Wolfgang Becker: Sandblasted Bent Apple with Boxwood (Wolf Paw) Tobacco Pipe

The smooth, simplified form of this Wolgang Becker creation may fall under the "Apple" category, but I suspect there has been more than a little influence from the wilder Japanese Blowfish/Fugu shapes of recent years. The reason for that is that this design presents what is, most definitely, a swimming motion. Stripped of the accentuating flares, panels, or ridges you'd find on a Blowfish/Fugu, it takes a moment or two to spot; then you notice the bowl is tilted ever-so-slightly to the left, relative to the drilling of the chamber, that the deep oval shank and transition are twisting, and that the stem is turning in a long curving motion, like a whip winding up for the crack.

- Eric N. Squires