Unlimited cigar blends are possible.

There is a similarity between these three burgeoning artists and the skills, passions, and inner workings of cigar blenders.  Out of hundreds, only a few will become famous. That is how life works, isn’t it?   So many try – but the ones who have something special are those who will rise to the top. 

********

My wife and I took in a work slash entertainment art show in Chicago sponsored by Saatchi Art.  We were able to get in free, always a fun plus to any excursion. It was on South Throop in one of the more colorful areas of the city that still draws our attention away from all the brilliant glass towers of Babel that are constantly destroying these miraculous, hidden pockets of traditional architecture in Chicago.

It was one of the more exciting forays into the art world that we have attended as of late.  This one attracted a full floor of artists working in all mediums, including of course paint, but also plaster, ink, charcoal, pencil, neon, yarn, metal, even photography.  

When we walked in I was pleased to see so many artists in one place basically hawking their wares to the hungry appetites of those who appreciate abstract works.  Art is big business, not only for those who just want a piece to show in their homes but investors, such as myself. Admittedly, I am considered a small piece of the collectors’ slash investors’ pie.  But even Larry Gagosian and Mary Booth had to start at the beginning. So I felt as I fit in internally knowing that the prices would be way beyond my budget. In fact, it allowed me to relax and just take it all in.

And I did absorb many, many artists’ works.  Some already have a modicum of notoriety already and there are those who are too green to know they might have the possibility of a prestigious future ahead of them if they just stick to it.

Of the hundreds of works being exhibited, three caught my eye.  One was by a young man from West Virginia, Cameron Wilson Ritcher.  He realized early on that “visual art was (and is) the unlikely common denominator of all other endeavors.” This, from a young man who once had dreams of becoming a professional musician, racing mountain bikes, and even dabbling in paleontology. (https://www.cameronwilsonritcher.com/)

Another was Magdalena Krzak (pronounced “shock”) from Chicago.  Her work, as she explained to me in detail, was her way of showing how she is negotiating becoming a new mother (she has a six-month-old boy), and her love of creating art. “I had to come to do this show,” she told me with great conviction.  Giving me the impression that she, like the late poet Sylvia Plath, is in an intellectual quandary about giving her all to a family and how she is going to share this incredible responsibility with her innate passion for creating works of art that reflect how she’s dealing living with this dual struggle.  (http://www.magdalenakrzakart.com/)

Finally, one painting (above) stopped me cold, “In Between” by Vicky Barranguet.  I was literally unable to move. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she could tell there was something going on between me and this 76 x 85 abstract work of genius.  After allowing me to absorb the beauty of her work, she came over and we introduced ourselves to each other.

I’m convinced that she will be the next star in the artistic firmament without any doubt in my mind.  We began to discuss her work and the one thing that she noticed was how I became frozen in place with her ability to paint emotional ties giving chaos balance. This is truly a work of art that will put her in the same company as Matisse, Pollock, and Lee Krasner.

Vicky was born in Montevideo, Uruguay (1973).  She currently lives and works in New York. Her work has been exhibited in too many cities and countries to mention.  She has studied with painters such as Larry Poons, William Scharf, and Clever Lara. To quote the bio pinned to the wall, “Her work is embodied by an empirical investigation of the pictorial structure, where processes departing from spontaneous gestures evolve into elaborate and complex systems where improvisation, organization of form and space, and attention to detail report at its core.”

After I pried my wistful thoughts away from the piece, she was gracious enough to take a picture of how it is best viewed.  And then she took a photo of myself standing to the left to give its perspective of size. (https://www.saatchiart.com/vickybarranguet)

As we left the building, I could only think of how subtle and tenuous talent really is.  But my faith grew today because, despite that notion of talent being so ephemeral, it exists. It really does exist.

Ask cigar blenders Cespedes, Marrero, Blanco, Piette, Villamil, Romaro, Saury, et al.

https://vimeo.com/155247490

More is sometimes better.

I just dropped $711.00 for a complete brake job on my wife’s car at the dealership where we bought the vehicle.  Yeah I know I may have been able to have had them installed for a lesser price, but oftimes cheap isn’t the best option.

Cigar Blog?

Wha . . . ?

Yes.  Post.  Post.  Post. 

 Ahhhhhhhhh.  Oh, yes.  Cigar Blog. 

Hmmmmm.

Got that readers, consumers, retailers, shop managers, manufacturer’s, and blenders?  

Hmmm???

Good.

Have a nice day.

Essay interruptus is all right.

As I sit here at my desk, I’m not angry nor am I sad.  I’m bewildered. Earlier, I just spent at least 90 minutes writing an essay that I had planned to post in the near future.  I wrote it in the garage and I was smoking a cigar and quite frankly was having a rather good time.

The cigar, a D’Crossier Selection Suprema No. 560.  One of the most exquisite and smoothest cigars I rep.  Santana asked me to rep the line and I’m doing just that.  He and I have known each other for some time. But the cigar was ready to hit the ashtray graveyard so I felt it was time to eat. Leftover pizza.

So I powered down the tablet.  But not before I checked to make sure all my work was saved.  It was. It was off. I closed the dark blue pleather case. Came in and readied for dinner.

Day-old pizza is good.  I love it. Papa John’s.  My favorite? Sausage. Not Papa John’s.

While I was growing up, I used to always go to Aurelio’s 1212 S. Michigan Avenue in Roseland.  Roseland was “located on the far south side of the city, is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago, Illinois. It includes the neighborhoods of Fernwood, Princeton Park, Lilydale, the southern portion of West Chesterfield, Rosemoor, Sheldon Heights, and West Roseland.  And my girlfriend at the time lived nearby. Truth be known, Papa John’s doesn’t hold a candle to Aurelio’s. I met Joe, the owner, many times. The secret to accentuating his sauce was to sprinkle just a few crystals of sugar on it when it came right out of the oven. Damn, almost makes me want to come right out and say there wasn’t a better pizza on this planet.

And that’s what I thought of the article I wrote.  One of the best. After the pizza, I headed back to the computer here in the office expecting Google Docs to come on and reveal the article so I could polish it up a bit.  When I did . . . nothing. The article was not saved as the tablet printed in the left-hand corner of the screen. SHIT! (Uneasy pause)

SHIT!  SHIT! SHIT!

Nothing.  Empty.  Blank.

It was about how there are too many cigars and too many blenders, too many manufacturers and too many manufacturers who are making cigars for doctors, lawyers, accountants, dream weavers, assholes, white guys with Anglican names like Bob, Henry, and Duke.  

SHIT!  SHIT! SHIT!

I was told that Google Docs saves almost instantaneously.  BULLSHIT!!!

Am I a bit chapped?  Yes. I AM A LITTLE BIT CHAPPED . . . .

So I’m sitting at my desk, just staring at the screen and the words that I’m writing now.  I tried every trick I could think of to get the article back. Zip.

To my left is a CD I bought at the Goodwill store.  Two bucks. “Sentinel” with Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, and Eva Longoria.  Two bucks. I think I may slide it into the laptop and see what it offers.

Wish I could be smoking another 506.  But I’m in the office. Doing this. Norton just popped up.  Yes, I am protected. But I’m still chapped about the disappearing essay.  SHIT!  But it’s all right!

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

 

Striving to be exact can be maddening.

If we are going to describe or critique a cigar, one of the most important aspects is its color.  And for the beginner or the aficionado the first, the very first thing we see is the wrapper.  And since, I have seen and read a number of rather detailed reviews (or so-called detailed reviews) the reader must be given all the information not only in the written word but in the sense of sight, i.e. a clear, sharp photograph of the cigar and all that it entails to absorb or create an idea of what this integral part of the cigar will add to or detract from the conical tube of tobacco.

Many reviews start out regurgitating what we can already see, the color of the wrapper. Ah, but is it the exact color of the cloak that keeps the binder and fillers in their proper places?  Let’s take a closer look since we are intertwined in the digital age of color we set our eyes and take into view what appears to be a brown wrapper.  However, on the X11 color list of web colors, (a list of seventeen different shades of brown), the complete set of browns is much, much longer. (BTB, in computing, on the X Window System i.e. X11, or shortened to simply X, is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on UNIX-like computer operating systems.  X provides the basic framework for a graphical user interface, or GUI, environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting with a mouse and keyboard.) Google, Wiki.

So, X11-color names are represented in a simple text file, which maps certain strings to red, green blue (RGB) color values.  It was traditionally shipped with every X11 installation (hence the name?).  Brown colors are dark or muted shades of reds, oranges, and yellows which are created on computer and television screens using the RGB color model and in printing with the cyan, magenta, yellow, and key or black (CMYK) color model.  Or in the case of shades of tobacco, colors created by Mother Nature (MN).

So to cover every angle of hue, one must consider the combination of colors that make up what is perceived by our sense of sight (a conundrum in itself not knowing if we can trust what we see because there is no factual baseline for any of our senses) to be a brown-like shade.  So what colors must we consider before we make our determination? Simple. We pick up the cigar and examine the possibilities (some are more obvious than others, but still up for debate depending on our sensitivity to light and shade). We could see auburn (reddish brown), beaver, bistre (dark grayish brown), bole (terra rosa), bronze, buff, burgundy, burnt sienna, burnt umber (dark ochre), camel, chamoisee, (brownish yellow), chestnut, shit, chocolate (white, light, medium and dark), citron, (dark mix of orange and green), coffee, copper, cordovan, (rick burgundy and dark rose), Coyote, desert sand, drab dark brown, (Australia selected the color in 2016 packaging tobacco due to its unappealing hue), earth yellow, ecru, fallow, (sandy brown soil), khaki, lion, liver, mahogany, maroon, ochre, (light brownish yellow or deep orangish brown), raw umber, red wood, rufous, (rust or oxidized iron), russet, rust, sand, sandy brown, seal brown, sepia, (a rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish, Sepia), sienna, sinopia, (a dehydrated form of iron oxide), tan, taupe, tawny, umber, wenge, (a combination of red, yellow and black pigments), wheat, wood brown, walnut brown, smokey topaz, rosy brown, peru, (originally called Peruvian brown, the pigment is a light to medium brown with some shades of walnut), Kobicha brown (Japanese in origin, this pigment is the closest to kelp tea), cocoa brown, beige, and on and on and on we go trying to shake our sense of light and dark to accurately describe the literally millions of shades of colors that can be found in one tobacco leaf used as a wrapper for the accurate description.

So here we have a conglomeration of descriptive words for brown on the page that are just beginning to attempt to describe the exact color of a cigar wrapper and still, STILL it is an impossible task that we must leave to our sense of sight as we see it not as the reviewer sees it because the color is never the same twice from the same or different source as any printer will tell you about the intricacies of ink.  Only Mother Nature has the right answer but she cannot utter a sound.  We must interpret using our handicapped senses.

Do you really want to tackle reviewing a cigar?  Only if you want to explore its color, taste, and burn in glib generalities that will create millions of interpretations concluding in a final moot point of one opinion.  And how savvy are the reviewers?  There are just too many variables (and reviewers)!   

I’m going with good or bad.

And that latter conclusion too can be stretched (figuratively, of course) to its brittle failure producing nothing more than splattered, splintered, and separated pieces of detritus to which no one would have the interest to reassemble, (depending upon the sizes of the remnants, I suppose), save for an archaeologist or forensic scientist who has the same Socratic philosophical spasms to get down to the bottom of its beginning.  Its Origin!    The spark.  Think the Mobius strip.  An impossibility.  There is no beginning and there is no end – only the intermittent vacuous review that floats into space due to its gravitational pull like a wisp of blue smoke into the atmosphere.  An offering.  You can’t be wrong – or right!  The reviewer is in the vortex of his or her thicket of diminished wisdom without a clue as to what is real and what is an illusion.  You can’t even get past stage one – the wrapper’s color!!!

********

“Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?’

“So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

“There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterward, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat–pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

“White Rabbit checking watch

“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.” (https://www.cs.cmu.edu/).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqNTltOGh5c

Sometimes once is just not enough.

I was sitting on another patio.  Out of state.  At a hotel.  It’s ok.  But I prefer my own Patio Cigar Lounge (Open 24/7).  I’m re-reading, “Sylvia Plath – A Biography,” written by Linda W. Wagner-Martin (1987).  I generally don’t read a book twice very often. At least not so soon after finishing it.

But this one is different.  First off Wagner-Martin is a damn good writer, and the person she writes about, Sylvia Plath, a poet, is one of my favorite of this genre – confessional poetry.  Next, of course, would be Anne Sexton.

It mirrors a moment with a cigar that I’ve become smitten.  It was great the first time and became better the second time around.  Why?  It’s an anomaly really.  As was once so aptly said with sincere emotion by businessman Miguel, a character in the 1992 movie “Medicine Man,” whose pharmaceutical company has been financing Dr. Campbell’s (played by Sean Connery) scientific research in the Amazonian rainforests, verbally comforts him after a devastating yet avoidable flash fire that destroyed the entire village and all his records, “You’ve been touched.”

In some inexplicable way, this biography has “touched” me to the point of reading it again.  

Oddly, I’m smoking the same cigar I smoked earlier in the day, not out of convenience, but it, too, “touched” me, or to be more specific – its flavors tantalized my palate enough so that I had to have another – sooner than later.

Kismet?  Coincidence?  “Jinkies!” But for this time a single reading of the book and the lighting up of a single cigar – once was not enough.  A phrase attributed to the comedian, Joe E. Lewis, when on his deathbed, he spoke with author, Jacqueline Susann, and said: “You only live once – but if you work it out right, once is enough.”  He then paused and changed his last few words to, “Once is not enough.” Apocryphal?  Perhaps. But we all know the title to Susann’s third novel (1973) was changed from “The Big Man” to “Once Is Not Enough” for some reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJV34n1-dc

Are Smoking Jackets Passé?

Are Smoking Jackets passé?  Let’s dig a bit further before we make our conclusion.

I noticed in the London Review of Books, 2 August 2018 the ad, “The Future of Books is Female.” Riffing off the now famous feminist t-shirt design, “The Future is Female,” made in the 1970s for Labyris Books, the first women’s bookstore in New York City, The Second Shelf’s update (above) reconnects a now iconic motto back to its book and bookstore-related origin.” (https://www.kickstarter.com).

My first thought was now there is a phrase that would be highly condemned by the female population if a similar ad read, “The Future of Cigars is Male,” composed by me, 8 August 2018.  Updating nothing but catapulting the nonsensical wording into outer space.

Gibberish?  Hardly. No, it’s not a lot of jabberwocky – it’s NOW!

The world is cracking and the various segments are too numerous to limn, but for certain, two of the largest conjoined chunks of matter on this planet, the bond between men and women, are beginning to separate.  Add gender dysfunctions, twirl in politics for good measure and you can see we are deep in a chaotic conundrum. So where then lies the traditional smoking jacket?

John Dickinson, one of the Founding Fathers, wrote the following statement in 1768, “Religion and Government are certainly very different Things, instituted for different Ends; the design of one being to promote our temporal Happiness; the design of the other to procure the Favour of God, and thereby the Salvation of our Souls. While these are kept distinct and apart, the Peace and welfare of Society (are) preserved, and the Ends of both are answered. By mixing them together, feuds, animosities and persecutions have been raised, which have deluged the World in Blood, and disgraced human Nature.” (http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com).  Fact.

May I also bring to the fore novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s famous statement he wrote in his historical play, “Cardinal Richelieu” (1839) the English words, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”  Indeed a fact without repute.

And I will clarify the issue with the well-known phrase  “One picture is worth ten thousand words.” Its etymological origin is heavily mixed into the sluice of anecdotal asininity.  So we’ll leave it at that. Someone said it first, exactly who, we really don’t know or care.

So, in a nutshell, as modernity dictates,  “I need some good news, baby feels like the world’s gone crazy . . .” from the hit single Good News (does anyone call it a hit single anymore?) by Ocean Park Standoff’s (2017) mega-hit.

And if you’ve been around for, oh say at least 18 years, you will concur that something has been twisted out of shape.  The world is out of whack.

So herein lies the problem.  The Smoking Jacket. The elegant attire of the wealthy that was once de rigueur at clubs, lounges, homes, and after dinner conversations, etc.  “Synonymous with gentleman’s comfort at home, the smoking jacket has long been a traditional coat reserved for evening wear in the comforts of your estate as you sip fine port, read your paper and enjoy the pleasantries of a pipe or cigar. Often handmade from the finest velvet or the most precious silk or both, and clasped together with either handmade buttons or a belt sewn from the same velvet or silk.  (Other materials used today are Cashmere, Wool, Flannel, Corduroy, and Linen.  The rest of the materials are too cheap to mention. I mean Polyester?  How gauche.  Its purpose?  Keep the falling ashes off the clothes, prevent burn holes and stave off the aroma of burning tobacco.  Not to mention just looking wealthy.  (https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/smoking-jacket-guide/).

“The trend of the smoking jacket may seem dead, but many experts (?) believe it’s just comatose. Despite their history of elegance, smoking jackets have become synonymous with debauchery and smoking; two things society often views negatively. Therefore, the elegance of the jacket has taken a backseat.”  Just like the slashed distinction between the sexes.

“Nowadays, chances are the only time you’ll see someone wearing a smoking jacket is on Halloween when guys dress up in cheap Hugh Hefner knockoffs.  Other than that, the once popular formal garment has seemingly met its fate. (https://www.coolmaterial.com).

So why would a vendor at the recent IPCPR convention in Vegas be hawking a garment that seems to have no future other than one of hilarity and hubris?  (By the way, the IPCPR’s (International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers.) is the annual convention held in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Here hundreds of cigar manufacturers introduce their new cigars and hammer home the old ones, plus accessories to the throngs of retailers that attend the show.  It’s quite a sight to behold.

His raison d’être?  He’s valiantly and single-handedly trying to bring back civility, tradition, and elegance.  Is he succeeding?  Not if you saw his booth at the show.  Few takers, and from what I saw, no buyers.  But he’s trying.  It will depend on his zealousness to bring back what once was a bespoken garment that was worn with status and grace.

So if indeed the smoking jacket does find its place back in this dissolving evolving world it will mean that we have crossed the bridge from “Waterworld” to “Wuthering Heights.”

“Though still swarthy, Heathcliff is a changed man. Gone for three years, he returns with some grooming and social graces.” – “Wuthering Heights”

Acquiring a taste for a new cigar.

Adam Bales (and Irv CigarBroker) ask(s): Why might we grow to love oysters (or different cigars).

ADAM BALES* (Annotated by Irv CigarBroker)

Hunter S. Thompson once described driving in blizzards (or trying a new blend or wrapper) as an acquired taste. A throwaway line, and a strange (different) taste to try and acquire. Nevertheless, it raises an interesting question: what does it mean to acquire a taste for something? Whatever the answer to this question, the phenomenon is rife. Children are unlikely to appreciate a sip of beer (or a draw on a cheap cigar). Yet a decade later they may relish the evening’s first pint. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, they have acquired the beer-taste (the desire for a premium cigar). Taste acquisition does not stop at beer (cigars) and blizzards: consider coffee and classical music, olives and oysters. Indeed, if we characterize acquired taste broadly – in terms of coming to have new (brands available) values – then the phenomenon covers our political, moral and religious transformations (A bit heady, I’ll admit).

Now sometimes fate gifts, or curses, us with an acquired taste (a bad cigar). I may not set out to like peas (or a Maduro), but may end up liking them. At other times, we may aspire to acquire a taste. I may suspect that classical music (or a candela wrapper) has value, though I cannot myself see it. And so I may strive to uncover the sublimity of Schumann (EMS). Yet such aspirational attempts to acquire taste are bewildering. For if I cannot see the value of classical (the different wrapper) music, why should I pursue it so ardently?

Agnes Callard seeks to solve this puzzle by claiming that aspiration is dualistic. When we aspire, we are in transition (read: bored): we are shedding who we are now and becoming who we aspire to be (i.e. educating the palate.)  As such, says Callard, our aspirational behaviour (sic) must answer to both aspects of our being: to our current values and our inchoate (undeveloped) grasp of our later values.

So why should I pursue classical music (or any new blend or wrapper) so ardently? In part, because I already grasp, murkily, how I will later value such music (tastes). So pursuit speaks to the self that I am becoming. What of reasons that speak to my current self? Well, perhaps I want to impress someone or gain (respect by going up a notch in body) a qualification. Any such consideration will complete the justification for aspiration (this desire).

Callard’s account is interesting because we don’t typically think that our behaviour (sic) must answer to two selves: to the self we are leaving behind (our go-to cigar) and the self we are becoming (the new one). But Aspiration has more in store when Callard turns to a collection of puzzles related to her main theme. One of these was discussed in L. A. Paul’s Transformative Experience (reviewed in the TLS on June 12, 2015). Paul argues that having (a new cigar) children change(s) us so dramatically that we cannot truly understand in advance what parenthood would be like. The puzzle is that if we cannot know what parenthood is like, how can we decide whether to have children (or try a new cigar)?

Three years on, Callard provides an answer. Having children (and a variety of wrappers and blends) is often aspirational. Consider Maha, who does not truly comprehend (understand) parent­hood but perceives that there is value there. Maha may aspire to acquire this value. Now aspiration is not the work of an instant (or a quick once around the humidor) but a long road to be walked. So Maha should not leap into (praising the newfound cigar) pregnancy or adoption. Rather, she should first speak to (more seasoned cigar smokers) parents, or babysit, or read about the experiences of others. And all of this will shape her understanding of (what a cigar aficionado is) parenthood so that she grasps its value with growing clarity. By the time Maha decides whether to try for a baby (another new cigar), she can answer to the dualistic demands of (maturity) aspiration. She knows her values as they are now, and so can reflect on the considerations that speak to her current self (tastes). And she now grasps much about the value of (constant trials and errors) parenthood. So she has an “inchoate” grasp of how parenthood will speak to the self that she is becoming. And on the basis of these dual reflections, Maha is in a position to decide whether to (accept) take the next step towards (confidence) parenthood. We solve Paul’s puzzle, then, by treating the journey to (become an expert) parenthood not as a single decision but as an aspirational process (albeit an arduous one).

Callard’s book is always interesting, but her views (conclusions) are not incontrovertible. Indeed, it’s far from clear that we need a dualistic story to account for (reaching this goal) aspiration. My own aspirational efforts have been accompanied by strong desires. I aspired to appreciate (boutique and micro-bouquet blends) classical music because I desired to understand a value that was (very foreign and misunderstood) opaque to me. Further, while I may not have desired to (find that perfect cigar) listen to classical music, I desired to desire it. That is, I wanted my desires to change. Why, then, did I pursue (change to) classical music so ardently? Because I desired to understand its value and wished to (fall in love with different blends) desire it. This justifies (longing) aspiration, without any need to mention the values of the person I am attempting to become a (connoisseur).

Agnes Callard would disagree. She argues that because desires like mine are grounded in a weak grasp (boredom) of (the usual) classical music’s value, the desires themselves will be too weak to justify (my dream) aspiration. Yet a weak grasp of value need not give rise to weak desires. The less I understand something (or the more flippant I am about change), the stronger my desire (is) to come to understand it. So a weak (casual) grasp of (trying new cigars and blends) classical music’s value can underpin a strong desire to understand this value and so can underpin (true hope in my quest to develop a taste for new cigars) aspiration.  No (dithered bifurcation) dualism is needed. 

********

*(Adam Bales reviews “Aspiration: The agency of becoming,” by Agnes Callard.  304 pp.  Oxford University Press. £41.99.)

(Reprinted from the TLS July 13, 2018.  All rights reserved.  Copywritten)

Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies.

Let’s see.  President Trump lies.  The current governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner lies.  His challenger, Jay Robert Pritzger lies. In Illinois, Officer Jason Van Dyke, who was just convicted of second-degree murder for the shooting death of Laquan McDonald lies.  The officers at the scene of the tragedy lie. The FDA lies. The Catholic Church when it comes to the abuse of young men lies. Hilary Clinton lies. Store managers lie.  Movie moguls, like Harvey Weinstein lie. General Motors lies. The new Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh lies. Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser of sexual misconduct lies.  Even the butcher, baker and candlestick maker all lie. I lie. You lie. We all lie.

Lies seem to be permanently and deeply enmeshed into the fabric of our culture.  So it’s really no surprise that those in the cigar industry lie. How many lies are told when a new cigar hits the market?  Is the wrapper San Andres, or is it Dominican? Is it short filler or long filler. Are the boxes really that expensive? Are the wrappers dyed or not?  Have the cigars been aged for as long as the manufacturers claim? Did that rep quit, or was he pushed out?  Will you sell out to the internet?

But to tie it all together, the fact remains that the cigar is the last handmade, artisanal tobacco product offered to the public in the marketplace today.

And that’s the truth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJMKupYF14I

(Artwork by www.tracyostmann.com)

 

Misunderstood Cigars.

The doppelganger of interpretive visual acuity when I introduce a new boutique cigar . . .

********

Lots of people snicker, roll their eyes as they amble through the many galleries in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.  And what’s to say it isn’t warranted. There are works exhibited there that for all practical purposes are, well . . . goofy.  Some canvases are all blue with flecks of texture, a cartoon blow up, spilled white paint on layered pieces of wood with a nail sticking out for contrast, I guess.  Massive splatterings of paint on linen that appear to have been created by a soused orangutan. Steps made from orange plexiglass and aluminum. A stairway to nowhere. I overheard one young man critique the whole shebang as “stupid.”

These pieces must have some merit.  They are all on display in one of the world’s greatest art museums.  But isn’t art sunsets, puppy dogs, the Blessed Virgin Mary?

What do you do with modern art?  Collect it.  Show it.  Swoon over it.  My feet hurt. I’m sitting on a hard bench watching and listening to the comments.  Most are critical. Why? A lack of understanding? The inability to see beyond the painting into the psyche of the artist?  I can’t say. No one can. The observer has to open his or her mind, not stand there looking at the Hoover dam and just see concrete and water.

I often can’t explain the meaning of abstract art.  But that doesn’t make it any less real. The artist created a moment to share.  

A blender created the cigar for a reason.  Even if that reason is misunderstood. So stop the chuckling, the snide remarks, the judgments, the pretentious giggling.  Light it up and try to reason out why the blender created it in the first place.

(Art by Jay DeFeo.  The Annunciation.  1957/59.  Oil on Canvas.)

 

 

My name is Irv and I am a junkie.

Is the pejorative term “junkie” still used today?  If so then I am an Amazon Book Junkie, in the flesh, no shame, no regrets.  I just ordered a book the other day, and here I am ordering another – two days later.

Unfortunately, I canceled the order because I had the correct title, but the wrong author. But as I’m removing the book from my order list, I’m clearly realizing how the tax on cigars on the internet may NOT have a huge effect on cigar sales, i.e. fewer purchases on the internet and a tsunami of sales in brick and mortar.

I know I just wrote an essay on the excitement of such a legislative move, but in reality, I am a book junkie partially because it is just so damn convenient.  Like this last book order, I pulled off my list. I was so hyped up that I found the title, I completely ignored the author.  I was looking for what I thought was a book written by Rachel Cusk titled “Telex from Cuba” a novel.  

But in my haste, I ordered the title without even looking at the last name only the first – Rachel.  So when I saw the title I scanned the selection for the best copy for the best price and tapped the tome into my cart.  Then I immediately placed the order. Done! Then for some reason, I had this feeling that the last name was wrong. So I quickly looked at the article I was reading in June’s Harper’s magazine reviewing Rachel Cusk’s final book in a trilogy she wrote, and to my dismay discovered the last name of the author of “Telex from Cuba was Kuschner – not Cusk!

As fast as I could, I pulled up my order, I realized not only was the author wrong but so was the title!  In seconds flat I canceled the order.  Close call.

But it is so easy to be pulled down into the buying vortex when you know you can own a used book in “new” condition at a great price, with no shipping and have it in your possession within two to three days – yes, taxed, but I didn’t care.  I was just too excited I had found it. Convenience has its dark side and I was covered in the black, sticky ooze of ease.

And I’m sure cigar buyers do the same thing.  This internet has created the streets of New York in the 70s.  A rough and tumble environment not of murder, muggings, and mayhem but of deal, after deal after deal.  The wires of common sense have been snipped within the brain. We don’t think, we just buy.

And so I make my prediction that the new ruling (pre-Kavanaugh) by the Supreme Court will have an effect on cigar sales on the street level, but exactly what that will be, remains to be seen. This world is powered by what’s easy. And right now the internet is the imperial emperor of shopping. No matter what, we still have a battle on our hands and that will be to change the buying habits of cigar smokers who have for years purchased their stogies on the internet – and that change isn’t going to happen overnight.

A junkie isn’t rehabilitated quickly.  In fact, he or she may never be able to completely control that urge to go over to the dark side.  It’s just too irresistible.  I know.