My A.S.P. Bio

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My A.S.P. Bio

Me

Pipe Interests: I don't really collect pipes in the true sense of the verb "to collect"; nevertheless I have a few nice ones. To me the pipe is the instrument for smoking tobacco, and tobacco is my real passion. In over 40 years of pipe smoking I have tried so many blends, that I've lost count...

For me it is the deep sigh of relaxation as I watch the smoke curl and the first whiff of the tobacco reaches my nose. Proust, in the first volume (Swann's Way) of his IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME recounts a similar experience from his childhood, as he describes his first experience of an emotion/mood shift triggered by taste and smell. He has just been given lime-flower tea and a small cake called a madeleine:

"And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated. detached, with no suggestion of its origin. At once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having the effect which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was in me it was me. I had ceased to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal."

Ahhh, doesn't this remind you a a good smoke?

     In the past, I smoked mostly Virginia or Cavendish aromatics, but for the last four years, have developed an intense interest in Virginia Flakes, and fueled by the classic posts of Paul Szabady, I have attempted to smoke as many as I can. I've grown fondest of darker, stoved flakes, such as Gawith & Hoggarth's Rum Flake. But I also enjoy the McClelland nose and sweetness - particularly 5115, and find 2000 to be a top-notch smoke; so much so that I keep a pound of each of these three. In another direction, I have become increasingly enamored of Escudo, and keep a tin of it around as I do Orlik's Golden Flake and Dunhill Light Flake.

     My favorite pipe is my Peter Heeschen "Saucer" designed by Greg Pease, the Tobacco blender; it can be seen on Greg's web site by clicking here.

     I also belong to TUCOPS, and enjoy reading it's publication, the PIPESMOKER'S EPHEMERIS. But nothing at all beats a bowl of a good Virginia flake in my Peterson chubby author that I've had since 1961...

LA PIPE

Je suis la pipe d'un auteur.
On voit, à contempler ma mine
D'Abyssnienne ou de Cafrine,
Que mon maître est un grand fumeur.

Quand il est comblé de doleur,
Je fume comme un chaumine
Où se prepare la cusine
Pour le retour du labourer.

J'enlace et je berce son âme
Dans le réseau mobile et bleu
Qui monte de ma bouche en feu,

Et je roule un puissant dictame
Qui charme son cœur et guérit
De ses fatigues son espirit.

Charles Baudelaire
LES FLEURS DU MAL (1857)

THE PIPE

I am a writer's pipe.
One can see by contemplating my demeanor
that it is (dark like) an Abyssinian or Kaffir,
(and) that my master is a great smoker.

When he is overcome with sadness
I smoke like the chimney
where a meal is prepared
for a working-man returning (home).

I entwine and lull his soul
In a net, moving and blue
Which rises from my smoking mouth.

And I roll a powerful drug
Which charms his heart and cures
That which wearies his spirit.

Charles Baudelaire
FLOWERS OF EVIL(1857)
(my own translation)

About me

I was born in NYC to Italian immigrant parents shortly after WW II, coming of age in NYC's "rougher" neighborhoods. I spent the greater part of my life in NYC, moving but a few miles across the river to Bergen County, New Jersey (close enough so that I can see the City) about 15 years ago. I've lived abroad, both in Europe and the Middle East, and now regret not taking a job - and moving to - France years ago.

     I've been a lawyer for well over 20 years; and although I started out specializing in transactional/corporate work, my present practice is all personal injury litigation. I work in a medium-sized law-firm and represent inner-city clients. Notwithstanding the foregoing, I actually dropped out of high school, and went to trade school for jewelry fabrication and watch making, working in the industry for a number of years until the early sixties when the counter-cultural revolution grabbed firmly ahold of me, and propelled me head-first into an unforgettable college experience: a time of rebirth, rediscovery, psychedelics - and for a brief window of time: peace, love and rock-n-roll. As for me: I never looked back...

Cats

     I've recently added a new member to my family, a Persian cat named Anaïs. She's a purebred, a retired show cat, a Champion. But most of all she's a sweet, soft companion, who never ceases to amaze me - whether it be stalking the play mouse I pull on a string in front of her, or sleeping peacefully curled next to my head.

     It is not the cat's stereotyped aloofness and independence that appeal to me, but rather their uncompromising otherness. The beauty and fascination we find in cats is much the same as we feel for the wildest animals to be found in nature, with the added fascination that these particularly wild and beautiful things are willing to admit us to their world, even though they do not have any particular need to.

Who am I?

     One of the major sources of pleasure in my life is that I've worked with my hands, power and machine tools for over forty years, and continuously made guitars, jewelry and the like. Guided by a helpful pipe-maker from ASP, those skills easily translated into being able to modify, restore and maintain my pipes. I've included some photos of my hand-work below including jewelry and guitars that I have made. Please take a look.

     Another is reading. I read voraciously - mostly "classical" European and American literature, and spend little time in front of the TV or in theaters.

   I am a Buddhist (Kagyu) and have been since the 60s. I'm also a serious computer hobbyist (serious enough to have gone for a Master's just for the hell of it!), and enjoy everything from setting up networks to building servers and workstations.

   I have a fascination with things mechanical (the Swiss have a term for it: Faszination der Mechanik), and I collect fine, mechanical watches. Though I own the usual suspects (Rolex, Cartier, Jager LeCoultre), my present passion is to own a Chronoswiss. I also collect fountain-pens and inks.

JEWELRY

This photo is of the first piece of jewelry I ever made, and the latest. I made the "endless knot" when I was 14 in my parent's basement, using only a jeweler's saw, needle file and a felt buffing stick. The occasion was my "taking refuge" in Buddhism. I made the ring this past winter. The base is 18K white gold, the "table" is 18K rose gold, and the hand-cut letters are 18K white gold. The base was lost-wax cast, and the table and letters were hand-cut.

LUTHERIE

I started repairing guitars when I was about 15, because I couldn't afford to buy a new guitar, and had to learn how to fix up the well-used ones that were the only ones that I could afford. I hung around stringed-instrument repairmen (there were plenty in Little Italy in the 50's) and asked them questions endlessly. Soon, I became quite good at repairing and refinishing guitars - better, in fact than I could play one! Over the years I've been to many guitar-building seminars, and have built five acoustics and 11 or 12 electrics. This was the last acoustic that I have made. It took me about 220 hours to complete.
I used a 1939 Martin Dreadnought (D-45) blueprint, and modified it to my liking, particularly the top-bracing, which I modified for a lighter bass and brighter treble so as to be better suited to blues, rather than bluegrass. I also heavily modified the neck and fingerboard so as to make it play more like my favorite Fender Strat (below). The top is Engleman Spruce; the back and sides, Indian Rosewood; the fingerboard and bridge, Gabon Ebony; the neck mahogany. The bindings are multiple layers of black-and-white, and on the top the purfling is herringbone marquetry between the top and bindings. The end block marquetry is a large inlay of abalone shell surrounded by multiple layers of black-and-white binding. The bridge and fingerboard are inlaid with pearl, and the head is veneered with Indian Rosewood.

This is my souped-up Fender Ultra-Strat. It has Lace pickups, with a humbucker at the bridge. I made a grey-pearl pickguard, re-fretted it with fat, low frets, added a tremolo stabilizer, graphite nut and re-wired it for a cross between a Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton sound. Under the custom blue finish is tiger-striped ash. It's a wonderfully easy guitar to play. Nevertheless, I still don't sound like Clapton or Guy...

Colt 45 Automatic

I've always been fascinated by Browning's masterpiece, and after screwing up a few surplus army 45's, was ready to accurize this one. I did all of the machine work myself, including the slide mods. Do not, however, draw the incorrect conclusion: this gun sits in a drawer. I do believe in gun control (this baby has had only a few hundred rounds fired thru her, all at a range), detest the NRA, and believe that only law enforcement officials should carry weapons. I see the Colt 45 Automatic as a true marvel of the machine age, and a tribute to the ingenuity of the American machinist/inventor.

"Sometimes the light's all shining on me; other times it's so dark, I can hardly see. Lately it's occurred to me: what a long, strange trip it's been..."

Jerry Garcia