Standing next to a certain twelve-year-old I know who was Facetiming her friend about Zootopia shipping tonight, I suddenly felt a connection to our Sherlockian future. As much as a few of the elder curmudgeons of our sect would like to think all these ding-dang new-fangled ways of enjoying Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson are passing fads, it was truly apparent that the new cultural tools of fans of all sorts are going to be around for a while.
A little later, I also had a phone call from an old friend, who had been inducted into the oldest Sherlock Holmes club in Illinois, the Hounds of the Baskervilles (sic) established in 1943, since I saw him last, and we talked about some of the old times and a little historical project he was working on. It seems our past as Sherlockians will be around for a while as well.
Energies flow this direction and that, some parts surging in popularity, others being held in place by determined diehards, but the cult of Sherlock Holmes with ramble along into the future in ways we never quite expect. We are not a purebred, carefully groomed show-dog of a fandom, and have never been that. We're a gangly mutt whose parentage runs far and wide across the species. As my friend and I reminisced tonight, some of our best times were in the company of the most diverse, mixed crew of sometimes far-too-eccentric ladies and gentlemen one could imagine.
Still looking forward to 221B Con and all its panels and unexpected enlightenments, still considering the Minneapolis symposium and its single-thread curriculum of individual learned speakers, and thinking how much Sherlockiana so happily needs both.
But the future makes one very tired, apparently . . . . off to bed. Tomorrow usually starts from there.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
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