Four Twenty!

i imagine today is the perfect day for relating my latest cultural experience: the sharing of a shisha, known more commonly as the hookah, the ancient persian precursor to what is now common american drug paraphernalia.

SEE ALSO: bong

the theory behind the shisha is rather simple; effectively an elaborate pipe, it employs an ingeniously simple water filtration system for a smoother high...er, draw. it stands upon a base composed of an enclosed chamber filled partially with water, and at the peak of this chamber the hollow shaft of the device penetrates down, extending beneath the level of the water. the shaft also extends up to a platform on which you attach the bowl of the "substance" to be smoked; you then place hot coals upon said substance as a heat source. the chamber has two other penetrations, each above the water level; to one is attached the communal mouth piece, and the other serves as a pressure relief valve should anyone decided to blow into, rather than draw upon, that mouthpiece.

when one draws upon the mouthpiece, a decrease in pressure in the air above the water in the chamber creates a relative vacuum with respect to atmospheric pressure. this causes the atmosphere to push through the bowl of substance, creating smoke which then travels down into the shaft, eventually bubbling into the upper chamber of the water-filled base. as the smoke passes through the water, it is filtered, and it then passes via the hose and mouthpiece to the user.

this creates a phenomenally smooth smoke. everyone knows you puff at a cigar, and hold the smoke in your mouth, allowing the nicotine to transfer to the blood through the soft tissues in the mouth. this is so you don't choke. a cigarette, the plebeian estranged cousin of the cigar, for some reason, some are able to inhale--i, for one, cannot, despite the obviously inherent glamour of being able to do so. the smoke of the shisha, on the other hand, is almost ethereal in quality, and each inhalation is accompanied by a slight light-headedness that borders upon euphoria (as opposed to an irrepressible gag reflex and the urge to vomit).

i will be bringing this custom back with me to the americas, a modern-day marco polo, and the shisha will be one of the central experiences at my "i missed 2007" party.