Ceci est une pipe (12)
By: Joshua Glenn | Categories: Codebreaking

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This poster, circulated c. 1973, signals the end of the pipe as an artifact of interest to us. With the end of the Sixties, the pipe became kitsch.* What’s more, the forces of Middlebrow ruined the pipe’s physical nature: the pipe blog Briar Files notes that the product advertised by this New Agey poster was

made from phenolic resin, with an inner bowl liner of pyrolytic graphite. It was available in every color imaginable, and many more hues unlike any known colors of the normal spectrum (avocado green?–hoark!). THE PIPE could be cleaned with soap and water. Or you could just remove the stem and blast it clean with a blow torch, since it could survive temperatures at 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Moment of silence, please.

* Note the timing. In 1975, George W.S. Trow made an entry in his diary lamenting the kitschification of the fedora. During the years 1973-74 all changed, changed utterly.

***


Twelfth in a series of twelve items analyzing and celebrating 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 does business as KING MIXER, LLC. He is coauthor and/or co-editor of TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY, THE IDLER'S GLOSSARY, THE WAGE SLAVE'S GLOSSARY, the object-oriented story collection SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS, and the kids' field guide to life UNBORED. He is co-founder of the websites HILOBROW and SEMIONAUT; and co-founder of the science fiction imprint HILOBOOKS. He produced and co-designed the iPhone app KER-PUNCH. He manages a secretive online community known as THE HERMENAUTIC CIRCLE. In the '00s, Glenn was an editor, columnist, blogger (BRAINIAC), and new media producer at the BOSTON GLOBE. In the '90s, among other things, he published the philosophy/pop culture zine HERMENAUT; co-produced the DIY website and early online social network TRIPOD; and was an editor at UTNE READER.

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