Was Grover Cleveland actually Jack the Ripper?

So I'm sitting in the bar at our local Old Chicago pizza-pub today. I had just seen Jurassic World, the sequel that combines words from two previous movies in its title, one word of which was inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. ("World" as in The Lost World.) And as I'm sitting there, a commercial comes on one of the dozen flat screen TVs prominently featuring Conan Doyle.

Not sure if that TV was playing a sports channel or a pub quiz, but what I saw was the following question:

"Was Arthur Conan Doyle actually Jack the Ripper?"

The ad went on to promote a book that I won't even mention here, as I really hate to publicize claptrap that a few lucky Sherlockians might happily otherwise miss. (As opposed to, say, a network television show.)  And the book really doesn't matter. What matters is that damned commercial, on a screen in a public place, where the thought being placed in the mind of any bored patron browsing the multiple TVs was this . . . .

Conan Doyle = Jack the Ripper.

Of course, most folks knowledgeable enough to know that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories probably aren't going to take such an allegation seriously. And it doesn't take much of a net search to find Doyle listed among the most ridiculous Ripper suspects ever. But you know there's some idiot out there who had a few too many beers and was liable to go home and tell his kids, "You know the guy who wrote those Sherlock Holmes stories was probably Jack the Ripper."

Or maybe I'm just being a pessimist, having had my lunch interrupted with such a stupid, stupid idea being used to promote a book.

Personally, if we're going to go silly, I think we should promote the idea that the U.S. president of that time, Grover Cleveland was really Jack the Ripper. Say he gave Britain some ground over Canadian fishing rights for a free hand at killing a few prostitutes in a country other than his own. (A bachelor president at first, Cleveland had only recently married a 21-year-old college girl, so who knows what bad habits he was trying to purge with a London spree.) Grover Cleveland needs a little juicy gossip added to his historical record, and Conan Doyle certainly doesn't -- fairies and ghosts cover those bases nicely.

The idea of Grover Cleveland as the Ripper may be pretty darned ridiculous. But we live in a world where the media likes to promote any goofball thought produces a headline, marketing people have even less scruples, and Conan Doyle just got publicized as Jack the Ripper in a Peoria restaurant bar.

Sherlock Holmes is becoming a better and better role model for us all the time . . . as a man who made it a point to find the truth behind every outlandish tale that came his way.

Because we're getting a lot of those these days.

"It's like the Avengers . . ."

The big prize in Hollywood these days seems to be creating a movie "pyramid" like Marvel Studios did with "Marvel's The Avengers," building a number of movies about individual characters then bringing those characters together in one final super-blockbuster of a movie. Let's ignore the decades of backstory and existing fans for those heroes, of course, and how hard it is to create just one successful film. There have been writer's rooms and corporate meetings out there like crazy, trying to come up with any possible intellectual property that could be built into such a model of success. Which makes you wonder . . .

Who out there is looking at Sherlock Holmes this way?

Sure, most  tend to think of Sherlock Holmes adventures being all about Sherlock and his supporting cast, but wait a minute. And list some of that cast.

Sherlock Holmes, the world's first and foremost consulting detective.

John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department.

Irene Adler, celebrity, adventuress, mistress of disguise.

Mycroft Holmes, the man who is the British Government.

Porlock, the one good man inside Professor Moriarty's criminal empire.

Hmm. Five movies there? Maybe. Porlock being the weaker of the set, one might want to give him Kitty Winter and Porky Shinwell as back-up for his film. In fact, there's a legion of characters out there to toss into all five of those characters' movies.

And then, after telling all five tales, then it comes time for them all to band together to bring Professor Moriarty down.

Possible? Definitely. Probable? Not likely.

Still, it is awfully fun to consider. And these days, you just never know what could happen, so it's not entirely out of the question.

Like throwing heroin in front of Mr. Elementary . . . .

You may call him "Howard Ostrom." I call him "Oscar."

Oscar, it will be remembered, is the character from Elementary's season finale who lured, pestered, and generally shoved the titular Mr. Elementary into returning to his old heroin addiction. My personal Oscar, Howard, tossed this tidbit out on to Twitter today:

Now, I am a firm believer that one of our great human failings is that urge from earliest childhood to exclaim "Again!" whenever something delights us, and thus eventually drain any happy surprise of its joy by regular repetition. So I fully expect bad things to come from trying a sequel set of captions to a photo of Mr. Elementary in a refuse area. But unfortunately, I'm willing to try, despite at least one "Can't we all play nice in the sandbox?" plea after that last attempt. Poking a needle into Elementary's veins has become an addiction that I'm just a little too susceptible to. So, without further ado, let's get to the captions for Howard's photo . . .

Well, it's not the worst thing I've seen on an episode of Elementary.

Swim to the sea like Nemo, Clyde. The lid is staying down.

Eli Stone's law offices became less and less prestigious as the visions continued.

Mr. Elementary begins his research on the 247 varieties of paper that one
might wipe one's posterior with. What that had to do with crime,
no one would ever know. As with most of his studies.

Eventually he found that with enough mental focus, he could teleport
his bodily waste through several layers of cloth and plastic.

Joan Watson pressed her face and hand up to the fogged window, as Mycroft
took her against the alley wall. Neither of them really knew why.
It was almost as if God was really bad at writing fanfic.

This month in GQ: What does your body language on the toilet say about you?

Yes, it is a tribute to Joaquim de Almeida in "O Xango de Baker Street."

"Here I sit, all broken hearted . . ."
So began the love poem that caused Jamie Moriarty to fake her death yet again.

Tirelessly, he worked on his interpretive dance choreography through every waking moment.

A few moments before the sink actually tore itself from the wall and walked off the set.

Captain Gregson and Detective Bell were actually supposed to be in this scene,
but Quinn and Hill believed the stagehand's  admonishing "Do NOT go in there!"

Okay, let's flush this bit and let it mercifully swirl away, as so many sequels should probably do. On to better things and the hope that "Oscar" Ostrom lets rehab work its magic.

And a late P.S., just because I forgot about this one . . .

Instead of doing "Speckled Band," Elementary decided to pit their consulting detective

against the horror legend, the Ghoulies. Somehow, it just seemed to fit.

Best and wisest, 2015.

One of those fab members of team Three Patch dropped a very telling tweet today:

We all know the quote from the original Canon and know it well, heartfelt words from Watson after the death of his friend in "The Final Problem":

" . . . if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career, it is due to those injudicious champions who have endeavoured to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known."

And Sherlock Holmes was that best and wisest of men . . . once.

Caroline's focus is BBC Sherlock, who does have the occasional charmingly unwise moment. But if you were a person who didn't read, a person whose entire view of Sherlock Holmes came from Downey, Miller, and Cumberbatch, do those words still ring true?

Downey's Holmes has a wacky, impulsive side that really doesn't inspire "best and wisest."

Cumberbatch's Sherlock is pretty much there when he's on his game, but he definitely has some almost literally fatal flaws, like that compulsion to take the suicide pill at the end of "A Study in Pink."

And Miller's Mr. Elementary? Well, let's not even start on that one.

"Best and wisest" is pretty high praise, and one could put it down to Watson's grief causing a little hyperbole at his best friend's death. But for decade upon decade, Sherlockians have agreed with Watson on that point . . .  Holmes was the best and wisest, without doubt or asterisk.

Yet modern storytelling seems to demand Holmes be "humanized" with some personality defect or the other, for comedic effect if Watson isn't carrying that ball, for one added story element, or just maybe to make him more "relatable." It could be for many a reason.

Even with his little quirks, I still tend to give Cumberbatch's Holmes credit for being the closest to "best and wisest" of the current crop of English-speakers. But it would be a good challenge for future Holmes creators to start with that phrase as their central premise, at least from Watson's point of view, and see what they can build from there.

Pitching an American Sherlock show.

By now, regulars readers are not only aware of my opinions of CBS's Elementary, but surely a bit weary of them. The show's basic premise, "Ex-addict consulting detective is paired with a sober companion by his father and introduces his new partner to the world of murder investigation," just never rang particularly Sherlock-y to me. So, one might ask, what would I find a better premise for a modern day Sherlock show on American television?

Let's start with the obvious.

Baskerville.
A small hamlet in Canada is rocked by beastly slayings that an aged local farmer attributes to his family curse. The local doctor tries to get a London criminal specialist interested in the case via the internet and does, only to have the specialist and his husband show up in the small town to disturb the locals even further with their unorthodox urban ways.

Fairly straight forward. Next up . . . ?

I Am Sherlock Holmes.
After disappearing during a climactic battle with a master crimelord named Moriarty, the world's most famous consulting detective travels the world incognito as Magnus Sigerson following the trail of his brother, an cornerstone figure in British intelligence who disappeared at the same time Moriarty was killed.

Something is still missing. A female character?

The Six Wives of Dr. Watson.
Dr. Watson, retired and living in Miami Beach, is kidnapped, a crisis that brings together all six of his ex-wives. In the absence of Sherlock Holmes (presumed dead), the six discover that together they embody all the qualities that made Holmes the world's greatest detective, and after rescuing Watson, they band together to form their own consulting detective agency.

Okay, maybe too many female characters. Irene is the go-to, right?

Adventuress.
A singer's incredible popularity sparks a variety of adventures -- from the too-energetic pursuit of royal lovers to a willingness to help a fan in need. Her legal counsel Godfrey Norton is ever at her side and frustrated by her interest in Sherlock Holmes, a consulting detective who turns up in her adventures a little more than mere coincidence would demand.

And for those who think drugs are necessary . . . .

A Criminal Addiction.
A kingpin named Moriarty has come up with a new drug "seven percent," and isn't selling it on the open market -- he's getting the highly addictive substance into the hands of key individuals whose addictions he uses to build a network of pawns. A detective named Sherlock Holmes must enter those ranks to find just how far the network has spread . . . and what the true effects of "seven percent" are.

There's a lot that could be done with Sherlock Holmes that isn't being done now . . . even with all the pastiches being written, most traditionally published ones stick to the same old formula. But as we've seen, there's a lot more to Sherlock Holmes than a given time and place. And given all the ideas that are out there in the fan fiction universe, I'm betting we get some Sherlock shows so totally different in the next twenty years that they make the above seem practically Canonical.

But you know Sherlock Holmes. He was, quite literally, made to have adventures.

Benedict Cumberbatch, CBE, and Sir Christopher Lee.

A brief note came in from "he who shall not be named as a B.S.I." today with words that would be quite inflammatory in some parts: "How ridiculous that Benedict Cumberbatch is to be awarded a CBE at the tender age of 38, just as we learn that Sir Christopher Lee has died at the age of 93, having received his only 14 years ago."

And that says nothing of Jonny Lee Miller, now age 42, who seems to be getting a snub from Her Majesty (probably for stealing Sherlock out of London and putting him in New York City). Or that Peter Cushing at 89, only got an OBE (one notch down from the CBE) -- and he played Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Who. Which brings us to Tom Baker, who also did that double duty for the Crown, and he's still waiting at 81.

If only we could find a guy who could play Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Who, James Bond, Robin Hood, and King Arthur. That guy should just get to marry the Queen.

Roger Moore got a CBE at 72 and was promoted to KBE four years later, so you can see that being James Bond and Sherlock Holmes (and Simon Templar and Ivanhoe) will get you.

Robert Morley got an OBE at the much younger age of 48, before he played Mycroft Holmes, and then was offered a knighthood at 66, only to turn it down. (Probably feeling like he hadn't served his country quite enough by not playing Sherlock or James Bond.) Mycroftian actor Charles Gray perhaps missed out on honors perhaps for playing a Bond villain, which counterbalances the equation.

Michael Caine, a faultier Sherlock Holmes, got his CBE at 59.

The closest I can find to Cumberbatch's youthful honour for a Sherlock is Sir Ian McKellen, who was given his CBE at 40 years of age, and was promoted to full knighthood twelve years later. McKellen plainly didn't get his for service as Sherlock Holmes, since most of us have yet to see it, but was primarily a TV and stage actor at the time of his CBE.

Does age really matter? Olympic swimmer Eleanor Simmonds got her CBE honour at the tender age of 14. And if you do a little digging into that British honours list . . . well, you can do a lot of digging. There are a lot of names there.  I'm not even sure I've come close to hitting all the Sherlocks who made that list. (No Basil Rathbone nor Jeremy Brett, sad to say.)  Like every honor from the cult of Sherlock's own B.S.I. to the American movie Oscars, the British honours have their own whimsies, failings, and problematic parts.

But they sure do get folks excited every now and then.

Ethical diversity in the Sherlockian Canon.

"In a modest way I have combated evil," Sherlock Holmes said in The Hound of the Baskervilles, "but to take on the Father of Evil himself would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task."

Sherlock Holmes must be looked at with some measure of forgiveness as a man of his era, for not recognizing ethical diversity in the above statement. It is like many sexist, racist, or ethicist attitudes common to that time. In that one statement he portrays himself as at war with evil, implies that the Mother of Evil, the Children of Evil, and even the Grandparents of Evil would be something he could handle. But today let us not dally with the age-ist and sex-ist aspects of the Victorian detective, let us focus on the ethics-ist aspects of his words and behavior.

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example, Sherlock Holmes is hounding a man who is ethically challenged in the areas of murder, kidnapping, fraud, petty theft, breaking hearts, mistreatment of butterflies, and a host of other areas. He refers to Rodger Baskerville Jr. as one of the "agents of  the devil" and eventually chases him into a bog and a fate traditionally reserved for "evil" moor ponies.

While "evil" is plentiful in the Canon of Olde, you can scrutinize page after page of that venerable text and never find the words "ethics" or "ethical."  You will, however, find the word "moral," a good many times. The difference? Ethics is a debatable field of philosophy categorizing right and wrong. Morality, however, connotes an invisible set of pre-determined rules of right and wrong. In an ethical argument, one might encounter shades of gray. In a moral argument, however? Black and white.

Heady issues, these, but when one considers the full range of ethical diversity after heading beyond black and white, the Canon of Sherlock Holmes offers a wide range of characters with which to populate a scale of ethics diversity.

Rodger Baskerville, Jr., was a fairly complex case involving many ethical spectrums. Taking another character like James Ryder, the attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan from "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." Ryder is a had man to place on any scale of ethical diversity as it was entirely possible that he was merely a pawn of Catherine Cusack (sure a generations-before relative of the Cusack acting family from which John and Joan later sprung).  Sherlock Holmes would seem to agree, chasing Ryder just out the door and not into a bog, as with Baskerville.

The only "evil" Holmes does cite in Ryder's case are those "evil influences" which have fallen upon Henry Baker, whose wife has ceased to love him and who may drink a bit much. In Baker's case, there is no chasing, however, just the gift of a nice fresh goose. So while Holmes does not speak of the scale of ethical diversity, he, as an evolving specimen of humanity, seems aware of it: On the "drinking a bit too much" end of the scale, you get a Christmas goose. On the "murder, kidnapping, fraud, etc." end of the scale, you get chased into a bog where you might find a moor pony on your way down.

Now, if you've read this far down the page, I really have to give you credit for your stamina. I'm not entirely sure what this essay was an attempt at . . . perhaps social parody? I'm not entirely sure, but it does stand as example of how well Watson's writings can be used to delve into any topic or concept one gets into one's head . . . like "ethical diversity." In any case, thanks for reading.

I'll try to come up with a topic I don't get bored with before the end of the essay next time.