Sherlock Holmes’s 160th birthday also marked the 80th birthday of the BSI. It was celebrated with tri-colored cupcakes that matched Holmes’s dressing gown (blue, purple, and mouse) and after-dinner brandy.
Mike Berdan toasted Mrs. Hudson. Theodora (Teddie) Niver gave the toast to Mycroft Holmes. Glen Miranker had us raise our glasses to Watson's second wife, and Mark Levy toasted Sherlock Holmes. David Houle led the responsive reading of the Musgrave Ritual.
Jan Burke spoke on the forensic nature of Holmes’s work. Judge Albert Rosenblatt led a debate among Andrew Fusco, Leslie Klinger, Lou Lewis, John Linsenmeyer, Andrew Peck, and Betsy Rosenblatt on whether to amend the BSI’s Constitution and Buy-Laws. Sonia Fetherston spoke of an Old Irregular, Bliss Austin. Henry Boote led the musical presentation. Francine Kitts, once again, performed a moving “Standing upon the Terrace” ceremony, remembering those whom we have lost.
Seven deserving Irregulars received their Shilling. Marilyn Nathan was toasted as The Woman. Randall Stock received the Two-Shilling Award for extraordinary devotion to the cause beyond the call of duty. Les Klinger was awarded the Edgar W. Smith Intrepid Irregular Award for his role on behalf of the public domain status of Sherlock Holmes qua literary character and all other canonical characters and events that currently exist in the public domain in the United States.
The evening concluded with Evelyn Herzog reciting Vincent Starrett’s “221B.”
At the next day’s Sherlockian Cocktail Reception at the New York City Bar Association, Judge Albert Rosenblatt and his daughter, Betsy Rosenblatt, once again performed their remarkable rhyming summation of the previous year and of the Festivities. Paul Singleton, Nick Martorelli, and Mary Ellen Rich performed a Sherlock Holmes radio play.
Dinner Details: January 17, 2014
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 2014 BSI Dinner photo (not available at this time, but see the 2014 Table Seat Assignments (PDF)
BSI Honours List
Investitures:Mark Alberstat as Halifax
Sonia Fetherston as The Solitary Cyclist
Harrison Hunt as The Something Hunt
Peter McIntyre as Arthur Cadogan West
Jacquelynn Morris as The Lion's Mane
Christopher Music as Wagner Night at Covent Garden
SJ Rozan as The Imperial Palace of Peking
* received Investiture at another event during the year
What is an Investiture?
Two-Shilling Award:
Randall Stock.
What is a Two-Shilling Award?
The Woman:
Marilyn (Mrs. Hartley) Nathan.
What is The Woman honour?
"Stand with me here upon the terrace..."
(as named at this Dinner, not their year of passing)
Peter G. Ashman (Peter Steiler the Elder, 1982)
Vincent Brosnan (That Gap on That Second Shelf, 2011)
Robert C. Burr (The Rascally Lascar, 1987)
Father George Leonard Cochran (Cardinal Tosca, 1973)
Irving Kamil (Monsieur Oscar Meunier of Grenoble, 1981)
Theodore G. Schulz (The Amateur Mendicant Society, 1961)
Dr. James E. Smith, II (Winner of the Jackson Prize, 1998)
Dr. Gerald N. Wachs (Sir James Saunders, 1995)
What is the origin of “standing on the terrace?”
Morley-Montgomery Award:
Anastasia Klimchynskaya, "A Study in Scarlet and the Study of Mankind: Sherlock Holmes and Pope's Essay on Man."
The Baker Street Journal 63.4 (Winter 2013): 25-31.
What is the Morley-Montgomery Award?
The BSI Distinguished Speaker Lecture:
James O’Brien, “Reassessing Holmes the Scientist”
The Baker Street Journal 64.1 (Spring 2014): 6-21.
What is the BSI Distinguished Speaker Lecture?
Reports on the Dinner
The Baker Street Journal 64.1 (Spring 2014): 51-63.Blau, Peter, Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press, (January 2014): 1-2.
List of 2014 BSI Dinner Attendees (PDF)
Recordings
A recording of portions of the 2014 BSI Dinner is available at Harvard as part of the BSI Archive.Related Material
Rosenblatt, Albert M., and Betsy Rosenblatt, “BSI Poem 2014,” The Baker Street Journal 64.1 (Spring 2014): 64-66. The Rosenblatts’ rhyming retrospective, delivered at the January 18, 2014 Sherlockian Cocktail Reception.Previous dinner: the 2013 BSI Dinner
Next dinner: the 2015 BSI Dinner
For an index to all BSI Dinners and photos, see our BSI Dinner Summary list.
The BSI Archive is located at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Archival material 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 at Harvard page.
Page composed on 4/28/2017 by Tamar Zeffren
This page last updated 4/29/2017 by Andrew Solberg.
