Ideas from Vatican City, December 1965.

It’s been a rough few weeks.  I feel as though my cranium is so full that it will burst and yet at the same time the void exceeds the scientific phenomenon of the vastness of space that makes up a black hole.  Ergo, as far as cigars go, ain’t much to write about except COVID-19, riots, and looters.  

Contradictions?   By definition, a contradiction is “a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another.”  What better example?

Then I come upon a fascinating book review by Garry Wills in the November 7th, 2019 edition of The New York Review of Books, of John W. O’Malley’s, “When Bishops Meet: An Essay Comparing Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II.”  (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 223 pp.)

Basically, Mr. O’Malley has a fascination with ecumenical church councils.  A niche subject to be sure, but I can say with zealous smugness, I experienced the changes that took place after the precepts of Vatican II were implemented and made permanent within the Catholic Church.  Game-changing to say the least.

Keep in mind the reason that Vatican I (1869–70) and Vatican II (1962–65) were formed in the first place was because of the Council of Trent, “ . . .  the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, (was) held in three parts from 1545 to 1563. Prompted by the Reformation, the Council of Trent was highly important for its sweeping decrees on self-reform and for its dogmatic definitions that clarified virtually every doctrine contested by the Protestants. Despite internal strife and two lengthy interruptions, the council was a key part of the Counter-Reformation and played a vital role in revitalizing the Roman Catholic Church in many parts of Europe.” (Read that paragraph again and recognize the parallel ideas that were proposed then – and how they relate to today’s tobacco battle with the FDA – and what’s essential and what isn’t.)

These ecumenical church councils were formed every now and then throughout the centuries as the church adhered to, discarded, and adopted a variety of ideological reforms that took place with each council.  And there were plenty.

Some changes were heralded and many were challenged.  But the fact remains that nothing remains the same, as the title to the article states,  “Changing the ‘Changeless’ Church.”  

One could compare this waxing and waning of ideas to what is happening to our Constitution, a separate document from the Declaration of Independence which essential and unequivocally “ . . .  formed our federal government and set the laws of the land,” i.e. the United States.” (Wiki)

But since the Constitution was adopted in 1788 many changes have wormed their way into the hardwood of the document causing its stability to become unsteady.   Plus, since the Supreme Court began to overtly play politics with the wording of the Constitution, especially with the inclusion of Justice Anthony Kennedy (1988-2018) and his remnants of tie-breaker decisions, the once-solid structure of the document that held the original ideals together is beginning to sway and weaken as the spirit of the Constitution becomes riddled with holes, thus giving the highest court in the land the “legal right” to fill questionable rulings with political putty in direct conflict with what our founding fathers intended.  And as St. Augustine once said, in part, in your heart you know what’s right – AND wrong!  (Though I’m not too sure politicians read St. Augustine so that could pose a problem.)

So the crusade for the rights of smokers via the rulings regarding cigars and tobacco in general by the FDA – and now with the new coronavirus restrictions, and the intellect of or lack thereof of how people are reacting to the murder in Minnesota – is going through the same devastating changes, revisions, revulsions, misunderstandings, truths, lies, recapitulations, misaligned moral dictations, ignorance, misinformation, and monetary machinations that keep any political or religious document intact.

So as all this chaotic detritus is whizzing around in my head, I can’t seem to grasp onto any one of the ideas in flight long enough because the facts are being twisted, twirled, and tangled to the point of forming titillating, tempestuous twaddle by those who obviously know more than “We the People . . . ” do. 

So it seems like I’m back to square one.  Or am I?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbMgWm6C0GQ

 

 

Silence rediscovered with a price.

Covid-19 has given the world its wrath, its destruction of lives, its lack of submission to prayer, but it also has given us the precious state of silence.  I’m smoking a cigar in the garage and I can hear there are no cars on the street, no people walking, no parties, no airplanes, no trucks, fewer birds chirping – it’s presence has introduced the world to silence.

Silence is defined as the complete absence of sound.  I experienced this phenomenon on a lark to Wyoming many years ago.  As we drove we headed off on a side road to reach our hotel.  As the tires were rolling across the road I yelled, “Stop the car!”

My wife looked at me as if something had to be amiss.  Slowly the vehicle came to a complete halt.

From inside the car I could detect not a sound.  Nothing.  I got out and I just stood there on this two-lane road in the middle of a state, I had never been to before.   I said to her, “Do you hear that?”  Her response was, “Hear what?”

I just stood there.  I almost felt abusive to the environment when my voice created an invisible fissure within its realm.  I asked her to listen.  “”There’s not a sound anywhere.”  I was completely transfixed.  I felt a pressure in my head that I had never felt before.  The absence of noise.  I felt privileged.  Yet I’m sure the locals are used to it.  Tarzan was.

As horrific as this pandemic is, it has allowed us moments of silence.  I can remember beginning to feel emotional as I just stood there – and I noticed a jackrabbit.  His long ears jutted above the undisturbed grass.  The animal was like a remnant after Pompei’s obliteration.

Cigars can do this to me but on another level.  The outside sounds are furiously slicing through the air causing commotion and chaos.  But when I have a cigar in my hand and I am alone in a contemplative mood, I hear nothing..I am at peace.

All destruction is not bad.  It’s how one perceives it – absorbs it – accepts it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWGzr-kOoQY&list=RDaWGzr-kOoQY&index=1

Your Cigar, Sir.

What is a Barreda Cocktail?

It is one of the most ravishing and unique cigar experiences you’ll ever have the pleasure to enjoy.

The Cocktail, made by Barreda Cigars, is composed of short Cazador filler, with a Nicaraguan binder and a Nicaraguan Habano Criollo 98 filler, and will give you the same tantalizing tingling thrills of your first sip of an Ono Champagne Cocktail, the Original Mai Tai, or a Ritz-Paris Sidecar.  (Be decadent and try one during the day.)

The enchanting essences of the Barreda Cocktail Cigar will entertain your palate with dancing exotic (some may say erotic) sensations of tanginess, sweetness, zing, a bold jolt, and mesmerizing molecular molestation. And the cigar burns like a laser is slicing off each quarter of draw, a testament to perfect fermentation and construction.  

The fountain of flavors fizzes with the eccentric essences of charred cinnamon, unsweetened chocolate, a hint of saffron, grains of cumin, deep dark pepper specks, and tiny bits of dill – depending on your mood, the company you keep (or are keeping), and your untethered imagination – this is one delicious cigar.

The Barreda Cocktail comes in the Puntica (4⅜ x 46), the Robusto (5 x 50), the Toro (5 x 52), and the Sublime (6½ x 54).  All arrive in a 20 count bundle at your “beck and call” with bands of blue, silver, gold, orange, purple, blue . . . .  

Ahhhh.  Tip well!  

Getting caught up in the midst of bedlam.

May 2020.  I’m just getting to the December 30, 2019 issue of The New Yorker, smoking an aged cigar, and enjoying the time-warped articles.

What little good that is coming from the COVID-19 pandemic?   Time.  I will take any moment I can to remain positive to get caught up on my reading and to smoke a cigar to help relieve the anxiety.

You?

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

  

 

Attracting attention creates buzzzzzzzzz.

Why do some cigars make it on the shelf and others don’t?

So why?  Why is it that some make it on name alone (recent examples would be Aganorsa’s Signature’s Leaf or Oscar’s SuperFly Pink) and other brands never take a spot on a shelf in a humidor?

I’ve worked for a variety of manufacturers who have come to the United States with high expectations of breaking into the market.  Yet, they never see that happen. Why?  

In my opinion, the answer is in a lack of curiosity for the cigar by the consumer, (as I mentioned in my last essay about how the taste of a cigar is overrated.)

To wit:  I’ve been reading this article over and over again from the February 14th, 2020 Times Literary Supplement.  It’s a mesmerizing piece titled, “Academy of Intellectual Scorn: The group that freed themselves by inventing rules,” by Anna Aslanyan.  And I am thoroughly fascinated.

There are four books in her review, “All that is Evident is Suspect, Readings from the Oulipo, 1963-2018,” “The Penguin Book of Oulipo,” “A Short Treatise Inviting the Readers to Discover the Subtle Art of Go,” and “ The Oulipo and Modern Thought.”  Four.

The one that is of greatest interest to me is (although the literary tetralogy has my curiosity up in toto), is the one edited by Ian Monk and Levin Beckler, “All That is Evident is Suspect.”  

This volume goes into the definitions more than the others and gives the reader the bizarre flavors of its intellectual essences.  For example the definition of Oulipo. (without this methinks, the task of trudging through four tomes of such as they are would be a fruitless and excessive waste of time.)

“Oulipo is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais.” (Wiki)  

To delve into this subject any further careens us too far askew from the task at hand and that is guessing why some cigars make it on the shelf and others don’t.

As I mentioned, it’s curiosity.  Marketing curiosity. And of course, an interest in the subject matter, i.e. cigars (and/or literature in my case).  Fact is if a manufacturer does nothing or little to draw the cigar smoker in, then the brand has little chance of ever joining the market – no matter the quality, years in business, or personality behind the cigar.

These books on Oulipo, a term I had never heard of before, pulls me into at least looking into the one book that arouses my interest.  Will its subject matter grip me like a vise? I won’t know until I read it. Ergo, the job of THE CIGAR MANUFACTURER.  To pull me in. Draw me to the magnet as if I were billions of shards of scattered shrapnel.

Get my F*^king attention!

A box with a bent piece of cardboard under it with the printed ratings of spurious origins won’t do it.  A poorly crafted advertisement won’t do it.  Neither will the constant bombarding of the brand’s name on social media won’t work forever.  Eventually, the ads will become invisible.  Maybe it’s a cheap price that’ll sell the cigar – or the book?  Shit. That’s the flimsiest of excuses. I subscribe to TLS for $175 per year!  Some cigar smokers spend $30 for a single Opus X.  Cheap?  I don’t think so.   

So what will grab my attention? The bloody consumer who offers this line to his friend, “Hey, you oughta try this,  Damn this is good!” Or the well-written ad or book review – CURIOSITY?  What the F^&k is an Oulipo?  Or what the bleeding hell is this or that cigar? 

I eased up on being critical and crustacean – and became curious.

Gesh, I can get so worked up over habitual apathy.  But I love a buzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtAu7xkwNjQ