U N I V E R S I T Y   C L U B   O F   C H I C A G O

                      CIGAR NEWS March 25, 2006


THE NEXT informal gathering of the U Club Cigar Society will take
place in the Tower Club bar on Tuesday, March 28, 5-7pm.  BYO cigars
and each member signs his own chit.  All University Club and Tower
Club members are invited, and guests interested in a smoke and a
cocktail in good company are always welcome.

March 28 is the 70th birthday of Peruvian novelist and journalist
Mario Vargas Llosa.  In 1995 Vargas Llosa was awarded the Cervantes
Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's most distinguished literary
honor, and the Jerusalem Prize, which is given to writers whose
work expresses the idea of freedom of the individual in society.
Suggested reading for this week's meeting is his masterpiece,
The War of the End of the World, which the Boston Globe called
"the most powerful Latin American epic novel since Gabriel Garcia
Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude."   Salman Rushdie called
this novel "as dark as spilled blood...a modern tragedy on a grand
scale."
 

Mario Vargas Llosa
 

On a somewhat lighter note, speaking of communism and the erosion
of civil liberties in contemporary society, Vargas Llosa wrote:

It is impossible not to feel civic solidarity with smokers,
who are in many ways treated as second-class citizens,
prohibited from practicing their addiction in most public
places, burdened with guilt, and aware of their pitiful
condition, like the lepers of the Middle Ages.

In 1990 Vargas Llosa failed in his bid to become president of Peru,
but successfully and very heavily smoked himself across the country
during his campaign, which included a smokeout in the Amazon jungle
at the home of cigar club regular, Victor TUTIVEN ABREU, in Iquitos.

Also on March 28th, our own J. Douglas JOHNSON will continue his
discussion of left-wing despots versus right-wing despots, taking
Vargas Llosa's LA Times article But Meantime, What of Castro? as a
starting point.

Cigar Club member Jorge del CASTILLO confesses that,

I only celebrate the birthdays of Cubans who oppose Castro
or those who despise him.  Vargas is in the right camp even
though he is not Cuban.  Since he is going to be 70 we may
have a cigar anyway.  I have been saving some Salomons for
special occasions.  I however will be in the wrong camp on
the 28th (in Tucson) playing golf and smoking cigars.  See
you for the next one.

Coming up. . .

In April our Tower Club cigar nights are Tuesdays, April 11 and 15.
In May our Tower Club cigar nights are Tuesdays, May 16 and 30.

We are planning a Cigar Club Dinner and Scotch Whisky Tasting
for a Thursday in May, to be determined, with a guest speaker
from Johnny Walker.

And on one of our Tuesdays in April or May, our own Jorge del
CASTILLO has been volunteered to lead the discussion at our next
Cigar Club / Book Club Night of Holy Smoke, by Cuban-born anti-
communist and British novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante (winner
of the Cervantes Prize in 1997), near the first anniversary of
Cabrera Infante's untimely death.
 

 

From the review in Publisher's Weekly:

This curious volume is a potpourri of information and lore
about cigars, their smokers from Rodrigo de Xeres of
Columbus's crew to Winston Churchill and Castro, their
manufacture, their sale and their appearance in song and
story.  All this is presented in a style brim full of literary
references to Congreve, Conan Doyle, Ogden Nash, Italo
Calvino and other writers through every paragraph.  The
cigar-smoking on-screen images of W. C. Fields, Groucho
Marx, Orson Welles and Gary Cooper are evoked; the
author also considers cigarettes and their contrasting
Hollywood image. 

About Cabrera Infante, Vargas Llosa wrote,

For the sake of a joke, a parody, a pun, an acrobatic stunt
of wit, a verbal ricochet, Mr. Cabrera Infante has always
been prepared to make all the enemies on earth, to lose his
friends and perhaps his life.  Because for him, humor is not
as it is for common mortals, a mere recreation of the spirit,
a diversion that relaxes the mind, but rather a compulsive
way of challenging the world as it is.

See also An Interview with Guillermo Cabrera Infante from the
Center for Book Culture, and Stephen Schwartz's NY Post obituary,
A Champion of Liberty.

In our last meeting. . .

Jimmy SMITH was the first to arrive, after a long absence, having
been smoking at east-coast clubs instead.  Steven DICKMAN and Dayne
CANNOVA talked about German rocket scientists during the war years,
Joe SCHEIDLER gave a basketball update, and Peter BARRETT stopped
by for a few seconds.   John NELSON, a cigar club regular, is
officially joining the University Club this month, sponsored by
David PRINDABLE.  Jaime ANGULO discussed the need for a smoking
lounge, and offered to organize an outing to the Dominican Republic
to visit his buddy Carlos Fuentes, Jr. for a long weekend of cigar-
smoking, eating, drinking, hunting, and golfing.  Harry HIGBIE
agreed to attend if there would also be sky diving.

                                      Respectfully submitted by
                                        Your loyal secretary,
                                          Curtis TUCKEY