Izban: No. I get nervous listening to that. Right now, I just do reading, occasional reading. Though I shouldn’t really confess to that since as you know, my motto is: “I’ve never read the Canon.” 

GS: How did it happen that the Canonical Convocation and Caper came about? 

Izban: Wellllll, that’s an interesting story, certainly a little bit intriguing. I thought there was a need for a convention type meeting for Sherlockians that wasn’t so academic and heavily scholarly, where everybody sits around and listens to the talks for two and half days and then goes home. My idea was that you hear enough of the talks when you’re at your own scion meetings, so I was looking for a good place where we could have some fun, kind of get divorced from the run of the mill scion activities. I selected Door County (a resort peninsula cum island in Wisconsin) because it’s fairly close to Chicago and a beautiful place. I picked the Waterbury Inn to hold it based on some recommendations that friends gave me — and we’ve been happy ever since. 
        Of course, as you know, the whole idea of the Canonical Convocation and Caper is to have fun and enjoy the Canon the way I think the originators of the Baker Street Irregulars would want to have it. I think all this serious stuff 
that’s going on now with Sherlock Holmes probably has cats like Morley and 
Starrett and those other guys turning in their graves. 

GS: Did you ever meet Vincent Starrett? 

Izban: No, Starrett died before I got really involved. I knew people that knew him. 

GS: Have you gone to any of the more serious scholarly conferences? 

Izban: Hah! Yeah, I’ve gone. I’ve been to the Autumn in Baker Street, which is 
pretty heavy. I portends to be somewhat light in scope but you get some pretty 
heavy talks in there. And they’re continuous. There is no break, just one talk after another for a day and a half. It’s tough sitting around. 
        They had a seminar in Williamsburg about five years ago. That’s where I met  Tom and Janet Biblewski, by the way. And that was very heavy — in about 100 
degree temperature with 95 degrees humidity. It was June in Williamsburg. 

GS: The first Sherlockian conference I ever went to was Williamsburg in 1987  
with John Bennett Shaw as moderator. That one? 

Izban: That was probably the first one. It was also hot then. Very hot. I didn’t go to that one. I knew John Bennett Shaw. Talked with him a lot, exchanged letters with him. Fantastic guy. 

GS: You add his spirit of humor for us and we can still get close to you — being alive and all that. You know what I 
mean?  

Izban: I know what you mean. I know what you mean. 

GS: Did you make the Minneapolis conference dedication of the Shaw 
Library?  
[Click for Shaw Library Dedication story] 

Izban: Yes, I did. That was kind of heavy too but I was there.

GS: Do you notice much difference between the East coast and the Midwest  
Irregulars?  

Izban: I don’t think so. I love all the BSI guys. They’re all interesting people — and knowledgeable. Any  my association with any of those people has always been very positive and, I’d say, wholesome. And in many cases, edifying when you sit down and talk to somebody, like John Bennett Shaw, for example. Or Tom Stix. He is a fountain of information and enlightenment, I would say. And Bob Thomalen. Most of them. I don’t have any problems with any of the BSI people. 

GS: They’re definitely a cut above the average. What’s the link to your  
investiture name “Market Street?” 

Izban: They try to give investitures that relate in some way to the person being invested. And Market Street, of course, is a street in Chicago, which is mentioned in The Valley of Fear. I don’t remember, not having ever read the story, as you know. 

GS: Yeah, like the Pinkerton agent came from Chicago. He knew that street. —  
What kind of reading do you like to do other than Sherlockian?  

Izban: I read a lot of sports stuff. A lot of golf. Once in a while I get hold of a good (Sherlockian) book and go through it. I read some of the pastiches. I like Derleth’s Solar Pons. That’s good stuff. I used to have the whole collection. I have one autographed by Derleth, the first one, I think. That’s kind of nice. 

GS: What kind of movies do you normally like?  

Izban: I go to the movies a lot. I keep my own little record. I give movies grades: A, B, C, D, F as opposed to two stars, three stars, four stars. I’ve given Fs to some of the movies considered by many to be great, like “Out of Africa.” I thought it was a terrible movie. One of the classics of all times, “Citizen Kane,” I didn’t even understand. I gave an A to “Strangers on a Train (with Robert Walker and Farley Granger), “Singing in the Rain,” and “Gone with the Wind.” My #1 favorite movie of all time is “Casablanca.” “The Maltese Falcon” puts me to sleep. I go on the average of three times every four weeks. I see around 30 movies a year. My wife goes maybe once or twice a year with me. At my age I can get in at the citizen senior rate so it’s not so bad. You know, save a couple bucks here and there. I AM unemployed, you understand. 

GS: I’m not sure we got to the mechanics of how and why you started some groups. 

Izban: Well, I started the Torists because I thought there was a need for a kind of blending of some of the good point of all the other groups. The Torists meet only four times a year for the “Games Own Sake,” and we tie in games now and then within the framework of our meetings. For example, we’ll meet at a billiard hall and play some billiards before we go out to dinner. We might have a guest speaker, like the time we had a rugby player to speak. That sort of thing. 
        STUD was a kind of spoofing of Christ’s abbreviations of all the stories.  
I thought that his choice of STUD was in rather poor taste. He could have picked 
SCAR since it was Study in Scarlet, in which case, maybe he would have offended all the plastic surgeons throughout the country. 
        The Colonel Sebastian Moran Secret Gun Club is another spoof. I say, it’s so secret that the members don’t even know who the other members are. And that’s pretty much the case. We have no dues. We have no by laws. And we have no officers. But we do have fun. 
       I just have the urge to do something a little different, something that might 
be fun. And after I get these things organized and started, I usually drop back and let somebody else take over. I’ve done that in a lot of the things. Dennis France is in charge of STUD now (succeeded by Allan Devitt in March 1998). The CCC is now under the direction of the Senters and Biblewskis. 

GS: How old are these groups?  

Izban: The CCC will be 10 in 1998. I had the STUD for about five years and Dennis for 1997 and 1998. The Torists are about 10 years old. They meet on the 27th of the month of the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th months of the year. No particular reason for that. It just happens to be the way we started it. The Gun Club meets only on leap years. Feb. 29, 1996, was our first meeting; so we won’t meet again until the year 2000. Everybody wants me to have more meetings but, I say, No. We meet every four years and on Feb. 29 people are expected to take off from work or whatever they are doing, and show up for the mongoose hunt. 

GS: That means the group that meets four times a year, the one that meets every four years, another that meets yearly, and another that meets monthly could overlap, all meet the same week — or day!  

Izban: Yes, it happens that more than one group has something on the same day. But, we seem to survive. It’s not the best arrangement. Some people accuse 
Chicago of having too many meetings and too many groups. But I don’t think so. Every one has it’s own personality and covers different needs. 

GS: How do you feel about women joining the BSI?   

Izban: Oh, that doesn’t bother me. As far as I’m concerned, the BSI and all the scion societies should be concerned with Sherlock Holmes and not with social morality or sociology. Whether the women are in or out is immaterial to me. I guess on balance I’d say we’re better off that they’re in. There are some good Sherlockians who are women. Why shouldn’t they be able to be members of the Baker Street Irregulars? 

GS: Despite the seeming oxymoron, are women STUDS?   

Izban: Ah, yes. STUD is Christ’s abbreviation and has nothing to do with some male guys jaunting around taking advantage of women. At one time, actually, STUD had more women members than men members. STUD is the largest Sherlockian society in Chicago right now, with more than 110 members, of whom maybe 65 are men, 55 women. It meets once a year in March to coincide with the Study in Scarlet story. 

GS: Are you a Hound of the Baskervilles, and are there women Hounds?   

Izban: They meet once a year, usually during the Michaelmas season between the end of September to mid October. No, there are no women because most of the Hounds have to be Hugo’s Companions first — and all Companions are males. The Companions meet about seven times a year. The Criterion Bar meets about seven times a year, irregularly. The Torists four times, the South Downers meet every month, the Scotland Yarders about seven times a year. 

GS: You didn’t start those last two, right?   

Izban: No. But I’m a member of them all. 

GS: Now, that you’re a Scholar/Problem, we hope you’ll get down to Nashville.  

Izban: I want to get there for your big celebration in 2000. Count on me. I’ll be there and I’ll even do some hypnosis and mind reading for you folks, if you like. 

GS: Will you do magic for us? 

Izban: Oh, I don’t do magic. I do experiments in parapsychology. Would you like one of my calling cards. More than one? Elliott is a wonderful magician. I am not a magician. The reason I call myself an experimental parapsychologist is if I screw up the magic trick, well I just say, “The experiment didn’t work.” (Handing over his two embossed card) These are my “Canonical Parapsychologist” cards. If you want me to do something for you, whatever it is, in 2000, I will do it, assuming I’m still alive and still doing this kind of thing. 

GS: How many things do you have in your Sherlockian collection? 

Izban: I used to have hundreds, maybe thousands, but when I retired, I gave them all to the Sherlock Holmes Center at the Chicago Public Library. I have maybe a shelf and a half of Sherlock Holmes. Not too much. A couple of good things though. Maybe 20 books in all. 

GS: You mean the library actually put aside space for a Sherlockian collection? 

Izban: Oh, yes. The main library on State Street contains a lot of Doyle stuff and a lot of Holmes stuff. Unfortunately, it’s not publicized too much. Even a lot of people that work at the library don’t know what’s there. 

GS: We’re dying to do that in Nashville. But they lack room until they build a new one. 

Izban: It’s tough. And you’ve always got to remember that when you’re getting 
public libraries to do things for you, in this case, Sherlock Holmes, somebody else wants something done on Hamlet, and somebody else would like something done on Falstaff, and someone else would like an Edgar Allan Poe Center. So it’s very difficult and you have all these political hacks working against one another. It’s pretty tough. 

GS: How did you pull it off? 

Izban: Well, we’re in the process. The people in Hugo’s Companions were trying to get this thing established somewhere, and I hear about it. We’re trying to do this somewhere, sometime, by somebody, and I remember saying one time, For Christ’s sake, when are we going to do something about this instead of talking about it? Somebody overheard that and said, Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you do something about it? — So I said, Well, all right, I will. 
        So, then, we had a nice dinner and Peter Blau came in from Washington, D.C., and we kind of got the Chicago Public Library behind the movement. They accepted some books and some money and agreed to publicize the collection as best they could. But, as with anything else, it had its ups and downs depending who’s in charge of the library and who’s in charge of the Dedicated Association of Lomax, which is the group that works with the library in publicizing the center. But it’s worked out. At last, we have something. 

GS: Thank you for taking time for this on such a busy day. Be seeing you after 
while at the banquet.