The Fifty Per-Cent Off Solution.

While other devoted Sherlock Holmes fans wandered the streets of New York this weekend, shopping bookshop after bookshop and then dealer's room, packing their suitcases with the latest and greatest in commentary on the great detective, here's what I was picking up at the local mall:

(INSERT SAD TROMBONE MUSIC HERE.)

"But, Brad," you say. (Or "But, Sherlock Peoria," you say, if you're used to thinking of me as this blog person-thing.) "You hate Elementary as no other internet blabbermouth! Your negative attitude toward America's home-grown Sherlock Holmes product has gone on so tiresomely long that buying such a thing is surely a sign of how gnarled your faculties have become in your Ahab-like obsession!" (Man, you can talk!)

Well, to quote my favorite drunken raccoon, "That is true!"

But I really, really liked the "50% Off" sticker. Never has a post-holiday sale been so eloquently expressive, so evocative. The artistry in that one simple, commercial touch just reached my soul in a way few of the great masters have. Taking the shrink-wrap off this thing would be like desecrating a Frederick Dorr Steele original. It's art, I tell you, ART!

Hey, being all Sherlockian in New York City (or now, it seems, Seattle) on a certain birthday weekend is easy. There are amazing collectibles practically paving the sidewalks, I'm sure. Here in Peoria, we gotta take what we can get, even if it's just sale stickers and madness.

Happy Monday morning after, everybody.