You will will recall that Psychiatry was a very new industry during Clark's lifetime - his opinion of the whole business is well identified in "Schizoid Creator" -
He was indeed shy of crowds - re the "barrel chest" - no, Clark had expanded his rib cage through work and exercise, but had he not done so, he might have appeared narrow chested - I believe he had been warned of possible relapse, and indeed the Auburn area was a famous refuge for the Tubercular and the asthmatic - his use of the cigarette holder with the dunhill filters was credited with diminishing the problems tobacco might cause - and, secondarily strictly from my own knowledge of the matter - the quality of the tobacco at the time was infinitely beyond the crap going into cigarettes today -- I grew up in a tobacco field, my family raised it, my grandfather introduced the growing of bright leaf to North Carolina, and has reached high RPM's in his grave for the way it is being raised today - although to do so would make a pack about $50.

Apropos of nothing, I once saw a Gary Cooper movie called "Bright Leaf," based on a novel of the same name. It was about Cooper's dastardly plan to mass-produce cigarettes. The fiend!

I read somewhere that the best tobacco goes into cigars, the next best goes into pipe tobacco, and the rest go into cigarettes. Is that true?

The very best is blended for Pipe tobacco -- only the very finest and most expensive tobacco goes into cigars and no bright leaf - bright leaf is mainly cigarette tobacco commonly mixed with Burley as in Camels - The good cigar tobacco is not grown in the US, although there are plenty of American Cigars, usually with a wrapper made of the crumbled trash which is processed like paper for use as a wrapper -yucch! - Bright leaf of course is used in the finest pipe tobaccos because of its mildness - Snoose or chew originated when somebody sweeping the floor of the auction house threw the detritus into a mostly empty barrel of molasses (commonly added to cattle and hog feed) and then had the audacity to stick some in his mouth - the sweetness of the molasses and the mild high of the stems and crud (spider webs, dead flies, lizard skins etc.) was found to be tasty enough for those with no taste at all, nor concern for their breath or daily hygiene, so it became marketable. Chewing tobacco originated in the process of convenient ways to package tobacco for shipment to europe, again mixing with molasses - Of course, understanding the high refinement of the Europeans and remembering that Catherine of Russia made her coffee one cup to the pound one can see how it caught on - although snuff predominated, and is still used in the south - very sweet and used with a moistened hickory "tooth brush" inserted in the cheek - my earliest memories of my Grandmother and most older ladies in North Carolina was the delightful aura of snuff that surrounded them - (recommended brands, Tube Rose and Nantucket) - for those who must smoke the modern cigarette, at least buy them without the filter or remove the filter - tobacco is its own best filter - you then toss away the back half of the cigarette, eliminating 80% of the tar and nicotine which are trapped in the back. With a filter, you get the full whammy - in the 40's and 50's it took 5 to six packs a day to get cancer - today, only one is required -

calonlan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> With a
> filter, you get the full whammy - in the 40's and
> 50's it took 5 to six packs a day to get cancer -
> today, only one is required -

I believe this to be nonsense. Since around 1990 or so, there has been a sharp drop in the incidence of lung cancer. Smokers typically develop lung cancer in their 60s. Suppose the average smoker started at age 15. Those 60-year-old smokers who did not develop lung cancer from 1990 and on then started in 1945 or later. What happened in 1945 that had such an impact on lung cancer 45 years later? The filter cigarette was introduced.

calonlan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Of course, understanding the high refinement of
> the Europeans and remembering that Catherine of
> Russia made her coffee one cup to the pound one
> can see how it caught on

I'm afraid I fail to get the point here.

If you are under the impression that the science is wrong let me see if I can help you - the decrease in cancer, such as it is, is related to the reduced number of people smoking - during the 40's and 50's, since we often use the famous as examples, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Taylor, Alan Ladd each smoked 5 to 6 packs per day -
My wife is an Hospice nurse, and three-fourths of her patients are smoking related cancers - this is close to the national statistics for Hospice - Liver disease and renal failure are second and third (the most ghastly of these deaths is liver failure), I do volunteer work and am often with her on her visits. I have seen patients who have had their larynx removed smoking through the hole in their throats - the addictive qualities of the modern cigarette are far greater than the carefully tended, cured, and graded (none of which are the case today) tobacco of the past -- the tobacco today is sprayed in the field to turn it yellow, since the modern curing system used compression and steam heat to more rapidly "cure" the tobacco than the old free hanging method - the crop is sprayed to kill suckers, sprayed to kill weeds, sprayed to kill tobacco bugs (the boys used to bite the heads off these squishy morsels to gross out the girls); I learned to grade and tie tobacco for the auction in my grandmother's grading shed - this process no longer exists. Might I add that in my town there are now 4 hospices, and none lack for census - Why not get a cigarette holder that uses the Dunhill filter, smoke three or four and then examine the filter? see for yourself - Clark was very wise to do this - only very rarely after they came out did he smoke a regular filtered cigarette - at best the filter looks light brown, not black tarry and wet - the companies increased the ratio of burley, and reduced the quality of the bright leaf because the cigarettes of the neo-filter age were just too mild for the "Marlboro man"(who also died in his 50's from lung cancer).--now, enough of this, back to CAS literature -

I assume nobody minds if I have a cigarette at this point?

Just as long as you keep in the spirit of this place and smoke one that's twisted at both ends.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em - I guess.
I quit the legal kind 8 years ago and the others long ago upon reaching
adulthood. Say what you like but there is no substitute for great cooking
and alcohol in their many and delicious varieties. Well, that and great sex.

Cathexis

cathexis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Smoke 'em if you got 'em - I guess.
> I quit the legal kind 8 years ago and the others
> long ago upon reaching
> adulthood. Say what you like but there is no
> substitute for great cooking
> and alcohol in their many and delicious varieties.
> Well, that and great sex.
>
> Cathexis

With little or no money, the purified aesthetics of art and litterature cleanly substitute them all. :)

George Bernard Shaw was a vegetarian, and a non-smoker I believe. I like what he said---"If ever I ate meat, no woman in London would be safe." I'll bet he and CAS would've been friends.

I agree in principle with Knygatin, though there is something to be said for curling up by a mid-winter fireplace with a quaint volume of ghost stories - and a freshly packed pipe! I believe it was Carlyle (or maybe it was Tennyson) who said that pipe-smoking was the only creature comfort that ever gave him any real pleasure.

In any case, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air can engage in the hugely overrated act of coitus, but only a truly evolved and civilized being knows how to properly enjoy a good tobacco pipe!

However, it is annoying that they poison modern pipe tobacco with all the chemical additives. Since Calonian is so well-versed in tobacco lore, might I ask if there is a brand on the market that isn't contaminated in this fashion? I love Captain Black, though I assume it's full of deadly toxins. What about those vats of flavored pipe tobacco one finds at the cigar shops? Any difference there?

Of course, if all else fails, there is still the option of simply saving the pipe for special occasions - like Christmas Eve. What was that Mr. Fezziwig? Indeed, a capital idea, Sir, a ghost tale, brandy - and another pipe, will be just the thing to round out this splendid evening!

The carnal refuses to be altogether denied.

A glass of wine, or brandy, certainly enhances the experience of a good book, or music. For me it does. But I doubt it does, for someone with an already wideopen access to and crystal clear view of dreamland, like Lovecraft. Then it would only clog.

Perhaps I should qualify,

Calolan in his post on Cancer above is right on. In fact, I am an RN and have 26 years nursing and 19 years
in I.C.U. I smoked even up till 8 years ago and loved it. But it is as bad as he said and no amount of humor
or "waxing poetic" on its sensual pleasures can eradicate tobacco's deadly reality.

That said, I do not lecture anyone including my patients without an invitation to do so. To do otherwise is a
waste of time since addiction is not amenable to reason no matter how "clever" that person thinks he may be.
(And they're always soooo clever indeed).

I also have to say that I think Knygatin is right in saying that some kinds of sensual pleasure can cloud your
best judgement or "view of Dreamland". I only meant that IF you're going to indulge in carnal pleasures than the
ones I listed are the only ones that I think justifiable in the contex we are speaking of. I would've loved to
have had the opportunity to have sat with CAS and sipped his cheap burgundy with him. But if I'm reading him it
is almost always the Read alone that is the stimulant.

Cathexis