’s supposed to give me – smoke, flavor, and satisfaction.  

Unfortunately, during the entire walk, I worked it to the point where I became a bit irritated (understatement).  I was so annoyed that when I got back, I anchored Flo to the table and flung the cigar into the ashtray that now joined last night’s butt.  That cigar performed like a charm.  So what to do?  I have a lot of paperwork to complete and I would like a cigar to smoke while I am working.

I run back downstairs and look for one that I know will not disappoint.  Ah, yes.  A box-pressed.  A nice changeup.  I’m back at the Patio Cigar Lounge (Open 24/7).  I settle into my chair and take off the band.  I don’t like to smoke a cigar with the band on.  My preference. So, as gently as I could, I loosed the band’s glue and ever so deftly pulled on the paper to unwind the band.  Ok. Band’s off.  Arrgh!  There’s a piece missing right where the band was.  I looked at the band, no residual tobacco. The band was hiding the tear.  Damn it!  Another glitch. And both of these beauties are in the $12 range!

Did either of these conditions affect the experience?  Of course, they did.  Both inhibited a perfect pull.  One was too hard a draw, the other let too much air in.  I’m Charlie Brown on the ground after Lucy whips the football from my intended kick.  Plunk!  

So I begin to do my work, but the thought of these cigars begins to prey on my mind to the point that I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing.  So I slipped my yellow legal pad out from under the pile of magazines, made me a space to write and began to compose what you’re reading right now.  

Two cigars.  Two expensive cigars.  Flaws in both.  I got them for free.  I’m fortunate.  But the consumer isn’t as blessed.  He or she spent $12 plus tax and this is the result?  I’d be pissed.  Hell, I was pissed and I didn’t even pay for either of ‘em.  So am I cigar snob?

What exactly is a cigar snob?  According to the dictionary, snobs are people “who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people.”   Hmm.  Does this have to do with taste, like vanilla, or chocolate?  No.  Taste.  Taste!  “The opinion of someone based on that person’s feelings about what is appealing.”  Nothing else matters just that person’s perspective (mine in this scenario).  So I guess that makes me a Cigar Snob.  Ha!  Hell, I feel like I just jumped the shark.  Feels good, though.  As long as I keep that to myself in polite conversation.  I’m sure an outed cigar snob is the least likely person anyone would want to have a conversation with, including me.  So, I’ll bury that personality flaw into the deepest recesses of my being and go about my business.

(But cha know now.)  “Next cigar, please!”

“Next cigar, please!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfmp_kZ0ZfE

-30-

“a whiter shade of pale.”

Yeah, a blank page.  Well, not completely blank.  Eight words.  Plus two.  That equals twelve.  Fifteen actually now.  Well to be precise – twenty-two.  Point.  I can show you a blank page, or will it be viewed as a “whiter shade of pale.”  Procal Harum. (12 May 1967)

Which is how I feel right now.  Empty.  Nauseous.  Hollow.  Light.  What color would that be? 

Here is where the phrase first appears:

And so it was that later

As the miller told his tale

That her face, at first just ghostly,

Turned a whiter shade of pale

Of course, those are only partial lyrics, the song goes on for three more verses, the rendition of the fourth is rare.  And without going into the entire 60s Brit-hit, in the February 2008 issue of Uncut magazine, the meaning of the song is partially explained by co-writer Keith Reid (Matthew Fisher and Gary Brooker also take composition credit):

“I was trying to conjure a mood as much as tell a straightforward, girl-leaves-boy story. With the ceiling flying away and room humming harder, I wanted to paint an image of a scene. I wasn’t trying to be mysterious with those images, I was trying to be evocative. I suppose it seems like a decadent scene I’m describing. But I was too young to have experienced any decadence, then. I might have been smoking when I conceived it, but not when I wrote (it).  (The lyrics were) influenced by books, not drugs.”

We don’t know.  There are several explanations floating around and even the band mates can’t agree on what the song’s lyrics were meant to convey.  So that leads us to the color.  You no doubt have heard the phrase “pale as a ghost.” A misnomer.  Ghosts are invisible.  Except for Casper, but how else would the cartoonist have drawn him, a disembodied word bubble?  I suppose. Child psychologists could get rich trying to explain that one away!

So what’s the freakin’ point?  The color mate.  The color!  What it represents.  The consciousness is holding space.  Is it a blank page –  “the” whiter shade of pale or is it its invisibility the most translucent shade that it (the whiter shade of pale) appears to the naked eye nonexistent but is actually there – we just can’t see it because it’s so, ah – pale?

The point here is ideas.  Looking at a blank page can be terrifying.  I know.  I’ve experienced it a thousand times.  Ok, if you have Mick Jagger and “Time On Your Side.’ Fine.  But more often than not, you don’t – have the time (or access to Mick Jagger).  You simply fill in the blanks with what you believe are organized letters – verbiage.  But those words, sentences, partial phrases are the precursors giving the blank page of the paper its identity.  Don’t you see?  It can’t exist.

Your mind can go blank, but it really doesn’t go “blank,” it just tumbles into a wobbly state of circumambulation where nothing is being written, drawn, or splattered on, in or through it  

So what the f*&K! was that all about?

Light up the cigar, click on your MP3 plā-ya, ram those rubberized buds in your ear sockets, and enjoy the fact that nothing is unusual, farcical, or impossible as long as you know its properties.  It’s there.  They’re there.  The idea is.  The ideas are there.  But only because you know where to look.  Draw on that cigar – the paper, and man up!   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=valL7JWjVB4

-30-

 

Mom? You? The Cigar Culprit?

My mother taught me when I was just a kid that if I took the silken strands from an ear of corn and separated them and gently placed them on a paper towel, after a few days they would wither and dry.  Then, she taught me to take a piece of paper, any kind would do, even newsprint, and roll them in the paper, like men used to do with their little bags of tobacca.  Then she taught us to take the ends and twist them together to close them off. Then, take a match and light one of the ends and draw.  And to our bemusement, it was just like smoking a cigarette, even though no one in our family smoked (that I knew about anyway).  It looked like a joint.  But I didn’t know that then.  

But the mere fact that my mother taught me to smoke says something about this 97-year -old woman who was raised in New York during the depression.  She was born in 1920, married in 1952, had me in ‘54, so by the time she taught me, I must have been at least 10 years old.

Did she discover this on her own, or did someone with a bit more knowledge teach her about one of the niftiest and cheapest ways to make a “cigarette.”  I could ask her, but the odds of her remembering are pretty slim.  She’s at that stage in her life when her memory is on and off.  All I really do know is that when I bring her chocolate, she’s happy and talks about whatever she wants to jabber about.  Sometimes it’s so repetitive I could pull my hair out.  And other times, she pops out a nugget of information that gives me in depth insight into how she matured and what it was like to have a Germanic stern vater and a complacent mutter.

So I ask myself, is this when I began to fall in love with the leaf?  I had always given my dad the credit because when he came home from a convention or a dinner out, nine times out of ten he would return with a cigar.  More often than not it was in a tube.

Then, as he was getting ready for bed, he took the cigar out of his shirt pocket and plunked it in his top dresser drawer.  I became fascinated by it and there were many times he never knew that I would take the tube out, unscrew the top and draw in the luscious aroma of the tobacco.  Never once did I have the chance to light the cigar, but I do remember being drawn to it like metal filings to a magnet.

No one smoked cigars around us, but I had an inkling, it wouldn’t smell like the ones my mom fashioned.  How?

Well, growing up Catholic, there was a group in the church called the “Holy Name Society.”  And back then guys could smoke whatever and wherever they pleased in the school auditorium during the meetings. So I knew the difference in smell because on certain nights, my Dad would bring me along.  And I could tell the cigar bouquet was mellow and the cigarette smoke was acrid.  The meetings?  For the most part they were as boring as hell, but I stayed around for the food.  Simple stuff, hot dogs, and chips.

So I wonder if this rustic, embryonic introduction from my mom to smoking was my portal to a life of the leaf or was it my dad?  Because I was fascinated with cigarettes for a time.  Jim Buckley, that was the kid who lived across the street from us, his dad smoked, and he would write a letter to the drug store that asked permission for us to buy a pack of smokes for him.  We would deliver the note and buy the cigarettes.

Obviously it wasn’t too long before we forged letter after letter and the drug store clerk never caught on.  Never.

Eventually I graduated to corn cob pipes, and I can remember my favorite tobacco was Borkum Riff Whiskey.  I loved it.  I was bold now, and no longer ten years old.  It was as if my parents just allowed me to grow up, wiggling through the rites of southside passage. Hell, I even smoked in my room, but by then I was in high school.

But what really continued to fascinate me was the cigar.  I started out with Phillies Cheroots.  Hell, I thought I hit the big time.  But my graduation to the world of premium cigars came when I somehow got ahold of a cigar catalog and ordered a five-pack of Davidoff Premium Cigars.  And I gotta tell you, I’ve never looked back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK5aUqCRzJ4

-30-

“Devotion” and Cigars.

Another purchased impulse item, “Devotion,” by Patti Smith.  “Devotion” provides a rare and generous look into the creative process by the renowned artist and author Patti Smith.”  “A work of creative brilliance may seem like magic—its source a mystery, its impact unexpectedly stirring. How does an artist accomplish such an achievement, connecting deeply with an audience never met? In this groundbreaking book, one of our culture’s beloved artists offers a detailed account of her own creative process, inspirations, and unexpected connections.”

And I can’t wait to open it.  Feel that stiffness in the cover.  It’s a sensation that I never tire of – opening a new book.  And what makes it even more exciting is that I have yet to even read the first page.  I can. But I am going to wait until I receive my copy from Amazon.  One of the greatest pleasures I can think of experiencing.

And I’m sure that’s how cigar guys feel when they read about a cigar and order it, or pick it up at the shop.  They can’t wait to sit down, take off the cello and torch that puppy and draw in that first pull of tobacco and tantalize the palate with a surprise of glee or the disappointment of disgust.  You just never know.

But that’s why both industries thrive – expecting the thrill of euphoric exultation.  The reason we live.  The reason we fight for that last breath.  The reason to be able to do it again and again and again.  The reason God made us. To experience His opportunities in His own time.  What a life we’ve been rewarded.  The raison d’être!   Impulsion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3rz_DFNENk

-30-

“She’s a Leidy.”

How do I describe an indescribable cigar?  The word itself, “indescribable” is defined in the dictionary as “too unusual, extreme, or indefinite to be adequately described.”  So do I bother?  Or do I give it all I’ve got to draw you into this heavenly experience?  I wrote notes, of course.  “Box pressed.  Excellent draw.  Spicy introduction.  A frappé of flavors. Mellow.  Creamy.  Elegant bouquet.”

I have been very anxious to try this blend.  I’m still in the dark as to what tobaccos are used.  It’s made in the Dominican Republic.  Factory unknown.  I met the woman who is responsible for this delightful experience by sheer coincidence.  

As she wrote, I will paraphrase – of all the millions of people I could have met on FB, I meet you.  Kinda throws me into the famous scene in “Casablanca” when Rick is alone, bottle next to him, a strained expression on his face when he slams his fist against the table and says, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”  But the meeting between myself and Leidy is one of joy, not melodrama.  An auspicious beginning.

I received the samples of the cigar, Reina del Nilo, with the help of an individual who lives in the Dominican and we arranged the drop.  A few days later, an envelope was delivered to my address.  I opened it immediately when I returned home and was transfixed by its whimsical presentation, especially when I unfastened the latch on the box and was met with a golden bow made of textured ribbon, an introduction card, and a poem.  Yes, I said a poem.

Leidy is passionate about cigars, but she is also taken by her sensual desire for words.  A match between us, I might add.  And she combines them with grace.

I took one cigar out of the five-pack and inspected the stick and was enthralled by its beauty – borrowed perhaps from the woman who created the cigar.  I was hoping for the best and I was visually met with the highest of quality.  I could not hold my curiosity in any longer.  I could not abstain from sharing this moment.

The toasting was our first meeting, and the draw was the sensuous satisfaction of heart-pounding excitement.  A fresh, autumnal sprinkling of spectacular flavors – though none distinct, save for the spice, met our passionate embrace.  Solid construction.  Perfect draw.  An even burn.  Medium bodied.  Nobel?  Again I go back to Bogie’s best when at the end of the film he walks on the rain-soaked tarmac saying to Louis, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

********

Cocoa?  The bravery of bitters entered into the sweet, exotic, née erotic experience.  To quote Jahausa in “The Medicine Man,” “Ah, a beaut.”  Smiles, laughter, wide eyes – a bit of a romantic interlude that is no longer a secret.

The glue is the spice.  Subtle umami seasoning is intertwined with those essences I cannot find the words without sounding foolish.  Yes, it is difficult to review a cigar with such a rush of minuscule molecular atoms banging against each other to produce this one curious blend.

Indeed, Leidy is delicate, as are her cigars.  I have never met her, but I can assure you that I am not far from the truth.  She is gracious.  Her heart is filled with a special spiritual lilt.  As I continued to enjoy this cigar, I cannot but think of her.  She has indeed infused her character into the tobacco leaves.  A miracle?  Or an inevitability? Her prowess I would guess.  An occasional drip of a single drop of water from the recent rain, splatters on the concrete, as do the flavors over and over and over again on my palate.  I am fortunate to enjoy this tinseled treasure.  I do not believe her cigars have yet to arrive in the United States – save for the one smoked by this “American Writer.”

The matte that is produced draws me deeper into the arduous task of giving you, the reader, a tiny taste of this surprising blend.  If I have at least brought the Reina del Nilo to your attention, then perhaps my review is complete.

But the only way for you to gain entry into this world of fantastic flavors is to do what I have done.  I hope you get that chance.  I’ll do what I can to make that possible.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjJiFSPNG-4

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Go into it with an open mind.

I write a lot of posts that at times are confusing.  I do that on purpose. Well, I just got back from seeing “mother!”  And as I was leaving I have to admit I was disappointed and quite confused.  Why?  I didn’t get it.  The whole movie seemed to be a disjointed mish-mosh of a plot that had no plot.  And you know what?  It got me angry.  I felt as though I wasted my “Early bird” money.

I didn’t.  Nor did I waste my time.  What I did waste was my entry and understanding into allegorical thinking.  I was expecting one thing and I ended up with another.  

The director, Darren Aronofsky, who also was responsible for one of the more haunting movies ever produced, “Black Swan” with Natalie Portman, used his skill in “mother!” to throw the viewer into another world of WTF entertainment.  And only after reading a synopsis of the film was I able to appreciate what I had just seen.  And I should have known better because to quote Google’s brief bio “(He) is an American filmmaker.  He has received acclaim, and generated controversy for his often surreal, disturbing films.”

No spoiler alert here.  Go see the film and see what you come up with before you read a review or explanation.  I bring this up because I often feel the same reaction with uber-boutique cigars. I have in my mind what I think I know before I even put torch to tobacco.  And to be perfectly honest, that’s not at all fair.

Oftimes it is that very fact that the cigar comes from a small company with a twist, whatever that may be, that my opinion has been formed and solidified.  I don’t even give the cigar a chance.

Dumb.

However, since I am in the boutique cigar business, that’s not really wise by any stretch of the imagination.  Yes, I may know the manufacturer and have a preconceived notion of what to expect.  Or I may know absolutely nothing about the pedigree of the cigar. And even after I smoke the cigar, I am still in a quandary.  Was this a fluke?  Be it good or bad.

Once I do this I have done a disservice to the blender and the manufacturer.  It happened just a few days ago.  Fact is, when I lit the cigar, from the very first draw, I was pleased. You can read. the review.

Why I or any cigar smoker would do this may just be to make themselves feel good.

Asinine.

So, I will post this tonight, and the review Sunday.

Yes, I bitch-slapped myself and vowed never to do that again.  And that’s a promise.

I found out that even being in the business as long as I have, I can still become jaded.

Silly, huh?

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