Bert Shapiro, of Pheasant’s Eye Productions, is a very talented independent filmaker. He makes short films about real people, doing real things.

And he concentrates on ways of life that are vanishing.

Ways of life like rolling cigars by hand in New York City.

Here, courtesy of Pheasant’s Eye, is a look at how a torcedor — a cigar roller — turns a pile of leaves into a work of art in the award winning short film Hand Rolled on 29th Street.

The film takes less than three minutes to view. If you have never had a chance to see how a cigar is rolled, you should find this especially fascinating.

More on Bert Shapiro, the filmaker, below the fold.

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You may have heard the story of President John F. Kennedy sending his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, out to buy a stockpile of Cuban cigars the night before he signed the Cuban embargo into law. You might have wondered if the story was true, or simply an urban legend.

Well, it is true.

Here, courtesy of Janson media, is some archival footage in which the late Pierre Salinger recounts the incident in his own words Just click on the player (you might have to click twice if you are using Internet Explorer) and you’ll learn some things not only about that incident, but about some cigars smuggled into the White House after the embargo became law:

More about the Cuban Petit Upmann and President Kennedy’s favorite cigar below the fold.

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First, let me warn you that clicking on some of the links in this post will take you to view things that are definitely NSFW (not safe for work).

This part of the post is PG-rated, unless like many in our over-politically-correct time, you think that cigars and smoking are R or X-rated subjects by themselves. The European television advertisements shown on the next page, however, would never get on the air in the U.S.A. even if they weren’t advertising tobacco products.

More’s the pity.

They are quite funny and very well done. They are advertisements for Independence Cigars, and the link to their website is also safe. Independence cigars are short-fillers, and I’m not sure if they have a North American distributor. The company is owned by Arnold André, one of the leading German manufacturers of cigars and cigarillos that was founded in 1817, and they seem to have learned quite a bit about marketing in that time.

The NSFW ads are below the fold.

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