Sherlock Holmes’ 164th birthday showcased a dizzying array of artistic and intellectual tributes to the Master’s memory.
Prior to the Dinner, Patricia Izban was honored as The Woman. Michael J. Quigley toasted the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson. Tamar Zeffren offered the toast to Mycroft Holmes. Donny Zaldin honored Watson's second wife. Richard Kitts toasted the guest of honor, Sherlock Holmes. Curtis Armstrong led the responsive reading of the Musgrave Ritual. Jerry Margolin paid tribute to an Old Irregular, Norman Nolan. Hartley Nathan read the Constitution and Buy-Laws.
Guests were then treated to “intriguing” presentations attesting to the wide range of subject mastery evident among the assembled Irregulars. Ross Davies, accompanied by visual aids, demonstrated the Allies’ stratagems for circulating their literature undetected in gift boxes. Maria Fleischhack lectured on Germans in the Canon and methods of disguise. Will Walsh plumbed the depths of submarine warfare.
Francine Kitts led the assembled to “Stand with me here upon the terrace” to honor Irregulars who had passed during the previous year.
Ten Irregulars then received their Shilling. John Linsenmeyer, former Baker Street Journal editor, was honored with the Two-Shilling Award. The evening concluded with the traditional recital of Vincent Starrett’s “221B.”
Attendees had a near-immediate opportunity to recap the previous evening’s events, as well as the preceding 12 months, at Saturday’s Cocktail Reception at the Yale Club. The formidable legal and poetic team of Judge Albert Rosenblatt and Betsy Rosenblatt performed their masterful and anticipated-year-round poetic rhymed synopsis of the previous year and of the Birthday Weekend.
Dinner Details: January 12, 2018
The Yale Club, New York
Dinner Photo Information
Click on the above photo to see a larger version of it, and maximize your browser window to see the most detail.
Key to People in the 2018 BSI Dinner photo (not available at this time, but see the 2018 Table Seat Assignments PDF).
BSI Honours List
Investitures:
Shannon Carlisle as Beacons of the Future!
Dean Clark as Watson's Journal
Denny Dobry as A Single Large Airy Sitting-Room
Maria Fleischhack as Rache
Jeffrey Hatcher as The Five Orange Pips
Anastasia Klimchynskaya as An Old Russian Woman
Candace J. Lewis as A Little Art Jargon
Nick Martorelli as Seventeen Steps
Rebecca Romney as That Gap on the Second Shelf
Al Shaw as Sir Hugo Baskerville
Two-Shilling Award:
John Linsenmeyer
The Woman:
Patricia Izban (Mrs. Donald B. Izban)
"Stand with me here upon the terrace..."
(as named at this Dinner, not their year of passing)
Ted Bergman (Honourable Philip Green, 1978)
Ted Friedman (The Commonplace Book, 1995)
Barry Hapner (Inspector Forrester, 1983)
Morris Lebowitz (Arthur H. Staunton, the Forger, 1970)
Robert Moss (The Case of Fairdale Hobbs, 1977)
Donald Yates (Mr. Melas, later changed to The Greek Interpreter, 1972)
What is the origin of “standing on the terrace?”
Morley-Montgomery Award:
Susan E. Bailey, "Whitehall Place Irregulars: Female Searchers and Suspects in Nineteenth-century London"
The Baker Street Journal 67:1 (Spring 2017): 24-31.
What is the Morley-Montgomery Award?
The BSI Distinguished Speaker Lecture:
Martin Edwards, “Sherlock Holmes and the Detection Club”
The Baker Street Journal 68.1 (Spring 2018): 28-35.
What is the BSI Distinguished Speaker Lecture?
Reports on the Dinner
The Baker Street Journal 68.1 (Spring 2018): 48-58.
Blau, Peter, Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press, (January 2018): 1-2.
List of 2018 BSI Dinner Attendees (PDF)
Recordings
A recording of portions of the 2018 BSI Dinner will be available in the BSI Archive.
Related Material
Rosenblatt, Albert M., and Betsy Rosenblatt, “BSI Poem 2018,” The Baker Street Journal 68.1 (Spring 2018): 58-62. The Rosenblatts’ rhyming retrospective, delivered at the January 13, 2018 Sherlockian Cocktail Reception.
Previous dinner: the 2017 BSI Dinner
Next dinner: the 2019 BSI Dinner
For an index to all BSI Dinners and photos, see our BSI Dinner Summary list.
Material in the BSI Archive may be used by any qualified scholar, subject to the normal rules and regulations of the library. For links to a detailed finding aid and related information, see our BSI Archive page.
Page composed on 1/15/21 by Tamar Zeffren.
This page last updated 3/1/21 by Randall Stock.
