Article in NY Times

I never realized before exactly what a "hookah" is, but I was well familiar with the "double reed" version.

(Instrument in the "Perückenstuck" movement of PDQ Bach's "The Civilian Barber")

Actually I had thought it was a double reed slide hookah, but I was confusing it with the "double reed slide music stand."

im just curious, has anyone on here played the piano while high?

I thought you grew up in the sixties.

wat

I was there but I don't think I grew up yet.

Well I'm not your age my good mate, but I love the song 'White Rabbit' by Grace Slick, so I knew the word hookah:

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

Would you believe, I heard the Jefferson Airplane in 1967....

That's awesome, Mark. That was the year 'Surrealistic Pillow' came out which, of course, contains 'White Rabbit'.

Might you have heard them at the Fillmore East in the Village?

My mother was a bit too young for the 'Summer of Love', but she made up for lost time and became quite the pot smoker. If I recall, it was one of her boyfriends who introduced her to the Jefferson Airplane... and years later I listened to some of her old LPs and got hooked on them, and a lot of '60's music in general. I have quite a cool selection of CDs from that era.

Good guess! .....but no, it was in upstate NY, at Ithaca College. (I was at Cornell and this was just across town.)

I mostly wasn't much into that kind of music but I'd gotten to know the Airplane from their being on the Smothers Brothers show a few times.

P.S. Now I guess we have to talk for a while about the Smothers Brothers.....

Who were they?

Oops, just Googled. That must have been a fun tv show. Weren't the Jefferson Airplane also on Dick Cavett?

Dunno.....I did watch a bit of Cavett (and even was in the studio audience for the FINAL show of one of his runs) but don't remember that he had music on any of his shows. But he might have.

Cavett once had Jimi Hendrix on the show. But I think it was only interview not performance.

That's more like the kind of thing I remember.

I seem to remember the Jefferson Airplane performing on Cavett's show...Crown of Creation.

Well..... after Ferdinand said it too, I figured I'd look a little, and inside of 2 seconds, I saw that y'all are.....RIGHT!

Back to the original question:

Surely the double reed hookah would be OK since you'd blow into it rather than inhaling! Much better health effects by far.

Elene

In other words, we could honestly say "We didn't inhale."

I like the hookah (remember that I'm Greek). I was in Syria once for a recital (as a pianist, not a composer), and they do love their hookahs there. Of course we call it "narghile"...

Now, just a bit of information to avoid any misconceptions: You don't get high smoking through a hookah, no more than you get high smoking a cigarette. If you smoke a specific type of tobacco then yes, but this can happen in normal cigarettes and a hookah.

Ps. I do longer smoke. Never had done a cigarette in my life, I don't enjoy it, but I still would like to smoke occasionally a hookah. Problem is that my wife used to be a chain smoker, and if I was to bring a hookah at home, she would probably fall back to smoking, which I REALLY can't allow to happen.

It was a good show and the video you posted was featured on it.