05.23.2010
Ceci est une pipe (2)
By: Joshua Glenn | Categories: Codebreaking

HiLo Hero J.R.R. Tolkien, whose novels celebrated Hobbit pipe-weed so lavishly that Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell developed a semi-coherent paranoid theory arguing that the Shire’s surfeit of that addictive crop leads to Middle Earth-wide war, was a voracious pipe-smoker. It’s said he favored Capstan Navy Cut or Player’s Navy Cut tobaccos.

J.R.R. Tolkien's drawing of Bag-End, with a pipe-smoking hobbit

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Second in a series of twelve items analyzing the pipe’s role in hilobrow culture.

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Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based writer, publisher, and cultural semiologist-for-hire. He is coauthor and/or co-editor of TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY, THE IDLER'S GLOSSARY, THE WAGE SLAVE'S GLOSSARY, and — in 2012 — the object-oriented story collection SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS, and the kids' field guide to life UNBORED. He is editor of HILOBROW and publisher of the science fiction imprint HILOBOOKS; and he is co-founder of SEMIONAUT and the SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS experiment. In the '00s, Glenn was an editor, columnist, and blogger (BRAINIAC) for the Boston Globe's IDEAS section, and he was new media producer for the paper's LIVING/ARTS section. In the '90s, he published the seminal high-lowbrow zine/journal HERMENAUT; was an editor at UTNE READER; and was co-producer of the pioneering DIY how-to website and social network TRIPOD. Glenn produced and co-designed the iPhone app KER-PUNCH. He manages a secretive online community known as THE HERMENAUTIC CIRCLE. He does business as KING MIXER, LLC.