Cane News’ Ringtone ?
Irving Berlin (1888 –1989) was one of the most prolific songwriters in Tin Pan Alley/Broadway’s history. One of the few to have written both music and lyrics for his many songs – these totaled almost a thousand.
Irving Berlin.
One such is a song entitled ‘My Walking Stick’. It is available to download free of charge and even as a ringtone for your mobile phone – a must for the cane aficionado!
(Verse)
Take away my high hats
Take away my favorite tie
Take away my white spats
I’ll still get by
But my walking stick
You simply must let that be
I mean you can’t take that away from me
(Refrain)
Without my walking stick, I’d go insane
Can’t look my best, I’d feel undressed without my cane
Must have my walking stick ’cause it may rain
And when it pours, can’t be outdoors without my cane
If I ever left my house without my walking stick
It would just be something I could never explain
The thing that makes me click on Lovers’ Lane
Would go for naught if I were caught without my cane
Thank you Irving! I don’t suppose you knew you were writing Cane News’ anthem, but I hope all our readers will download your song and the ring tone as a tribute to your good taste!
Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire with Irving Berlin at The Piano.
Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire Dancing.
For more about Fred Astair including a clip of his unsurpassable dancing with a cane, see our article ‘From The Screen to The Ritz’ in the Imagination section.
Humorous Canes
Our gentle leg pulling of Prince Karl has had lots of feedback. We are happy to publish two more cane jokes sent in by our readers. We share their images with you. Do please send us more!
The Beauty Within
Of course, as Geoffrey Breeze of Geoffrey Breeze Antique Canes so aptly put it to me,
“Walking sticks are nothing to do with walking and canes are not about caning.”
There are, of course, many canes with a hidden internal, secondary or additional purpose. Geoffrey was recently showing a magnificent microscope cane. The handle, crafted in silver, is engraved with the monogram of a French marquis. Unscrewing the top reveals a microscope in working order and a special section that holds tweezers and microscope slides. This brilliant piece of design sits upon a tripod base that extends from the ferrule when it is use – obviously conceived for keeping it steady when in the field. What a brilliant idea!
An old friend of mine, Fritz Spiegl, was a flautist, a radio presenter and a publisher as well as being a great raconteur and wit. He was often seen about London sporting his cane that unscrewed and contained a flute, which he would play, given half a chance.
His own mind was full of equally brilliant ideas. For his ‘April Fools’ and ‘Nuts in May’ concert series, he always invented brilliant musical combinations and even instrumental cross-pollinations.
The ‘Loophonium’, for which Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery ‘splashed out’ (I quote the press release) £2, 640, was recently acquired at a Sotheby’s auction by the Walker. Fritz made fun with music and so, surely, did the cane maker of his flute cane who knew how to make a cane and a flute.
A mock-Victorian, flower-painted, porcelain lavatory bowl replaced the (upturned) euphonium bell in a spectacularly surreal musical instrument of Fritz’ invention (‘Loophonium’ circa 1960). They joined forces at the loo’s ‘exhaust’. A wooden lyre in the form of a lid seat completed the amazing amalgamation. The strings of the lyre being reminiscent of those of a harp, a further play on words gave this incredible contraption its alternative name – the ‘Harpic-phone’.
Fritz Speigl's Loophonium (or Harpic-phone)
So, having discovered that it is possible to mix two subjects (or more) to make something new (or old) with a twist (or two), let us investigate what is made along these hidden lines in the cane world today. We have just investigated the play station, iPod and mobile phone amongst others, after all!
boast some excellent ideas on their web site. After almost 180 years, this legendary company continues to manufacture the ingenious hidden treasures – the beauty within.
There is the corkscrew cane, the cane containing four dice, a pipe, two silver plated cups and a glass flask with Maplewood stick – or, the special Toulouse-Lautrec version with two glasses, glass flask and a stick made from laminated tropical hardwoods.
Toulouse-Lautrec with More Modest Model.
Do you know of any special cane with surprising beauty within? Do write to us and send us your photos. We will be delighted to publish the most interesting.
Naturally, there are many examples of the sword cane and other concealed weapons, but what else? Share your treasures with us!
Crystals à Go-Go
Prince Rogers Nelson (born June 7, 1958) is best known to us as the musician Prince.
Prince, over his long career, is known to have attracted media attention for his choice of wardrobe both off and on stage. He would often don high-heeled boots or shoes and exude powerful sexuality in his music as well as his stage performances. He flirted with androgyny and, in 1981, whilst an opening act for The Rolling Stones at two Los Angeles Coliseum shows, was scandalously pelted with rubbish when sporting bikini briefs, leg warmers, high-heeled boots and a fetching necklace of raw bacon neatly combined with a trench coat. Booed off the stage for his choice of costume, one is saddened by such boringly provincial, puritanical predictability. That outfit took (and showed) guts!
Prince’s flirtation with flirtation continues. He has been seen with what appears to be a glass cane, although it is not exactly easy to tell if it is carved glass with a brushed white gold knob, or a diamond cut steel (and more solid) display piece. Glass canes are truly magnificent items, but predestined for the collector as opposed to the user. That rule applies inversely to bacon given that it is more practical inside the stomach rather than around the neck (particularly when perspiring beneath spotlights). However, this is Prince we are talking about so why not use a cane in glass to simply hold and point at people?
These photos kindly contributed by Luca Bolognese do not show much of Prince’s shoes. It might be a little dangerous to venture forth with a glass cane on rather too high a heel. I would therefore conclude that these are not and that the chances of the object’s being made of glass are probable as it is maintained carefully far from contact with the ground: a wise move. Shattering a cane in public would not be very good for one’s carefully groomed fashion image –or one’s sex appeal.
Prince released Crystal Ball, a 5-CD collection of unreleased material in 1998. In 2006, he was awarded a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of what was termed his ‘visionary use of the Internet.’ Prince had been the first artist of major importance ever to release and album in this way. This was, of course, the Crystal Ball album. Who knows, perhaps because of this he has a taste for crystal? Could this cane be Bohemian cut crystal or a cunning way of setting Swarovski gems in glass?
This season crystal is everywhere. It’s difficult to find designer eyewear without it, key rings (even without Porsche attached), mobile phone jewels and so – why not a cane? It’s not so much Bling-bling, as sparkle this year – tasteful sparkle.
The cane certainly gives Prince a touch more – if that is possible. It would appear that in the past he did have several custom made canes made. We wish him well and hope that he continues to promote our collectable objects of beauty and meaning.
From the Screen to The Ritz
Voted the most popular talent show on British television in 2008, Strictly Come Dancing was a national must. Fans came from every walk of life and every generation. It was a daily event for four months. The winners of the last series on 20th December 2008 were actor Tom Chambers and his professional dance partner Camilla Dallerup.
Tom freely admits that his idol is Fred Astaire. Whenever she could, his choreographing professional dance partner, Camilla, introduced touches of tap, levitating leaps, some elements of comedy and, above all, the Hollywood Fred Astaire elegance of the 1930s to their carefully prepared material.
Although the ballroom dancing show wasn’t the appropriate setting in which to use the cane as a dance accessory, we feel certain that it’s only a matter of time before Tom Chambers lands himself a movie role or theatrical part in which he can. He is most certainly a very talented dancer as well as actor. Indeed, in an interview after Christmas he put forward a suggestion to that very effect.
Photo: Bob Landry / Archives of LIFE magazine
It’s impossible to think of Fred Astaire without envisaging the cane. This illustration danced to the song ‘Puttin’ on The Ritz’ (written and published in 1929 by Irving Berlin and introduced by Harry Richman in the musical film Puttin’ on the Ritz [1930]), is a perfect example. A cane was and still remains the ultimate accessory for the stylish look in high fashion.
Although Music Hall, Vaudeville and the Golden Years of Hollywood bring the elegance of dance routines with canes, chorus lines with canes, and many variations on the theme to mind, the story of dance with such accessories goes back a very long time touching upon and enriching every culture.
Fred Astaire and a chorus of Fred Astaires performing ‘Puttin' on the Ritz’ in the film ‘Blue Skies’ (1946)
Amongst a host of others, there has been the Egyptian dance cane. These were originally plucked reeds (bamboo) from the banks of the River Nile cut by field workers to accompany their dancing. There is not a continent or a culture without its sticks, batons or canes employed for this purpose.
Today, there are companies specialising in the manufacture of the cane for theatrical uses. These tend to be costume designs pieces and not of use for the real ‘Ritz look’ when the greasepaint is left behind in the dressing room.
Herucle Poirot, however, would not take a step without one of his numerous silver -topped ebony canes (and others) or his polished silver fresh flower holder to grace his elegant lapels.
Charlie Chaplin’s comic use of the cane has its roots in ridicule. Such an impoverished clown could never aspire to the ‘Ritz look’. That contradiction is the basis of what made his satire so brilliantly funny.
Fortunately there is a wealth of manufacturers today keeping the cane in its place as the ultimate accessory of elegance.
