Prelim Six, The Miss "Sherlock Holmes is Like" Pageant

I'm immediately starting to suspect a Donald P. Bellasario conspiracy imbedded in the Miss "Sherlock Holmes Is Like" pageant at the outset of tonight's round. A couple of nights ago, Higgins from Magnum P.I., a Bellasario-produced TV show, won the night. And now, Bellasario's name turns up again as the main character from TV's Quantum Leap is revealed as someone Sherlock Holmes is like.

Nea Dodson has matched up Sam Beckett's Quantum Leap Canon with Sherlock Holmes's Canon of cases very neatly to give Sam a definite Sherlockian aspect that most of us never considered before. And one has to be a hundred percent certain that somewhere someone has broken Sam Beckett's time restraints to have him leap into Sherlock Holmes in a fanfic somewhere, but that stretch is avoided for this round.

A familiar face, one that I've seen in my "Sherlock Holmes Is Like" dreams before this book, is lead to the stage by Angela Misri. It's Loki, the Norse god of mischief, brother to Thor and just one in a long tradition of trickster-gods. And even though Angela doesn't bring it up, we all kinda wanted Tom Hiddlestone to be what eventually became Eurus, didn't we? The third Holmes who was even more the trickster than his brother . . . 

It's gods night here at the ol' pageant, and luck has us following Loki with the being that actually comes after him in the book, Lord Shiva. Sherlock Holmes and Hinduism have crossed paths before, but never have I see Sherlock's hair so proudly brought into the discussion, as Susan Bailey eventually does. We don't have a swimsuit portion of this competition, as even Miss America has done away with that eventual relic of the patriarchy, but Lord Shiva might have done well there, with the hair and ascetic sexiness.

This pageant gets weird sometimes.

Jumping to page 221, one expects to find a real Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes Is Like and with the title of "The Sherlock Holmes of Iran," Sadeq Mamqoli already seems a veteran in wearing that Sherlockian crown. Navid Farrokhi makes sure we get all the details on this contestant that most of us will come to fresh here, and such figures are the ones we get the most out of meeting here.

Of course, as surprising as new faces like Sadeq Mamqoli are, it's even more of a shock to see a familiar, underage contestant like Huck Finn showing up in this "like Holmes" pageant. Was there no age limit for contestants? Huck Finn is around thirteen, isn't he?

But Rob Nunn is a teacher working near the Mississippi River, so it's not surprising he would drag a wayward lad like Huck to this show, and not surprising that Huck would find himself on stage. (The kid has his face plastered all over a chain of small town gas-and-convenience stores around here, so he's hard to escape.)

When Huck Finn showed up so randomly in this pageant, I was pretty sure I was going with Loki for this round. But Huck's a bit of a trickster, too, and Rob Nunn really brings the boy's Holmes-ishness out on all the key points I've come to look for in these competitors. And he really brings it home with his words on Huck's faithful Watson.

I may have to suffer accusations of favoring the local boy on this one, but Huck Finn is going to the finals. I never would have believed it!