The Return of Guy Ritchie

 Let's be honest up front. While an actor can transform themselves from role to role, and while Robert Downey Jr. is a great actor, his Tony Stark was really hard to get over for his Sherlock Holmes. And there was the fact that if he wasn't a known Hollywood star, nobody would have cast someone with his look as Holmes. But Guy Ritchie did two fun, terrific movies with RDJ as Sherlock Holmes, and in 2009, we had just endured a very long Sherlockian drought.

So it was great.

But there was definitely a Downey problem. 

He had other, bigger movies to make. And director Guy Ritchie had other things to do as well, but one always had to wonder what Ritchie could do with Sherlock Holmes if Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law weren't the famous faces selling tickets.

And now we know.

Young Sherlock on Amazon Prime is one of those lovely cinematic TV series that we get from those streaming services with money to spend. It would look good in a theater. It's based on a book series that, to be honest, I lost interest in fairly quickly, but it's also a Guy Ritchie TV series, and he's put his stamp on it.

Sherlock Holmes is young, but not so young that he doesn't have a beard from months in prison. He starts out in a prison fight, reminding us a bit of RDJ's movie Sherlock, except that this Sherlock is better at dodging and not-fighting in a fight than punching. Sherlock is studying crime from the criminal side, yet is still incredibly clever and full of smarts. And even before the James-Bond-level opening credits, we get a tease of a Holmes coming out of Baker Street . . . who is another Holmes we're always delighted to see. Getting the two Holmes brothers as our opening and introduction to our new, young but not a child, Sherlock Holmes is just a delight.

I'll admit, I haven't watched the second episode yet. And that's because I'm watching the first episode a second time. I tried to take notes during my first watch, as I do with CBS's Watson, but not this show! It's too much fun.

And as much as we hate to see lesser talents parading Mycroft, Moriarty, Lestrade, and company out to make up for their storytelling weaknesses with the big names, Guy Ritchie and company are not lesser talents. Young Sherlock is a delight. A confection for the modern Holmes fan.

As I said, I tried one of the books this show is based on and wasn't a fan. But this first episode pushed Downey's Sherlock Holmes, BBC Sherlock, and every other Sherlock Holmes film or TV tale out of my head while it did its thing. It's Sherlock felt like a Sherlock, and the intriguing characters in the world of Oxford university he was surrounded by were terrific.

This being more Guy Ritchie than Conan Doyle, of course, Sherlock Holmes seems more in danger of becoming a criminal than a detective. But he always was a special fellow in his way, and that he is here. But he is not the only special character here, with young James Moriarty and Princess Gulun Shou'an (whom I hope survives this series), matching his wits in their own ways. I was not expecting to like a young James Moriarty, but Donal Finn creates a fine current friend and future adversary for Sherlock.

Young Sherlock is one of those creations that you didn't know you needed until you have it, and I am very glad we now do.

Sherlockian Spring!

 Here it is, March already.

The Dayton Sherlockian symposium is nearly here, 221B Con is coming soon, two different Sherlock Holmes inspired television shows started/resumed this week, and the ongoing weekly podcast adaptation of the sixty cases is blowing the doors off doing a modern adaptation.

"Stockbroker's Clerk" . . . they made it an audio action movie. And it worked.

There are plenty of things to read, if you want to consume words. Charge bills are recovering from all the annual renewals to things Sherlockian. And plots are being hatched for so many things. So many.

It's Sherlockian spring!

A thousand things to do and so little time to do them. Tonight I broke the usual Watsonian Weekly podcast recording segment into two segments to economize and still keep up. My other podcast, Sherlock Holmes Is Real, is prepared to expose another Moriartian plot in a couple of weeks. Planning for a all the different weekend events ahead -- because sometimes one just can't merely "be there" -- and chipping away at larger projects just combine with it all to take advantage of the warming-from-winter temps and the enthusiasm that comes from sunnier days.

One might even start to blog post a bit more.

On we go.

The Singular Voice Of The Machine

 Even a hobby that grew out the 1800s can't hide its head in the sand when it comes to tech.

I mean, we try sometimes. Scott Monty really tried to get some of us into RSS feeds at one point, and, boy, did I resist that one. And a certain major Sherlockian or two who did not shy away from the description of "Luddite" never helped in certain areas. But when the robot monster is in the room with you already, you need to learn to recognize its moves.

We saw AI art invading some spaces first, with its added thumbs, bad eyelines, and having a certain someone siting in what appeared to be mid-air in a Baker Street scene seen by a goodly number of folks. It looked like good art to someone without an eye for detail or style, but it was definitely problematic.

And this past weekend, I made my first attempt at reading a book that was aided by AI and several software utilities in the writing of it. Some had an interesting idea and turned to the machine to fulfill that idea's promise. And the result was rather generic.

I was having an issue trying to describe how the writing style felt, and then I ran into a line in a Harvard Business Review article that seemed to get at what I was thinking:

"AI provides a single synthesized perspective, but creative insight depends on exposure to multiple human viewpoints." 

A single, synthesized perspective. The style of writing becomes the style of the AI. Maybe it's just cleaning up the grammar, suggesting a more perfect way to express an idea, or . . . suggesting a better version of the idea. But in the end, the software becomes the true author, ghostwriting in its ghostiest form, no different than if you said "Hey, could you rewrite my book for me to make it better?" to another person. But since it's not another person, just a tool we're using, it seems okay. But if we all asked the same person to rewrite our work? It would all wind up sounding like that person.

I couldn't get over how vanilla the style of the book I was reading was. I had no sense of the author's true voice. Their characters also all spoke in the same voice in dialogue, like a world populated by Mr. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

AI is getting smarter. And I'm sure someone with start working with prompts to tell it "Rewrite my mystery in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," then touch it up a few times and get something less generic sounding. And some "writers" (note the quotes) are not shy about admitting leaning on the software genie to do their work. As I wrote this blog the New York Times came out with a piece on a romance writer bragging about how she could "write" a book in a couple hours. She used a great number of pen names to keep pulling this fraud, but since AI can also track AI, there are those who are tracking the number of AI-written books out there by phrases no human would use, like "ragged prayer." Certain word combos turn out to be the "missing finger" of AI word slop.

It was telling fact that today's news feed also had an article about reading and writing reducing the risk of dementia as we age. But reading and writing also reduce the risk of being just plain stupid in your younger years, and . . . well . . . if AI writes for us, and then starts to read for us, synopsizing things into video explanations by AI pundits . . . you can see where we're headed. At some point, Sherlock Holmes isn't just a fictional character. He also becomes an unrelatable wizard whose mental magic seems inhuman and disappears from our cultural landscape.

Sigh.

Why Sherlockians Are Jerks

 You know how the day job goes. Management can just be really stupid.

I was pondering that everyday irritation today, and my mind wandered to Sherlock Holmes, as it often does. Like so many that come to Sherlock Holmes fandom, something in Holmes feels relatable, a kindred spirit, who likes to solve a problem, maybe do a dramatic reveal, or just spend some relaxing time wading through some books and papers looking for patterns and revelations. And, like Sherlock Holmes, I don't really want to lead or follow, just see where the road takes me.

But those who do decide to lead, whether for ambition, salary, or both, are not often Sherlock Holmes. And a Sherlockian mind, given to analysis, finding the hidden problems, the flaw in the master plan ... well, if there's a criticism to be found, a Sherlockian mind will find it.

In at least one adaptation, a point was made that Sherlock Holmes's powers of observation could be a curse, as he constantly was taking in too much information. That bit overlooked his great ability to focus his attention, as symbolized by the iconic magnifying glass, and ignore the rest. But as the same time, if cracks in anything were in front of him, he was going to see it. Sherlock Holmes saw a lot of stupid.

But he was also kindlier than we shall ever know. He didn't mock everyone he met, and a lot of times did it in clever, under the radar ways. He certainly could have been a lot more of a jerk than his worst screen portrayal, because he had the ammunition. So much ammunition. But he kept his quip-shooter holstered more times than not. Even if it could be devastatingly penetrating when it was used, the silence of its non-use was much more common.

We're not all like that, or relate to that, of course. There are plenty of sweet and kind Sherlockians out there. Some who love Holmes as Watson loved Holmes, admiring without identifying.

And then there are the jerks. Sherlockiana has more than a few jerks. And we attract jerks, because the light bulb to our moth-like path is Sherlock Holmes. And while we all know we're not as smart as Sherlock Holmes, though we aspire to be, we don't all know that we're not as kindly as Sherlock Holmes. Some of us as quite blind to that side of self-awareness. 

And you know who really, really hates the jerks among us? 

Other jerks. Because when you see the flaws in every diamond, you can't miss the big shiny showstopper with a big old glob of yuck on it.

Yet Sherlockians all are we who do love Mr. Sherlock Holmes, whatever the reason. Just some of us are jerks. And the title of this essay really should have been "Why SOME Sherlockians Are Jerks," because so many among us are just sweeties. But I used the shorter, click-bait version to get you to read it, because, you know . . . I'm just a jerk.

P.S. Are there less jerks in this hobby not than in the previous century, when a lot of my opinions were formed? I think so. Once America's major Sherlockian society and influencer went co-ed, a lot of folks learned to behave a little better. But we also may have gained a jerk or two of the opposite gender . . .

"Sherlockian, Promote Thyself!"

Y'know, an introvert can fake extroversion, but inside the charade, does one ever actually change? 

One of the regular features of the Sherlockian Zoom meeting has become the open announcements segment, where events, club meetings, new offers, and general promoting can be done. And I avoid those like the plague. Not that I'm not doing things people might want to know about on occasion. I just don't want to talk about it. 

The reasons for promoting things is obvious: You want to increase the involvement or participation on a thing, be it selling a thing, getting attendance for a thing, or just trying to get people to know a thing exists. Increasing the numbers. But here's the thing . . . Sherlockiana is not a hobby that typically generates big numbers for deep dives. Sure, you can get a whole lot of people to watch a movie or TV show with Sherlock Holmes if it's well done. But how many people actually read an article about the types of Victorian pipe tobacco that Sherlock Holmes smoked in a particular pipe, no matter how cleverly it's written? You can't even go by circulation counts on that for a given journal or newsletter, as not every subscriber reads every article. It's not a number that gets many digits.

And the algorithms do not favor Sherlockiana, in an algorithm based internet.

Be niche enough, unique enough, and the searches may just find you. Or pretend to. There are ways to do such things, but is this hobby really so important it needs all that effort spent on pushing when you could spend the effort doing something you enjoy.

The thing is, after a time, you notice that we're all in a small pond where the biggest fish aren't that much bigger than the other fish. Sure, you can say "Oh, this celebrity from the world outside comes into our pond sometimes!" (Or a lot, if they're really cool.) And they can seem like a bigger fish in our small pond. But the pond is only so big. And a lot of fish in the pond are actually purposefully ignoring that parts of the pond exist, for whatever reason.

Sometimes it's enough to just let your friends know about something, because that's who you did it for anyway. Even introverts like their friends. The rest of humanity can just get annoying, and who wants to do customer service for those bits of humanity if they aren't getting what you're doing?

Of course, the flip side is that one could be nice and just let people know about a thing they might enjoy, even if you aren't looking for fame and fortune climbing Sherlock's coat-tails. And that's really the reason to promote a thing to fellow fans of the great detective. That's just being a good person.

Which one has to occasionally talk one's self into, even if it means writing a blog post to do it. 

Will I even post a link to this blog post on my own social media? We shall see.

That BSI Thing 2026

On Friday night, the Baker Street Irregulars held their annual dinner meeting at the in New York.

Now, for some of us, whether by choice, lack of invitation, or price tag, we don't wind up participitating. Does it make us less a part of the American Sherlockian community? Not in our eyes, but in the past, it really has seemed like there were those Sherlockians who felt that if you didn't do New York, you weren't a true Sherlockian. Manage to get invited to the dinner, get to New York, dress up, and show up there until those who make the choice decide to make you a member of that group or cease to invite you. 

It wasn't always so. The very first year I attended the event, I got to get on the pay phone next to the restrooms and tell my friend back in Peoria that he had been made a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, even though he had never attended a single dinner. It was a great acknowledgement of his contributions to the Sherlockian community of that time. And it came with no price tag, no mandatory attendance, but with the idea that the Baker Street Irregulars was about all Sherlockians, and not just those who could manage a trip to New York. 

I've always held on to that idea, even though I've been told that's not the case on more than one occasion. Sometimes you want to believe in the big tent and the better angels. And those kind of beliefs can make you snarky and cynical on some days, but inside, you still believe, or else you wouldn't be so.

The BSI weekend in New York has become so much more than the BSI dinner. Calling it "the birthday weekend" is probably more appropriate as group after group has staked claims to this meal or time for their part of the weekend. You can still go and enjoy New York and Sherlockians without ever being invited to the elder, original Sherlockian society. And people do.

But a little New York vacation, for those who aren't within a few hours of the city, is a definite luxury. When folks wish we had more younger Sherlockians, we don't account for said younger Sherlockians starting careers, raising kids, or generally living lives that don't include the travel budgets of retirees who have just finished successful careers. I can think of a few younger Sherlockians off the top of my head, as worthy of recognition as anyone inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars this year, who just won't be seeing New York for a while. It just seems like there should be a place at the table for them, even if they can't come to an actual banquet table in New York City.

I've written something similar to this editorial for decades. It probably hasn't helped matters, as a little pushback often makes gatekeepers just fortify the gates. But it has to be said.

Just because there aren't enough seats in a New York banquet room on a given night of the year doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge that "Baker Street Irregulars" as our forebears called all fans of Sherlock Holmes are everywhere on that single Friday night of the year.

Sherlockiana and the changing technosphere

 I let the devil into a John H. Watson Society meeting today.

Since we started the JHWS Zoom meetings during Covid times, they've been a chatty, free-flowing thing with whatever agenda item I happened to throw in for a given month. Not a good ritual sort, so I'm really not the guy you want hosting regular meetings, but you know how Covid was. We all got out of our routines a bit. The world changed on us.

And for the December meeting, I had decided to do an adaptation of "Blue Carbuncle," as one does around this time of year. But as the meeting grew closer and my adaptation was only half done, I had one of those moments of weakness where temptations find easy prey. 

I wondered how AI would do at adapting "Blue Carbuncle." And Google Gemini was right there on the browser. So I asked it to do a modern adaptation. Then I asked it to set it in Texas, and it rewrote the script to take place in Austin. Then I got crazy and went "Give John Watson a love interest," and Mary Morstan suddenly appeared in the story. And it seemed like a fairly competent script. But I knew . . . I knew . . . this would be very controversial.

But my Sherlockian career has never been about playing it safe. So I decided to let the thing play our as a reader's theater and then have the discussion of how well the AI did after it was received with the thought it was human-produced. But that discussion never happened, as, like so much of modern life, the battle lines have already been drawn with respect to those softwares we group up under the name "AI."

My career working with medical software is a place with AI cannot be denied. Doctors are already cutting hours out of their workday as it helps streamline their note-taking, a usage that's valuable and actually helps them spend more time with patients. And like every other business in America, the upper management is pushing for more AI use. Denial is not an option in most workplaces. The beastie is here and we have to adapt and deal.

In the world of arts and literature, there's a thought that this beastie can be dealt with by just refusing to deal with it. Climb to the moral high ground and outlast the flood. But as much as some Sherlockians would like to remain in a Victorian mindset, be a happy Luddite, and leave it at that, the shifting technological world has already hit us, hard.

Publish on demand printing has yielded more books on Sherlock Holmes in the past few years than ever before. Anyone can publish a Holmes pastiche, regardless of quality. Anyone can publish a book of Canonical commentary, Sherlockian chronology, Holmes fandom memoirs . . . anything. And that was just people who can write.

Now we have a software imp that can let anybody write a book. All you have to do is have an idea and the proper wish given to the genie. All of the arguments against AI -- the somewhat dubious way it grabs its knowledge, the horrible drain on natural resources humans need to survive, that it will steal more jobs than an immigrant force ever imagined -- all of that falls away when the right person is offered the right wish by this new magic. We are, after all . . . human.

I did violate a certain trust in rolling an AI-created script out for a Sherlockian audience without advance warning, even if I did have full intentions of revealing after. Even as an experiment -- my subjects did not volunteer for this experiment. There's definitely some smut on my aura, to use a metaphor from a certain demonic novel series. But the monster is here.

Whether it's publish-on-demand, 3D printed creations, AI-generated video, or a simple reader's theater script, we're living in the future now, and are all going to have to figure out just how that's going to work for us. How we screen what we take in, where each thing can actually serve a useful purpose, and how we stem the flow of garbage that can come from any one of those innovations. 

2026 is nigh, and a future none of us expected. Even here in the Sherlockian world.