Two tapes, broken into four parts for the U Media Archive because of their length, have been uploaded from the Sherlock Holmes Collections. They are recordings of the 1994 Sixtieth Anniversary dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI) held on January 7th. The head of the BSI at the time was Tom Stix.
The first part includes the toast by Bill Schweickert to The Woman, Theresa Thomalen, during the pre-dinner cocktail party; the Sherlock Holmes prayer delivered by Dr. Ben Wood; a greeting read by Richard Shull from "the sage of Sante Fe," John Bennett Shaw; a greeting from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London by Geoffrey Stavert; a letter from Her Majesty's Government via Ambassador Sir Robin Renwick read by Richard Shull; expressions of thanks from Mr. Stix to those who assisted with the celebration; a reading of Elmer Davis's "BSI Constitution and Buy Laws" by Richard Miller; and a toast to Dr. Watson's Second Wife by Robert Katz.
The second part includes the continuation of the toast to Dr. Watson's Second Wife by Robert Katz; the "stand upon the terrace" obituaries read by Michael McClure; the Musgrave Ritual read by Kathryn White and David Stuart Davies; a toast to Mrs. Hudson by Ruthann Stetak; a toast to "The Game's afoot" by Ed Van der Flaes; a toast to "the second most dangerous man in London" by Steve Doyle; a toast to the Sherlockian spouse by Michael Kean; and Don Pollock on the demise of the Baker Street Miscellanea.
The third part includes the continuation of Don Pollock's presentation on the demise of the Baker Street Miscellanea; Bruce Montgomery's melodic tribute to his grand-aunt Clara and to his father, James; George Fletcher's anecdotal history of The Baker Street Journal; and a joint presentation by Susan Rice and Mickey Fromkin of some of the better Irregular poetry.
The final part includes comments by Tom Stix, Steve Rothman's discussion of the very early meetings of the BSI, and reminiscences of the annual dinners of the 1950s by David Weiss (who had been attending the annual dinners for more than 40 years). Irregular Shillings and Investitures were given to Peter J. Crupe ("The Noble Bachelor"), Mickey Fromkin ("The Missing Three-Quarter"), Ruthann Stetak ("The Camberwell Poisoning Case"), Geoffrey Stavert ("The Shingle of Southsea"), Bill Vande Water ("An Enlarged Photograph"), Don Izban ("Market Street"), Tom Joyce ("A Yellow-Backed Novel"), Hirotaka Ueda ("Japanese Armor"), Thomas Utecht ("Arthur Charpentier"), Francine Swift ("The Wigmore Street Post Office"), and Bruce Montgomery ("The Red Circle"). Eleanor O'Connor was awarded the Queen Victoria Medal in recognition of her many years of assistance to the BSI at the annual dinners, and Don Redmond (who was nearly ready to publish a new index to the Baker Street Journal updated through 1993) received the BSI's Two-Shilling Award. Bill Schweickert's own poetic birthday tribute to the Master, "A Long Evening With Holmes," ended the festivities.
2 comments:
Just to keep everything accurate, it was not Don Pollack who spoke about the demise of BSM. It was Donald Pollock. I'm not sure who Don Pollack is, but Donald Pollock would appreciate the correction!
My apologies to Don! I was working off the labels on the tapes, which were also in error. I've made the change in the original post to reflect Don's correct last name. Again, my apologies to Don.
I should also note that these recordings have since been removed from the U Media Archive at the request of the Baker Street Irregulars.
Post a Comment