When Sherlock Holmes has to go into the garbage . . .

Going to whine a bit this afternoon, so forgive me.

 Forty-five years of Sherlockian life does lead to a certain level of accumulation.

I'm not talking about collecting here. I'm talking about the bits and pieces that either just came your way or were extras of things you created or just generally had Sherlock's name or picture or was related to something that had Sherlock's name or picture. Now, the following words might bother a few of you, and there may be some denial triggered as well, so take a breath and just hold for a second after I use these words, but I think what I'm talking about here is Sherlockian trash.

I know, I know, "one man's trash is another man's treasure," but sometimes you just shouldn't be held responsible for finding that other man. Only so much time in the world, and sometimes, the trash has to be taken out. Or recycled.

Whilst a lot of society functions in the paperless world of the internet at this point, t'was not always so. Materials were printed, photocopied, mimeographed, or retyped for even the most limited of moments -- a paper presented at scion meeting for eight people that you made fifteen copies of, for example. Not something you throw away immediately, and eventually these pile up. Or those thirty extra copies of the local Sherlockian society newsletter that got printed up in 1992, that, gee, they're old, but are they collectable? Copies were send to the big library archives back in the day, so it's not like they're vanishing off the face of the earth if you dump a few.

And there's a limited amount of this stuff you can pass along to younger Sherlockian friends as novelty items. Or sit out on a giveaway table at a con. And a lot of it doesn't have meaning or significance to anyone from another generation or who wasn't there at the time, and you can't expect it to. They have their own detritus picked up along their path.

As impossible as it may seem to some younger version of ourselves, especially a 1980s incarnation, eventually one has to decide that not everything with a deerstalker and a pipe is a holy relic. And some of it might actually need to go into the trash. We do live in an age of massive storage for digital photos of things, so that might ease the conscience a little bit, as throwing photos on a blog might give the Sherlockian historical record a chance of seeing the thing if it ever needs seen. 

For now, back to cleaning . . .

What To Say.

 So, I have this blog.

I've had a blog for twenty-two years now. Ten of those years were on a website that no longer exists, where I'd post weekly, on Sunday nights. After that came this version, where posts came at the pace of things to write. Daily for events, weekly if I could manage, and otherwise, randomly as the spirit moved.

 The spirit doesn't seem to be moving me as much lately, for several reasons. First, especially when it comes to the aforementioned Sunday nights, is that I somehow wandered into other outlets, and now put out a weekly podcast, a monthly chronology newsletter, host a monthly Zoom, and, oh, yes, there's that other podcast hanging out there that I haven't ever quite figured out what to do with. Sometimes, you just get ideas for stuff that hold on to you like a curse. And that's just on the Sherlockian side. I won't get into the things my job has been putting me through of late.

Okay, okay, let's not worry that this is one of those "I have to leave" statements we see so often on social media and the like. This isn't that.

This is me just wondering what to write. Like I said, other things competing for time, but at the same time, something has changed. The internet has changed, to be sure. The algorithms have taken the reliability of anything you write being seen away, unless you pay to play. And we live in an age where we are overrun with opinions, and I am no longer young enough to foolishly believe my opinion is all that important for the world to hear. Annnnd, at some point, you've had the same opinions long enough that even you're bored with them. The world isn't going to change on some points, as foolish as they might be.

The world literally has more writers than it ever has. More published writers, too, now that the gatekeepers are barely holding the gates up, just so name celebrities can walk through. Can an individual writer's voice can be heard against the din? I wonder about that, too.

And we're all just fodder for somebody's AI or the other at this point. Any Zoom call your on is apt to have a little AI assistant quietly making notes of what was said, like a creepy little spy in the corner of the room. It can take the best of what you said, combine it with better things it learned from other places, and make its own swell-sounding statements.

It all can be pretty depressing, if one is leaning toward the gloom, especially with all the other shit flowing from a certain volcano of rot of late. And what can one do against all of these bleak omens of shadows overtaking the Earth?

I guess one can write. And even if one has nothing to say, there are still some words that will follow other words into forming sentences, and sentences into paragraphs. And maybe just have enough humanity left in the results to let our friends know that we're still alive and maybe not a software replicant of someone they used to know . . . for now.

And on we go.

So, I'm thinking this was the first guy Sherlock Holmes killed.

 Our library book club that only does short stories, and only short stories with Sherlock Holmes in them, and only the ones by Conan Doyle, except sometimes we do those four novels . . . well, anyway, we met tonight. And we talked about "The Boscombe Valley Mystery." And I had this thought.

At the end of the case, Sherlock Holmes says, "I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes."

Now, the case he's talking about involved a guy who killed a blackmailer from his past. Sherlock Holmes was hired by the guy's daughter, and the guy is old and supposedly dying anyway, so Sherlock lets him off. But that thing he says . . . "There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes." It sounds like Sherlock Holmes has just heard old Turner's confession and thought, "Wow, I really relate to that."

But why would he think that? Had he killed a blackmailer who returned from his past to haunt him?

Or maybe helped kill a blackmailer who returned from the past to haunt that friend's family member?

It seemed like such an odd thing for Holmes to say out of context that I immediately theorized tonight that Holmes must have done that very thing. And we know that Holmes's start in the crime business was a triggering incident in the story Watson wrote up as "The Gloria Scott." And, gee, there was that blackmailer Hudson that came out of Trevor Senior's past in that story, just as the events in Boscombe Valley played out. Could Holmes and his college buddy Victor Trevor have killed Hudson, just as old Turner did in Boscombe Valley?

Victor Trevor does flee England to live in southern Nepal or northern India after whatever happened at his family home. Sherlock Holmes returns to London and seeks our a fellow lodger so he has an excuse to fund a landlady named Mrs. Hudson in need of tenants. And eventually we are. told that Holmes paid Mrs. Hudson "princely sums." Was someone trying to ease some guilt with those payments?

It seemed pretty odd as well for Sherlock Holmes, after telling Watson about Hudson in that case write-up to just basically go, "The police think Hudson killed another guy named Beddoes and fled, but I think Beddoes killed him." So if Hudson's body ever did turn up, Holmes has a pre-selected suspect from a case he's have surely solved if it had been just hanging out in his origin story all that time.

It has always seemed a bit coincidental that we never hear of Mr. Hudson or what happened to him, and maybe that was on purpose . . . because we sort of did hear. Was "The Gloria Scott" Watson's way of telling us without telling us, even though Holmes was thought to be dead when he published it?

A number of criminals who passed through Sherlock Holmes's casebooks had mysterious deaths after seeming to escape justice. And Hudson was the first. 

Maybe the first at not escaping justice, thanks to Sherlock Holmes, as well?

The Montague Street Incorrigibles Pub Night 2024

 Here it is, mid-October already, and, well, we'd best think a bit about January, as many an American Sherlockians (and a few of our kin elsewhere) are apt to do in the fall. Does Sherlock Holmes's Birthday actually fall in January? As a dedicated Sherlockian chronologist, I have to answer "Who knows?"  -- but what I do know is that a lot of Sherlockians find that time to be their season for seeing and being seen.

The evening of Friday, January 17 is rather key to that, Baker Street Irregulars annual dinner and all, but there are always those whose awareness of that evening centers around the fact that they can't be in New York for one of the dinners held that night. So what's left for those of us in our scattered abodes that night?

Well, the Montague Street Incorrigibles, of course.

Less strict admittance standards, no need to dress up, and we have our spies.

It's the a six-hour Zoom hangout that's never the same twice. (Except for the arcane membership ritual, which inducts those who undergo its rigors into the society. There's a nifty PDF membership certificate endorsed by an ape!) What will happen this year? Who knows? Possibly more to come on that, but it's mainly a way to spend an evening with some fellow Sherlockians when you can't be with the pilgrims making their way to New York City for the annual rituals there.

Here's the link for registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwof-qgqjsoH9AItYBhp8Rkm4j5x5_s1vpT

There's no other gathering like it, and it's never recorded, since everybody has to miss something that night! So if you already know what your plans aren't going to be on Friday night January 17th between the hours of 6 P.M. to midnight Eastern time, think about joining the motley crew at "the Dangling Prussian," our virtual meeting place where it is always 1895. (And hopefully, the world hasn't exploded by then!)

What Will Happen To Sherlock Holmes's Killer After "The Final Problem?"

 Every day I scroll through a news feed where some algorithm looks through what TV shows I watch, and see endless headlines that ask me easily answerable questions. They are questions that don't require an entire story to answer, questions that are only there to get a click routing to a page full of adds wrapped around one or two paragraphs of non-info.

The original stories of Sherlock Holmes, of course, came out in a different era. 

Media in that time was just newspapers, letters, and word of mouth, and while newspapers were trying to get you to read them with big headlines shouted by newsboys, the ads were only a part of the revenue stream. You still had to pay for the paper. And those headlines were about the biggest stories that affected the most people. The London Times never tried to pull Jane Austen fans into buying papers with speculation about Elizabeth Bennett as the front page leader.

The internet, however, can slice and dice its readership into the slimmest tailored niche headlines. Had "The Final Problem" been published today, two years later, with another eight before "Empty House," we'd be getting constant headlines like "Conan Doyle Reveals Future Of Sherlock Holmes" (He was asked about writing more Holmes for the fiftieth time, he said "No." For the fiftieth time.). Or "What Will Happen To Sherlock Holmes's Killer After 'The Final Problem?'" (Well, we think he fell off that waterfall and died, but nobody saw it or found the body. You actually thought we knew more than you? Silly fan!)

The headline leading to the non-story is but one technique these "news" sites use to draw clicks. Another is picking some other site's actual essay and reporting on that as their own news story. Let's give that a try!

Christopher Plummer Portrays An Odd Preachy Sherlock

Is Christopher Plummer's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in "Murder By Decree" a good representation of the classic detective?

In a recent blog post from Two Tarnished Beeches Christopher Plummer's performance was judged "odd" and "preachy" in a discussion that fans of Christopher Plummer will certainly disagree with. 

Now, a sensible person is going to click on that link to the original post and quit reading the re-hash that was written just to generate a headline, but at that point, the derivative site has already got you to click on their link and shown you their ads. 

Sherlock Holmes having fans means that we will always get clickbait about "Sherlock Holmes 3" or Benedict Cumberbatch or whatever comes next. We don't get quite the YouTube attention of a Disney-owned property, but maybe we just haven't found the right You-Tuber yet. That's a completely different topic . . .

Some weeks later . . . .

When I originally wrote this bit about clickbait headlines, I thought I had see the internet at its worst. Then came today's headlines on Google News, "Walmart to Shut Down All Stores in Illinois: What This Means To You," "Supermarkets Announce 1-day Store Closures -- Official Date Now Available," and on and on and on about stores announcing they're closing, until about fifteen headlines down someone finally gives the game away with "Walmart, Target will be closed for Thanksgiving again this year."  Yep, same as every year. Good lord, the world has gone stupid . . . .

Hugh Laurie in the Sherlock & Co. Universe

 Things got weird this week in the world of Sherlock & Co., that podcast every Sherlockian should be giving a listen to. In a Patreon exclusive mailbag episode, their "Mrs. Hudson" was answering questions and stated that her favorite doctor was Hugh Laurie in House. This was Marianna speaking as herself in the universe of the show, where she works with Sherlock Holmes and was being read mailbag questions by Doctor John H. Watson.

And yet she likes Hugh Laurie in a TV show, that, in our world, was inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

I have questions!

In Sherlock & Co.'s world, does Gregory House live at 221 Baker Street in apartment B?

In Sherlock & Co.'s world, who does Hugh Laurie play in that movie he was in with Will Farrell and John C. Reilly, and what was that movie's title?

In Sherlock & Co.'s world, does Marianna also like that actor who plays Dr. Strange? And how does she feel about that Everett K. Ross character, played by Martin Freeman? Is she a fan of Martin Freeman?

I felt like shouting "THEY"RE CROSSING THE STREAMS! THEY"RE CROSSING THE STREAMS!" out my window, as my brain tried to parse out this universe that has a Holmes-related actor in a world where Sherlock Holmes isn't from some hundred plus year old stories.

Sherlock & Co. is so full of pop culture references that I'm sure this is not the last time we'll be faced with such a puzzler. But I'm looking forward to everything that comes next on and around that show!

So let's talk about Sherlock Holmes s**tposting . . .

 We all have our opinions. And we know that. It's just that sometimes we think it's not just an opinion, it's the One Correct Answer.

My friend Rob posted his weekly blog column on the negativity he'd see from some Sherlockians online about our latest big Sherlock, "Cumberbashing" was the term he used. Typically we see bashing of a particular Holmes portrayal from a couple of sources: Those new to the community who don't realize what a big tent Sherlock Holmes fans encompass, or those whose egotism and mindset doesn't allow that other opinions could have value or that others might feel a sting from their words.

Rob wrote of the big three: Rathbone, Brett, and Cumberbatch. All have their diehard fans and most of us know to be a little measured in our discourse, like different denominations of the same religion with nearby churches.  

But what about Matt Frewer? Is his Sherlock fair game, just because his fans tend to rarely be in the room?

And what about . . . oh, you think I'm going to Will Ferrell? Mais non, mon petit! . . . season four of BBC Sherlock?

Nothing is worse than a pundit with God on their side, or a seemingly overwhelmingly popular opinion. With season four of BBC Sherlock,  all the Canon-only Sherlockians, all the Brett-Is-The-One-True-Sherlock-ians, everyone who had any reason to dump on the Cumberbatch series to start with, all saw their opportunity to invite disgruntled fans of the show to the Dark Side. They might as well have gone full Palpatine and just said it . . .

"Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you."

But here's the thing. We all really hate something. If you go back in time with this blog post, you'll find I was as evil as could be about CBS's Elementary. I should just shut the hell up, having written such things. But nobody is as preachy as a reformed villain, so I'm gonna preach.

If you're talking one on one with a friend you know well, let it all out. Find that person, give them a heads up to center themselves, and then talk all the shit you have in your mental bowels. But on a Zoom call with a whole bunch of people, including some you barely know? In a Facebook channel for folks just looking for Sherlock news of any sort? Why take the chance of ruining someone's day to air your grievances. If you want to make that your brand, it's a free country (so far), so make your own feed somewhere where folks can ignore you as needed.

Of course, I know you aren't like that. If you read my blogs you pretty much have to be one of those saints who has no problem with the odd opinion. And I thank you for that.

Also, my apologies to Rob for using his post as a springboard for a cannonball into the pool. Ah, but it's Sunday night and I'm all bad-tempered about having to go back to work again tomorrow.