Field of Science

Best seller - Up in Smoke?

The Phactor took one look at this book title, and all that came to mind was Up in Smoke, the 1978 stoner film with Cheech and Chong.  After all when you publish a book titled: Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke, what else would you think?  Well, actually lots of things, for example, incense.  Remember frankincense and myrrh were considered very valuable commodities in Biblical times.  And of course, delivering prayers or other messages by smoke, par fume, gave us the word perfume.  A colleague smoked rather cheap cigars because they kept insects, and everyone else, away, but many insect repellents are delivered via smoke.  Or the time the Phactor threw a huge arm load of green "ditch weed" (fiber race) on a campfire to dispose of it, and pretty soon an aromatic smoke covered a whole campground with the smell of burning hemp. Take that mosquitoes!  On one hand, this sounds like a fun, informative, if not rather esoteric book, but the last thing the Phactor needs is more ethnobotanical lecture material. The most esoteric thing in my files: an entire treatise on tooth sticks of the world.  HT to AoBBlog.

3 comments:

Beth at PlantPostings said...

How wonderful to have a pond--with Waterlilies! It must be relaxing to sit by the pond and view its beauty.

The Phytophactor said...

OK, one of us is on the wrong posting, but you are almost correct. "It must be relaxing to sit by the pond WITH A COCKTAIL and view its beauty." Yes, the lilies are wonderful, but the real aesthetic addition is the sound of the cascade.

The Phytophactor said...

OK, one of us is on the wrong posting, but you are almost correct. "It must be relaxing to sit by the pond WITH A COCKTAIL and view its beauty." Yes, the lilies are wonderful, but the real aesthetic addition is the sound of the cascade.