Topic: Other News
Read how you can help The Calabash Project, and Save the Calabash!
Posted by thos.martin
at 5:35 AM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, 27 March 2007 10:35 AM EDT
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Read how you can help The Calabash Project, and Save the Calabash!
The Calabash arrived in short order, actually the same day I recieved word that the growers got their money. They are such nice people. They included a set of salt & pepper shakers that are their specialty with the smal gourds. Pictured here is my son putting them to "the test."
They also sent me: small gourds "in case I find a use," some cut Calabash and some whole (but cleaned, "for practice.
I mostly liked the way they went on what we would call a "road trip" looking for an indiginous local made pipe. And they found one that belong to an old man, but he would not part with it. Instead he gave to them, and them to me gourds to make my own and a little sketch and description about the local pipes- not the calabashes we are familiar with. These are the African peace pipe. I will blog about that shortly.
Read how you can help The Calabash Project, and Save the Calabash!
Black Elk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa) (c. December 1863 – August 17 or August 19, 1950 (sources differ)) was a famous Wichasha Wakan (Medicine Man or Holy Man) of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). He was the second cousin of Crazy Horse. Black Elk participated, at about the age of twelve, in the Battle of Little Big Horn of 1876, and was wounded in the massacre that occurred at Wounded Knee in 1890. In 1887, Black Elk travelled to England with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, an unpleasant experience he described in chapter 19 of Black Elk Speaks. He was accidentally left behind and had to make his own way back to his homeland.
Black Elk married his first wife, Katie War Bonnett, in 1892. She became a Catholic, and all three of their children were baptized as Catholic. After her death in 1903, he too became baptized, taking the name Nicholas Black Elk, and continued to serve as a spiritual leader among his people, seeing no contradiction in embracing what he found valid in both his tribal traditions concerning Wakan Tanka, and those of Christianity.
He remarried in 1905 to Anna Brings White, a widow with two daughters. She bore him three more children, and remained his wife until she died in 1941.
Towards the end of his life, he revealed the story of his life, and a number of sacred Sioux rituals to John Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown for publication (The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (1953) (as told to Joseph Epes Brown) , and his accounts have won wide interest and acclaim. He also claimed to have had several visions in which he met the spirit that guided the universe.
Also see:
The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (1953) (as told to Joseph Epes Brown)
::: SHOP CLOSED//FLOODING :::
After searching for nearly four months, the CAlabash gourds are on their way to the states, the paymnet is on its way to S. Africa. I'm feeling a bit of a let down as there is nothing left to fo but wait (and make pipes).
So, I thought a little Van Gogh was in order. See Slide Show.
South Africa POS Mail Tracking:
accepted on 12-Mar-2007 15:25 at the MORGENZON (RPO) post office
Date last tracked (scanned): 12-Mar-2007 15:25
Current Status: In transit
Delivery Office:
| Scan Description | Place Scanned | Trace Information | Item Status | Date Scanned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| O-ACCEPTANCE DOCUME | MORGENZON (RPO) | 12-Mar-2007 15:25 |
To help The Calabash Project in South Africa you can buy a pin, magnet, or pipe. Read more.
[THIS ENTRY IS BEING POSTED AUTOMATICALLY. I AM AT THE NEW YORK PIPE SHOW]
Pictured: (Top) Medico Calibash with new bowl added. The pipe is 1940ish. They were basically the Kaywoodie "seconds". Note briar extension to account for short stem. It also holds a filter. The gourd has some marring. (Bottom) My 2nd and final Calabash prototype. Note black stain and lattice/meerschaum bowl. Junction of stem to gourd to be improved. It is a nylon stem with threaded insert commonly used for New meerschaums. This pipe is most large.
| Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:05 am Post subject: |   | ||
I wrote, and I Quote: There are of course suppositions, but the most common was that he was bi-polar. Concerning his spiritual state, there was mention. When I get home tonight I'll respond. I don't want to misquote but thats an excellent question so I want to give it a good answer. | |||
Feb 28, 2007 12:21 pm
Short Answer: He was ecstatically pious.
Long Answer:You need to look at the question, "Why did Van Gogh cut off his ear?" The author of this book, at first specualtes that he was somehow emulating or trying to right the wrongs of "Jack the Ripper."
Vincent & Gauguin would read and follow crime in the local newspaper.
Jack the Ripper was international news. Vincen had spent some time as an evangelist near London. This was to be his vocation but he never finished (was kicked out) his education, and his congregation thought him mad and had him removed.
JTR had hacked off one of his victims ears.
His victims were mostly prostitutes. When Vincent cut off his ear and delivered it to a prostitue at one of the brothels he frequented, some say he was making this offering as a gesture of goodwill, empathizing with their lowly stature.
Others speculated he cut off his ear to put a stop to his auditory hallucinations.
Gauguin's interpretation was more Biblical.
He said that when Vincent presented his ear to the prostitute he said to her "you will remember me, verily I tell you this." When asked why he did it, Vincent replied that his reason were "quite personal."
After subsequent attacks Vincent said he was plagued be religious fears, what he also dubbed "religious exhultation. and frightful ideas about religion." He identified greatly with the story of Christ's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane when he foresaw his arrest, torture and crucifixion.
In the new Testament, after Christ accepted his fate, Judas burst into the garden with armed men, [sic] to arrest him. When the disciples saw what was going to happen, they thought of defending Christ by force, "And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear."
Vincent also read avidly the works of Emile Zola.
In his fantasy novel, The Sin of Father Mouret , the central figure, a priest, was ecstatically pious and collapsed in front of a stutue of theVirgin and later awoke in an overgrown garden. The priest is nursed back to health by a woman who was to become his lover. They were later driven from the garden by a viloent and local friar, Brother Archangias.
The priest, FatherMouret, later returned for his lover's funeral. When he finished his prayers, he calmly pulled a knife from hi pocket, opened it, and cut of the friar's ear!
In his writings, Vincent implied that his spiritual struggles were more compelling than his struggles with the flesh.
So, its hard to say whether Vincent cut off his ear to: punish himself the way the friar Archangias had been punished, or as St. Peter punished the soldier in Gethsemane, or as the prostitute had been punished by Jack the Ripper. But remember, it was Gauguin his "comrade" who refers to his actions as "Biblical mortifications."
Serioulsy though, I'm glad you did. Thanks.
Tonight @ 7: SHPC Boston
Read the article I wrote on beginner pipemaking in the March 2007 Sherlock Holmes Pipe Club of Boston newsletter. If your reading this in mid April , 2007 or after, go to http://www.shpcboston.org/mar07.htm.
I thought I was nearing completion with Pipe 708 but my wife told me what I alredy knew but didn't want to admit. It needs to be either carved or smoothe. I had sanded down some of the carving trying to tone it done a little and it just looked a little crappy so I need to continue sanding and make it smooth. IT will be nice.
My brother once told me, while fishing with a rubber worm, "if you think your reeling it in too slow, your not reeling it in slow enough." This translates to piemaking as well:
"When you think your done sanding, you need to sand some more."
Just added to the personal collection, for restoration:
Save the Calabash !
[PICTURES OF PIPE 708 TO FOLLOW]
In continuation of the Van Gogh peasant pipe inspiration, 708 or pipe proletarienne, I hand carved with a knife, complete with cuts and divots.
Unique to this pipe are the matt black cuffs: the rim of the bowl and the end of the shank. (see pics above) These are in response to the four "dress black" pipes I tried so earnestly to make, never satisfied with the black. Short of soaking the briar, I tried everything. Anyway Cuffs; you saw them here first.
Other pipes in the series:
Also important to note, growing up, this (Artco) planter sat on the windowsill, above the sink. I own the house now, and it still sits thereabouts reminding me of my childhood and forcasting the pipemaker I came to be!
