American Buffalo Dominican Style.

Walking into any shop’s humidor can be like experiencing the Rapture.  You’re taken into the stratosphere of a religious experience due to all the choices that the owner has made that he thinks are right for his customers – his disciples.

Happened to me a few months back on a road trip.  I’m walking about a humidor talking to the manager to see how he has the cigars I sell there and how they are displayed.  Every once and awhile I’ll notice a cigar that I’ve never heard of on his shelf. So my curiosity is piqued. As we are both standing there hovering over this box of cigars, a customer walks in, excuses himself, and grabs one out of the box and says to us, “Best cigar in the humidor.” 

The manager looks at me and delivers his opinion of what the man just said.  “He’s right you know. We can’t keep those in stock they’re moving so quickly.”  Well, I hadn’t heard of the cigar so I picked up the box, turned it upside down and discovered it’s made by a factory in the Dominican – Tamboril to be exact.  Too, I noticed that the price was inexpensive and that would be a dramatic changeup from what usually comes out of this factory.

My eyebrows raise just enough to give a silent indication to the manager that I would like to try one to prove the customer’s remark.  He reads me well and so I’m handed a stick.  I place it in my shirt pocket and we continue to talk business.

Throughout the rest of the trip, I never had a chance to try it so when I returned home I took the cigar into the garage and lit it up.  I took a few puffs and I could tell right away that this one is an anomaly. An inexpensive cigar made by one of the oldest factories in the Dominican (El Artista) coming up with this quality that matches the exquisiteness of its more expensive offerings?  Yes! 

Right there and then in the garage, I text the owner of the factory and ask if he has a rep in the area, and if not, could I be considered?  

After a day or two, I receive a positive response.  I’m in.  

Samples are sent out to me and I’m ready to introduce the cigar asap.

So I take it to one of my test shops where I have known the owner for years and I proudly give him the stick and he lights it up.  I’m like a kid, waiting for the whoops and hollers about how good this find is.  I’m just foaming at the mouth wondering how many boxes he’ll order and begin selling millions of ’em.

Instead, I get this sour look.  An expression of quizzical disappointment. 

“Well?”

 You’d think I just gave him a machine-rolled turd.  From the screwed up look on his face, I could tell he didn’t like it at all.

That’s when I knew I had a winner on my hands.  A true blue, knock it out of the ballpark home run.  Our tastes differ you see. But I always run it by him just to see his reaction so I can get a baseline of just how good it is. 

The cigar is known as the B10 short for Buffalo 10.  It comes in maduro and natural.  A review will follow.  But I gotta tell you – this cigar is off the horn!

A boring New Yorker and a dull cigar.

There are always many articles of interest in The New Yorker.  However, the March 9th issue was like Bonneville – flat.   Even the cover was boring. In fact, I leafed through the weekly periodical in less than ten minutes.  Oh, I did rip out one article from the subsection, The Art World (page 82) titled “The Shape of Things: Donald Judd in retrospect,” by Peter Schjeldahi, the magazine’s art critic, but that was it.

I then took a photo of the cover (see above) and threw this New Yorker in the recycle bin.  I usually don’t do that;  I’ll give it a second read-through.

I’ve noticed over the past few months that the publication has gotten entirely too steeped in the politics of the day.  It’s getting boring. To wit, however, I know this may be the trend now, but with my subscription running until 2027, I am confident that the editors will become as bored as the rest of us with the art of government, and return to its original intent best summed up in this quote from Wiki, “The New Yorker was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a New York Times reporter, and debuted on February 21, 1925. Ross wanted to create a sophisticated humor magazine that would be different from perceivably “corny” humor publications such as Judge, where he had worked, or the old Life.”

I know times change, editors change, writer’s change, interests change even the original vision of a magazine can change.  But I think Mr. Ross would be rolling over in his grave if he knew how many pages are being devoted to politics – not to mention the covers.  (Bring back Peter Arno!)

I’m smoking a cigar right now, I’ll keep the brand to myself because the cigar is considered to be one of the best on the market by one of the most famous manufacturers in the industry.  Unfortunately, it, too, is blah. (My opinion.  Please don’t get your panties in a wad because I won’t name it.  It serves no purpose to name it.  Can you handle that exclusion?  Good.)  I’ll smoke it to its finish, but I certainly wouldn’t pick up another one of the same kind. I have no cigar subscription to think about, but it is a surprise that two of the most famous products have the same challenge — a lack of pizzazz.

So we all can’t get a buzz from what we believe are specifically being offered to give us pleasure be it intellectual – or taste satisfaction.  I could just be in a bad mood. Maybe it’s time for a Snickers®️ bar. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MixNh9L7G5M

 

Change is natural.

Last week was the first time I didn’t share my blog with the groups I belong to.  This week will be the same and forever more. I’m concentrating on opening the door and inviting everybody into my new website: www.irvcigarbroker.com.  My reason is simple, Facebook has too much control over what I can and cannot say, and when I can say it.  I’m still stymied why the platform has a problem with my methodology of sharing a simple post to all the groups I belong to in one fell swoop.  (Sure, blame the algorithms.) I can’t remember exactly what the wording was, but it would not allow me to share my blog to all the groups. And right now I really have to say that the old adage “When one door closes, another is sure to open,” is real.

And indeed, I feel fine about it now.  I was angry at first.  My sight was seriously blurred by the myth that Facebook is the only place to go to communicate with my cyber chums.  It’s a myth. I have always linked up with Twitter (Although this may change considering the amount of porn that keeps popping up – excuse the pun.), and LinkedIn – with excellent, and sometimes even better results than Zuckerberg’s monster. But, I will still post my blog on Facebook’s news feed and my page (https://www.facebook.com/IrvCigarBrokerPage) But not to the individual groups.

Of course my primary goal is to draw people to my site.  Here is where I will have complete control over all editorial content as well as give the reader information about the cigars I rep. I can write about anything I want. Even some of the groups were beginning to become a bit too restrictive despite the fact that all my posts were about cigars. True, my essays, as anyone who has read even just one, are not your typical editorial comments.  I probe, I propose, I personalize every one in a style that not only informs but entertains the astute reader – often with a t…y twist dynamic. But they always have one thing in common with the groups – CIGARS!

So, I ask all of you who want to read about cigars and their impact on our culture – and how our culture impacts cigars, to take a look at www.irvcigarbroker.com and click Blog Essays for a change of pace.  I promise what I write will intrigue you.

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

Let me smoke my cigar in peace.

The thought came to my mind about cigars after reading an article in the September 24th issue of The New York Review of Books, by Susan Tallman: “Who Decides What’s Beautiful?”  Tallman is reviewing two books on art, “A History of Art History” by Christopher S. Wood, and “The Barbarian Invasion: A Genealogy of the History of Art” by Eric Michaud.

Both books delve into the question of what is pleasing and what is not and who comes to the conclusion of either and why.  A fairly heady read, but one of great interest if the reader is a cigar lover and poses the question, “Who decides what cigar is good?

A conundrum to be sure simply because the question really has no answer.  What it comes down to is pure subjectivity.  An agreement can be made that equals many similar answers.  True.  But is it definitive?  The capitalist may reduce the answer to, “The cigar that makes the most profit or money.”  Whereas a cigar aficionado might derive his or her conclusion based on taste, construction, country of origin so on and so forth.

But the fact of the matter, “Who decides what cigar is good” is a solid, and hardened-steel rhetorical question that may be akin to, “Is there a God?”  The latter’s answer may be based entirely on a person’s belief, faith, or hope.  But the fact is that the question is a revolving one in intellectual space that can be discussed but one that, even initiating the Socratic method (“ . . . a form of (a) cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions  . . .”) no definitive answer can be said to exist.  

Now some might posit that there are indeed questions that have precise and rock-solid, conclusive answers such as the mathematical equation, 2 + 2 = 4.  Right?  Wrong.  “It depends on what type of measurement scale you are using.  There are four types of measurement scales nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Only in the last two categories does 2 + 2 = 4.” (Google)  

But before I lose you completely, go back to the simple question “Who decides what cigar is good?  Well, then we need to study the word, “Who,” which is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “what or which person or persons . . .”   So we can at least understand that who must be a living, breathing human being making that decision.  But in reality, it is not a decision, but rather an individual’s opinion.  Based on?  (Pause)  What?

So then we have to further dissect the question and ask, “What is “good?”  A totally subjective word that in and of itself means – depending on whether it is used as an adjective (“to be desired or approved of,”) or as a noun (“that which is morally right; righteousness.”).  Regardless of its usage, the question remains unanswerable.   There is no right or wrong conclusion for this inquiry, either.  In Cigars!  In Art!  In Poetry! In ANYTHING!

So where do I go from here?

“To the garage where I can relax in my favorite chair, drink my precious root beer, shit on the COVID virus, and smoke my f..king cigar in peace.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JIq8Zn0AJE

A row about cigars and art.

Believe it or not, I’m just about fed up with the garbage that’s being presented as art and cigars.  Give a person a canvas, some paint, and a little exposure, and after that person slaps some combination of pigments on a flat surface and puts in on Facebook or Instagram or Saatchi’s site, immediately he or she becomes – an artist.  

Same with an individual who has access to some extra cash, tobacco, a few rollers, a table, a chaveta and he or she instantaneously becomes – a master blender. 

Art has never really been defined.  Marina Abromović, the most famous performance artist in history, has said during interviews that not one interlocutor has ever asked her, “What is art?”  Nor has any master blender ever been able to unequivocally been able to define what a premium cigar is.  

So I can take a spray can of paint, just the can, mount it on a marble platform and name it “Spray Can on Marble” and call it a sculpture, or for lack of a better term – art.  Or worse, I can take that same can and spritz some of the pigment ON that same marble platform and call it “Destiny.”

I can also purchase some fermented tobacco leaves, have a torcedor bunch it, and roll it, wrap it in whatever leaf is available, have them cut the cap with a chaveta, smooth it out with a quick roll on the table, finish the foot with one swipe of a cutter and place it in front of me and call it a cigar.

Hell, Duchamp did that same process with a porcelain urinal and called it “Fountain,” Jeff Koons had sex with his then-wife and porn star, Cicciolina in his “Made in Heaven” series and call it performance art, and Damien Hirst took a tiger shark, placed it in a glass showcase, filled it with formaldehyde and called it, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” – a masterpiece.  Today all three are considered great artists.  Debatable.   

The fact is art cannot, and may never be adequately defined – even by its creator.  The fact is no one can really and truly define what a cigar is really.  If you doubt my words, go to any Summertime arts and crafts show and look around and you tell me if you can discern what is or isn’t art – if any.  Or visit a cigar convention and you tell me if you can really pick out a true premium cigar.  Hell for all practical purposes cigars are identical – save for the graphic work on the band, the size, its shape, or the shade of the wrapper.

I’m a serious and dedicated hobbyist when it comes to art.  I’ve studied it, gone to lectures, read a number of books, been to some of the world’s most famous art museums, created pieces of whatever, but I’m certainly not a professional artist despite the knowledge, exposure, and creation.

I’ve smoked enough of what is called a cigar to fill a shipping container.  In fact, despite my knowledge that I’ve gathered by going to factories in Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, observing cigars being rolled, tobacco being grown and fermenting and I still don’t have enough behind me to call myself a master blender.

It’s very straightforward.  Both creations are subjective.  Our senses call them what we think they are because that’s what we’ve been told they are.  But the question is, “Are they what they are?”  Senses do lie!  

So, as a result, we continue to accept what is in front of us as being what others have led us to believe.  We cannot define either one with alacrity or accuracy because it is impossible to do so.  There is no sensory, factual baseline in subjectivity.  

Therefore we will go on living, allowing those who are simply painters to create what is perceived as “art,” and call them artists; and permit those who blend cylindrical tubes of tobacco known as “cigars” to be called master blenders.  

Silly, eh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

The Beguiling of Creating.

“We must create to feel alive.” A line from the avant-garde and rather confusing film, Manifesto (2015).  To paraphrase the main actress Kate Blanchett who plays 12 characters throughout the movie, she emphasizes the efficacy of the importance of art through various public declarations.  But don’t ask me how the film goes about it.  I haven’t a clue.  It’s very edgy. But it’s so enticing I can’t stop watching it.  Probably hoping as the reel runs down I’ll figure out the plot.

Avant-garde (“French: [avɑ̃ɡaʁd]; from French, “advance guard” or “vanguard”, literally “fore-guard”) as a noun means “new and unusual or experimental ideas . . . .”. As an adjective, it veers toward “favoring or introducing experimental or unusual ideas.” (Google).  Luckily the arts and even businesses have a better chance to succeed on the narrow road of commerce when a choice is made and a different path is taken.  Never follow.  Always lead.  With or without experience.  Learn as you and your ideas move through space.   

So avant-guard can be anything new, including blending, storing, fermenting, rotating the tobacco leaves of a cigar.   Not always an understandable direction from the observer’s point of view, but transparent as a fresh cut diamond for the creator.  But the blender or artist or filmmaker or sculptor or musician or poet – they know what they want to produce in the end.  It’s a quiet, still thought process that can only come to life through that particular individual.  No Murakami or Koons’ factories. These ideas are private, personal, and percolating.  

The average cigar smoker doesn’t ponder the reason why a particular blend is a pleasing and satisfying smoke.  He or she simply is simply aware that the cigar produces rapture.  Often, that sensation cannot be explained.  Just like the movie with Kate Blanchett.  Or the Cavalier cigar.  There’s just something about them that attracts the senses.

In creating anything, one can never worry about the reactions of others or the imagination will be stymied.  Guaranteed. Always break away from the pack.  The crowd is full of common, stale energy – but nothing raw.  The avant-garde is brimming with the novelty of originality.  But there is also that overwhelming flood of misunderstanding that gushes out all over the place whenever a unique idea is proposed.  Conformity’s evil is real –  hot tar and sharp stones sticking together to randomly harden in one place rather than like the butterfly which flutters about freely surveying the world as an infant would upon birth – everything is fascinating.  Others will be influenced by your courage.

Twelve characters played by one person with a common theme – originality.   Hammered tin is being used instead of cotton canvas.  Aluminum cans become the basis for a piece of sculpture instead of moist clay or iron-like granite.  Colored pencils are taking the place of linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, and safflower oil as the diluent, solvent or vehicle for the pigment which is also being altered.

Tobacco leaves are never the same.  So many varieties.  So many different methods of fermentation, there is an extraordinary choice of seed varieties to plant, the order of what priming is optimal for richer flavors as are the percentages of Ligero, Seco, and Volado leaves that are used in the process of blending.  Think. Boxes of twenty cigars are now becoming reduced to ten. Eleven is considered even. The possibilities are virtually unlimited.

Some skeptics, be they seasoned blenders or upstart newbies who barely have a thread of tobacco history in their families’ lineage might even have the audacity (or naiveté) to whisper amongst themselves “That combination will never work.”  But the bold, brave blender bends this common thin thought to reveal an exotic mix never before attempted with remarkable results.  In short, somehow it works and the naysayers become jealous and at the same time internally traumatized, even paralyzed by sheer amazement of creativity  

Yes, the avant-garde – the complement of the impossible and the experimental – produces the dynamism of the duo’s combination that produces happiness and the exhilarating feeling of being alive!