Peterson Hopkins

No, you haven’t fallen into a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but an excerpt from the papers of long-time friend Charles Mundungus on schlecter rauch or “The Bad Smoke,” specifically on why we don’t get along with some of our pipes and what, if anything, can be done about it. As the pipe he uses for his analysis is a Peterson, I thought readers might find it of some interest.   No Briar Without Thorns “Pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest,” said he. “Nothing has more individuality save perhaps watches and bootlaces.” —Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventure of the Yellow Face” (1893) The mystics and contemplatives among us sometimes speak of their pipes as companions rather than objects or acquisitions. As I see myself among this minority of minorities, when I spot a neglected pipe, then eventually—whether it be a few months or even a few years—I have to reckon with the fact that something has gone wrong in our relationship. For those collectors who rarely smoke the same pipe from one month to another, this is a non-issue.  But those who turn to a stable rotation of pipes for dependable support may feel a twinge of guilt in realizing they consistently pass over one pipe in favor of another, more promising one. As it accumulates dust, tarnish, oxidation and even cobwebs, the neglected pipe may actually disappear in plain sight, a mummy in the rack. When sighted in a moment of anger or irritation, it may be traded in or hastily sold on the estate market with residual ill-will. Why does this happen? Why does the pipe smoker become enamored with a pipe, acquire it, then not smoke it? I believe that self-awareness here, as elsewhere in life, can enrich the contemplative practice of pipe smoking. In that conviction, I suggest five schlecter rauch or “bad smoke” scenarios that lead to a parting of the ways between pipe smoker and pipe: The way the pipe looks. The way the pipe feels in hand. The way the pipe clenches. The way the pipe smokes. The synchronicity of any of the above. The smoker may often find even one of these damaging enough to desert a pipe, but two or more is usually damning. As I’ve worked through all five with a Hopkins (aka shapes XL27 and B51) from Peterson’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2011) quartet, it provides an instructive test case.   1. The Look The Hopkins was named after the promising young Scotland Yarder, Stanley Hopkins, who solicited Holmes’s advice in three stories from 1904’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes: “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez,” “The Adventure of Black Peter” and “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.” Unlike some of Peterson’s other SH shapes, I can perceive no visual analogy betwixt shape and character. Unlike its affably intrepid namesake, in fact, the Hopkins shape at first repelled me. But as with the Hansom, shape XL26 from Peterson’s Return of Sherlock Holmes series, I found myself almost haunted by it, coming back…