Arthur Miller

Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American literature and cinema for over 61 years, writing a wide variety of plays, including celebrated plays such as The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman, which are still performed worldwide. Miller was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Miller is considered by audiences and scholars as one of America's greatest playwrights, and his plays are lauded throughout the world.

Miller died at his home in Roxbury of congestive heart failure on the evening of February 10, 2005 at the age of 89.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War One later known as "the Lost Generation." He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Hemingway's distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement. It had a significant influence on the development of twentieth-century fiction writing. His protagonists are typically stoic men who exhibit an ideal described as "grace under pressure."

Hemingway took his own life on the morning of July 2, 1961 at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, by way of shotgun to the face, he was 61 years old.

John Ford, Director

John Ford was an Academy Award-winning American film director of Irish heritage famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach and The Searchers and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath. His four Best Director Academy Awards (1935, 1940, 1941, 1952) is a record still unmatched, although only one of those films, How Green Was My Valley, won Best Picture.

His style of film-making has been tremendously influential. Ford is a pioneer of location shooting and the extreme long shot which frames his characters against a vast, harsh and rugged natural terrain.

Ford died August 31, 1973 in Palm Desert, California, at the age of 78 from stomach cancer.

Shelby Foote

Shelby Dade Foote, Jr. was an American novelist and a noted historian of the American Civil War. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta alluvium, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the Old South to the Civil Rights era of the New South. Foote introduced a generation of Americans to a war that he believed was "central to all our lives."

Foote died at Baptist Hospital in Memphis on June 27, 2005, at the age of

Shelby Foote was a brilliant writer who made history not just educational but exciting.

Karl Barth, Theologian

Karl Barth a Swiss Reformed theologian, was one of the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century. Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected the predominant liberal theology typical of 19th-century Protestantism, especially German, and instead embarked on a unique theological path, often called neo-orthodoxy by critics that emphasized the sovereignty of God particularly through his innovative doctrine of election. Barth's theology swept through Europe and Britain. He is one of the most influential Theologian’s of the 20th century.

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles was an Academy Award-winning American director, writer, actor and producer for film, stage, radio and television. Welles first gained wide notoriety for his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Adapted to sound like a contemporary news broadcast, it caused a number of listeners to panic. In the mid-1930s, his New York theatre adaptations of an all-black voodoo Macbeth and a contemporary allegorical Julius Caesar became legendary. Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety spectacles in the war years. During this period he became a serious political activist and commentator through journalism, radio and public appearances closely associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1941, he co-wrote, directed, produced and starred in Citizen Kane, often chosen in polls of film critics as the greatest film ever made.

He died of a myocardial infarction at his home in Hollywood, California, at the age of 70, on October 10, 1985.

C.S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis, was an Irish writer and scholar. Lewis's works are diverse and include medieval literature, Christian apologetics, literary criticism, radio broadcasts, essays on Christianity, and fiction relating to the fight between good and evil. Examples of Lewis's fiction include The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.

Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings. Both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptised in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at about the age of 30, Lewis re-converted to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England". His conversion had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.

On November 22, 1963, Lewis collapsed in his bedroom at 5:30 pm and died a few minutes later, exactly one week before what would have been his 65th birthday.

J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

After his death, Tolkien's son, Christopher, published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about an imagined world called Arda and Middle-earth within it. Between 1951 and 1955 Tolkien applied the word legendarium to the larger part of these writings.

Tolkien died on 2 September, 1973 at the age of 81.

Tolkien along with C.S. Lewis are two of my favorite writers.

William Faulkner

William Faulkner was an American author. He is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, and was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Faulkner is known for an experimental style with meticulous attention to diction and cadence. Faulkner made frequent use of "stream of consciousness" in his writing, and wrote often highly emotional, subtle, cerebral, complex, and sometimes Gothic or grotesque stories of a wide variety of characters—ranging from former slaves or descendents of slaves, to poor white, agrarian, or working-class Southerners, to Southern aristocrats.

Most of Faulkner's works are set in his native state of Mississippi, and he is considered one of the most important "Southern writers," along with Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams. While his work was published regularly from the mid 1920s to the late 1940s, he was relatively unknown before receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. Critics and the public now favor his work, and he is widely seen as among the greatest American writers of all time.

Faulkner's fame and acclaim stem from his novels, novellas, and short stories. He was, however, a published poet and an occasional screenwriter as well.

Faulkner died while at Wright's Sanitorium in Byhalia, Mississippi of a heart attack at the age of 64.

General Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur was an American general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and later played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II, receiving the Medal of Honor for his early service in the Philippines and on the Bataan Peninsula. He was designated to command the proposed invasion of Japan in November 1945. When that was no longer necessary, he officially accepted their surrender on September 2, 1945.

MacArthur oversaw the Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. Although criticized for protecting Emperor Hirohito and the imperial family, he is credited with implementing far-ranging democratic changes in that country. He led the United Nations Command forces defending South Korea against the North Korean invasion from 1950 to 1951. On April 11, 1951 MacArthur was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman for publicly disagreeing with Truman's Korean War Policy.

MacArthur is credited with the military dictum, "In war, there is no substitute for victory" but he also warned, "The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." He fought in three major wars and was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army.

Douglas MacArthur died on April 5th 1964, of biliary cirrhosis.

My Favorite Pipe Tobacco

1. Presbyterian Mixture
2. W.O. Larsen “1864 Perfect Mixture”
3. Balkan Sasieni “Original”
4. Savinelli “English Mixture”
5. Bjarne “the Special One”

My Favorite Pipe Makers

These are a list of my personal favorite pipe makers.

1. Bjarne Nielsen -Bjarne Nielsen was the owner and the founder of Bjarne pipes. After a MBA degree from the University of Copenhagen and a career in the Danish Foreign Service the company was founded in 1973 and it is probably Denmark's largest pipe manufacturer of 100% hand made pipes. Each pipe is formed on a lathe and as a consequence, there are no model numbers. Each and every pipe is totally hand made and individual. Bjarne was a friend to all who enjoyed the true pleasures of a good pipe. He will be missed.
2. Larry Comeaux - Larry Comeaux of Memphis TN has been making pipes for over 30 years. His intricately carved pieces have won him several honors. Larry is a true master craftsman If you can imagine it he can make it.
3. Savinelli - The Savinelli family and its many skilled artisans since 1876 are made using only the best grades of Sardinian and Corsican briar. Every pipe is made with great care and pride. Savinelli pipes are a must for any pipe smoker they come in an array of different styles from traditional to modern.
4. Eric Nording - Erik Nørding was originally educated in engineering. Pipe carving began as a hobby, but as time went by, he became more interested in pipe making as a profession. During the last 40 years Erik Nørding has built his own business, which today produces approximately 50,000 pipes a year.
5. W.O. Larsen - W.O. Larsen of Denmark is one of the most respected and revered pipe making families in the world. Currently in its fifth generation of pipe making, W.O. Larsen pipes are made from the very best Corsican briar and come in a variety of finishes, shapes and price ranges.

Bing Crosby, The Ultimate Crooner

Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby was an American popular singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death.

One of the first multimedia stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses. He is cited among the most popular musical acts in history and is currently the most electronically recorded human voice in history. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. morale during World War II and, during his peak years, around 1948, polls declared him the "most admired man alive." During 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.

Crosby exerted an important influence on the development of the postwar recording industry. In 1947, he invested US$50,000 in the Ampex company, which developed the world's first commercial reel-to-reel tape recorder, and Crosby became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings on magnetic tape.

1962, Crosby was the first person to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Crosby smoked two packs of cigarettes a day until his second wife made him stop. He finally quit smoking his pipe and cigars following lung surgery in 1974

Shortly after 6:00 p.m. on October 14, 1977, Crosby died suddenly from a massive heart attack after a round of eighteen holes of golf near Madrid where he and his Spanish golfing partner had just defeated their two opponents.

Jeremy Brett

Jeremy Brett, born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor famous, among other things, for his portrayal of the detective Sherlock Holmes in four British television series: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

During the last decade of his life, Brett was treated in hospital several times for his mental illness, and his health and appearance visibly deteriorated by the time he completed the later episodes of the Sherlock Holmes series.

There were plans to film all the Holmes stories, but Brett died of heart failure at his London home before the project could be completed. Brett's heart had been damaged by a childhood case of rheumatic fever and was apparently further weakened by his heavy smoking. In an interview, Edward Hardwicke claimed that Brett would buy 60 cigarettes on his way to the set and smoke them all throughout the day. After his heart problem was diagnosed, Brett reportedly quit smoking for a short while, but began smoking again shortly before his death at the age of 61 on 12 September 1995.

Norman Rockwell, A Painter of Life

Norman Percevel Rockwell was an American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedoms series. As an artist his realistic aspect to everyday life showing the simplicity and sometimes humorous side of it, therefore, his artwork also showed his complexity. Rockwell could help people relate to others through his paintings of family life, work, and dedication. That is why I consider Norman Rockwell a genius.

Norman Rockwell died November 8, 1978 of emphysema at the age of 84 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Basil Rathbone, The Great Sherlock Holmes

Basil Rathbone was a British actor most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. Only two actors have done justice to the portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, the first Rathbone and the other Jeremy Brett. Rathbone is most widely recognized for his starring role as Sherlock Holmes in fourteen movies between 1939 and 1946, all of which co-starred Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. The first two films, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles were set in the late-Victorian times of the original stories. Later installments beginning with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, were set in contemporary times, and some had World War II-related plots. Rathbone and Bruce also reprised their film roles in a radio series, The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Basil Rathbone died of a heart attack in New York City in 1967 at age 75.

George Simenon, The Great Crime Writer

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer who wrote in French. He is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret. Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.

He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films.

During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written Trois chambres à Manhattan, Maigret à New York, Maigret se fâche.

Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale or Le fils, as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens, Pedigree, Mémoires intimes .

In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.

Simenon underwent surgery for a brain tumor in 1984 and made a good recovery. In subsequent years however, his health worsened. He gave his last televised interview in December 1988.

Georges Simenon died in his sleep on the night of September 3-4, 1989 in Lausanne.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive pieces.

Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life.

Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide on 27 July 1890, at the age of 37. Van Gogh walked into the fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. Without realizing that he was fatally wounded he returned to the Ravoux Inn where he died in his bed two days later.

As an artist I look at Van Gogh's artwork as masterful and genius. The strokes from his paintbrush were so defined and unconventional. He truly was a brilliant in the world of art.

Albert Einstein, A True Genius

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass–energy equivalence, E = mc2. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."
Einstein's many contributions to physics include his special theory of relativity, which reconciled mechanics with electromagnetism, and his general theory of relativity, which extended the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion, creating a new theory of gravitation. His other contributions include relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and their application to quantum theory, an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules, atomic transition probabilities, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, thermal properties of light with low radiation density, a theory of radiation including stimulated emission, the conception of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics.
Einstein published over 300 scientific works and over 150 non-scientific works.

A life member of the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club, Einstein was quoted as saying: "Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs."

In Memory of Bjarne Nielsen

Bjarne Nielsen, died Wednesday February 27, 2008 from a heart attack at the age of 66.

Bjarne Nielsen was the owner and the founder of Bjarne pipes. After a MBA degree from the University of Copenhagen and a career in the Danish Foreign Service the company was founded in 1973 and it is probably Denmark's largest pipe manufacturer of 100% hand made pipes. Each Bjarne pipe is formed on a lathe and as a consequence, there are no model numbers. Each and every pipe is totally hand made and individual.

I had the chance to meet Mr. Nielsen at one of the MAPS meetings in Memphis a few years ago. And he looked to me like Santa Claus, he was short and round with a brilliant white beard and was so joyful. He seemed like one of the boys, even in another country he could be just another guy. But he was an artist whom I admired and respected and was put at a loss for words to find that he had passed. He will be greatly missed not just by me but my the many whom had met and gotten to know him.

God bless you Bjarne, you will be missed.

"indtil vi mødes igen."

Mark Twain, A True Aficionado

“It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.” ~Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists and European royalty. Twain enjoyed immense public popularity, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers.

Mark Twain was rarely seen without a cigar or pipe in hand.

The Pipe Smoking President

Gerald Rudolph Ford was the thirty-eighth President of the United States, He served from 1974 to 1977, and the fortieth Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974. He was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, and became President upon Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. Ford was the fifth U.S. President never to have been elected to that position, and the only one never to have won a national election at all.

Ford served nearly 25 years as Representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, eight of them as the Republican Minority Leader.

President Gerald Ford also smoked a pipe about 8 bowls a day in the Oval Office.
One of his more controversial decisions was granting a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal.

Following his years as president, Ford remained active in the Republican party. Ford died on December 26, 2006 at the age of 93.

He was the longest lived president in U.S. History.

“God Bless Gerald Ford.”

Here comes Prohibition

Potentially the greatest restriction of the freedoms of drinkers we have seen so far in this country is the proposal by the Scottish government to restrict off-sales to over-21s. As alcohol is a legal product, and 18 is regarded as the age of majority for pretty much all practical purposes, this move is utterly abhorrent in terms of civil liberties. You will be able to marry, drive a car, vote, become an MP and fight for your country, but not to buy a bottle of beer or wine.

Even on a practical level, it is unlikely that it will solve the problems it is claimed to address. Rather it will simply drive them underground and transfer the trade from legitimate outlets to black marketeers. Partial prohibition has never worked in the past and will not work here.

Such a ban is likely to be a major disincentive to studying at Scottish universities. And, unless possession of alcoholic drinks is also made illegal, how are the authorities to know if stocks in student flats have been obtained legally or not? Are they going to be carrying out raids demanding receipts? You can imagine any English students returning back from weekends at home with cars laden down with drink. Or are they going to set up Customs checkpoints too and ban the importation of alcohol for personal use? The ban will make obtaining alcohol for consumption at home appear a far more fun and glamorous activity.

I also foresee that very many over-21s will see this law as wholly unreasonable and have no compunction about buying alcohol on behalf of their younger friends.

The worry, of course, is that if this happens in Scotland it is likely to spread south of the border…

Breeding intolerance

There seems to be something about the smoking ban that encourages intolerance between pub users. Perhaps it is because it panders to the regrettable British tradition of kicking a man when he’s down. I have mentioned before the ludicrous complaint that smokers, having already been excluded from the pub, should be prevented from using the beer garden. However, this is thoroughly trumped by this tale of rank bigotry.

The locust years

More depressing news, that over 60 pubs are now closed and boarded in five East Lancashire boroughs with a high proportion of small, wet-led street-corner locals. This underlines the devastation of the pub trade that those who don’t venture beyond town centres and leafy suburbs fail to see.

Smoke ban hits pub trade shock!

According to a survey by Deloitte, 20% of adults now visit pubs less often following the smoking ban. I suspect any licensee could have told you that for free, but even so - when some smoke ban apologists remain in a state of denial - it’s useful to have confirmation of the bleeding obvious from a reputable source.

Standing up at last

The recent CAMRA National Conference decided to set up a Task Group with the remit to “research and build extensive evidence on the importance of community pubs and real ale to the promotion of responsible drinking with the underlying principle of reinforcing the rights of adults to enjoy alcohol responsibly” (my bold). This is potentially one of the most important developments in the history of the Campaign. I have argued in the past that CAMRA has dragged its feet on this issue, seeing the big brewers as the main enemy and indeed occasionally even misguidedly making common cause with anti-drink campaigners in fighting them. However, it has become increasingly clear that the major enemies of pubs and drinkers are now the government and neo-prohibitionist lobby groups.

There is a pressing need for a body not associated with the alcohol industry to stand up for the rights of people to drink alcohol responsibly, and to counter the exaggerated health scares that have been bandied about. Hopefully in the coming years this will become a major plank of CAMRA’s campaigning and take priority over all this irrelevant left-wing nonsense about public transport and beer miles.