Just finished watching the Dan Hurley presser in which he was introduced as the new head coach at UConn and I'm very optimistic for the future of our men's basketball team. Anyway, in salute to the coach, a little Nightcap to end the work day.
@Bentbrier Although I recall that neither calabash nor deerstalker were part of Holmes' outfit according to the Holmes Canon. (Selections, below, from the FREE PDF Pipe Smoking LIbrary folder.)
<<Lastly, let’s look at Holmes and his pipes. According to the Canon (the 56 short stories and four novels written by Conan Doyle), Holmes only had three pipes- a blackened “disreputable” clay (which he liked to smoke when in a disputatious mood), an oily briar and a cherrywood. By now, you’ve probably noticed a discrepancy here- no Calabash. The gourd Calabash is the pipe most identified with Holmes, with its deep bend, golden color with the whitish meerschaum bowl and chamber and black military stem, but this pipe was never mentioned in any of the stories. It became associated with Holmes because of an American actor named William Gillette (who built Gillette Castle in Connecticut) who chose it so his pipe wouldn’t block his face from the audience, and the smoke would also be out of his line of sight. The Calabash would have been impractical for Holmes to smoke outside of 221B Baker Street as it is a large and unwieldy pipe. As a bit of an inside joke, although Jeremy Brett never smoked a Calabash in the British Granada TV series, if you look on his mantel in some of the shows, you will see one lying on the shelf.>>
<<The bent pipe is as much a part of the popular image of Holmes as is the deerstalker, though the texts of "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" and "Silver Blaze" (the _Strand_ illustrations to which feature the deerstalker) are not specific as to that either. As noted, the _Strand_ illustrators show a pipe with a straight stem. Paget tended to draw the shape called 'Dublin' which has a straight stem and a bowl which widens slightly towards the top. This shape is close to the Victorian form of the clay, and the pipe shown by Paget may in fact be intended as a clay rather than a briar. Frank Wiles shows a 'billiard', ie straight stem and more or less cylindrical bowl in his illustration to _The Valley of Fear_, and this pipe has a thickish stem with a silver band, so is either a briar or a meerschaum. The front cover of the January 1927 issue of the _Strand_, illustrating "The Retired Colourman", shows this pipe again, and it is clearly a briar. The bent seems to have originated with the 1899 stage production of Sherlock Holmes_ with William Gillette in the title role. Gillette's publicity photographs show him in a splendidly embroidered dressing gown, smoking a bent briar. Gillette adopted the bent shape because he found difficulty delivering his lines with a straight-stemmed pipe. In contrast to the _Strand_ illustrators, the illustrators of Collier's seem to have favoured the bent, as seen very well on the front cover of the August 1908 issue in which Frederick Dorr Steele illustrates "Wisteria Lodge". Perhaps it may be that Gillette's being American was an influence here, though that must remain pure speculation. One interesting fact is that the Danish actor Alwin Neuss smoked a bent meerschaum in _Den Stjaalne Million-Obligation_ released by Nordisk Films in 1908. It would be odd if Holmes had not possessed a meerschaum, as they were then so popular, but there is no mention in the Canon of his owning one, and it may be that the Neuss film is one origin of the later emphasis on the calabash, which has a removable meerschaum bowl. Other big-screen actors such as Eille Norwood in _The Sign of Four_, in 1923, and Clive Brook in "Sherlock Holmes", in 1932, used the bent briar, perhaps following where Gillette had led, and Basil Rathbone – arguably the most influential portrayer of Holmes on the cinema screen – did the same in his dozen films for Universal, effectively guaranteeing that the bent would be permanently identified with Holmes in the public mind. The calabash, a section cut from the narrow end of a gourd with the same name, with a wide, flat, removable meerschaum bowl, can be seen – very briefly – making an appearance in the 1965 film, _A Study in Terror_, and again in Wilder's 1970 _The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes_, although it is difficult to be certain that there are no earlier occurrences. What is almost certain is that Holmes is very unlikely to have been much of an enthusiast for the calabash, even if he did own one. The gourd acts as an expansion chamber, not only cooling the smoke – acceptable enough – but also removing some of the tars and nicotine from it, and that is not likely to find much favour with a man who habitually smokes the strongest tobacco he can buy. If Holmes did own a calabash, it was probably a gift from a grateful client, and is unlikely to have seen much use.>>
@motie2 good info. When I first started smoking a pipe, I read all the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels I could find. Of course you're correct no calabash or deer stalker they showed up later in film. I think a calabash would be too "fancy" for Holmes more utalirarian tastes. I like them though.
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Although I recall that neither calabash nor deerstalker were part of Holmes' outfit according to the Holmes Canon.
(Selections, below, from the FREE PDF Pipe Smoking LIbrary folder.)
<<Lastly, let’s look at Holmes and his pipes. According to the Canon (the 56 short stories and four novels written by Conan Doyle), Holmes only had three pipes- a blackened “disreputable” clay (which he liked to smoke when in a disputatious mood), an oily briar and a cherrywood. By now, you’ve probably noticed a discrepancy here- no Calabash. The gourd Calabash is the pipe most identified with Holmes, with its deep bend, golden color with the whitish meerschaum bowl and chamber and black military stem, but this pipe was never mentioned in any of the stories. It became associated with Holmes because of an American actor named William Gillette (who built Gillette Castle in Connecticut) who chose it so his pipe wouldn’t block his face from the audience, and the smoke would also be out of his line of sight. The Calabash would have been impractical for Holmes to smoke outside of 221B Baker Street as it is a large and unwieldy pipe. As a bit of an inside joke, although Jeremy Brett never smoked a Calabash in the British Granada TV series, if you look on his mantel in some of the shows, you will see one lying on the shelf.>>
<<The bent pipe is as much a part of the popular image of Holmes as is the deerstalker, though the texts of "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" and "Silver Blaze" (the _Strand_ illustrations to which feature the deerstalker) are not specific as to that either. As noted, the _Strand_ illustrators show a pipe with a straight stem. Paget tended to draw the shape called 'Dublin' which has a straight stem and a bowl which widens slightly towards the top. This shape is close to the Victorian form of the clay, and the pipe shown by Paget may in fact be intended as a clay rather than a briar. Frank Wiles shows a 'billiard', ie straight stem and more or less cylindrical bowl in his illustration to _The Valley of Fear_, and this pipe has a thickish stem with a silver band, so is either a briar or a meerschaum. The front cover of the January 1927 issue of the _Strand_, illustrating "The Retired Colourman", shows this pipe again, and it is clearly a briar. The bent seems to have originated with the 1899 stage production of Sherlock Holmes_ with William Gillette in the title role. Gillette's publicity photographs show him in a splendidly embroidered dressing gown, smoking a bent briar. Gillette adopted the bent shape because he found difficulty delivering his lines with a straight-stemmed pipe. In contrast to the _Strand_ illustrators, the illustrators of Collier's seem to have favoured the bent, as seen very well on the front cover of the August 1908 issue in which Frederick Dorr Steele illustrates "Wisteria Lodge". Perhaps it may be that Gillette's being American was an influence here, though that must remain pure speculation. One interesting fact is that the Danish actor Alwin Neuss smoked a bent meerschaum in _Den Stjaalne Million-Obligation_ released by Nordisk Films in 1908. It would be odd if Holmes had not possessed a meerschaum, as they were then so popular, but there is no mention in the Canon of his owning one, and it may be that the Neuss film is one origin of the later emphasis on the calabash, which has a removable meerschaum bowl. Other big-screen actors such as Eille Norwood in _The Sign of Four_, in 1923, and Clive Brook in "Sherlock Holmes", in 1932, used the bent briar, perhaps following where Gillette had led, and Basil Rathbone – arguably the most influential portrayer of Holmes on the cinema screen – did the same in his dozen films for Universal, effectively guaranteeing that the bent would be permanently identified with Holmes in the public mind. The calabash, a section cut from the narrow end of a gourd with the same name, with a wide, flat, removable meerschaum bowl, can be seen – very briefly – making an appearance in the 1965 film, _A Study in Terror_, and again in Wilder's 1970 _The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes_, although it is difficult to be certain that there are no earlier occurrences. What is almost certain is that Holmes is very unlikely to have been much of an enthusiast for the calabash, even if he did own one. The gourd acts as an expansion chamber, not only cooling the smoke – acceptable enough – but also removing some of the tars and nicotine from it, and that is not likely to find much favour with a man who habitually smokes the strongest tobacco he can buy. If Holmes did own a calabash, it was probably a gift from a grateful client, and is unlikely to have seen much use.>>
Frog on the Town in my Yello-bole bamboo apple with a cup of PG Tips English Breakfast tea (with milk of course).