Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium: More Sunday morning!!

"Hum" (Reflections on a Sherlockian World Inspired by Poetry, Roses, and Bees) is Tim Johnson's presentation, a prose poem inspired by poet Mary Oliver, a meditation on all things Sherlockian from his archivist view. This is the one I've been most curious about all weekend.

He begins by reading Mary Oliver's "Hum" itself, about bees, what she saw in them, almost like something out of Sherlock's brain. And now comes his riff on it. "We dabble in poetry, but Canon came first . . ." he begins. "What is this dark hum among the roses?" Mary Oliver wrote, and Tim's riff goes into Doyle's own words from STUD and MUSG, poetry without being poetry, what would Doyle think of Brexit, he refers to Sherlockian poetry "Long Evening With Holmes" and "221B," Chicago. This poetic meditation is a bit tough to report, so bear with me.

And he's getting to the big tent of Sherlockiana: "It should be a safe tent." And how some don't get along. This is our Sunday morning service, I think. The darkness of the world enters in, tragic leaders that hit us more important than Holmes. Uh-oh, he mentions Ferrell Holmes and a certain Peorian who's crazy about it . . . but adds "We need crazy."  And on to "No Holmes barred" and LGBTQ and how we're kinda white, and our "devotee" side is a little old and wrinkled, and fandom is young and different. Sherlock Seattle's effects on Tim. All he learned there. We've all had journeys, learning how to deal in this new world some of us have come to. I think of Jameela Jamil's recent twitter experiences on that. Finding himself between Trumpers at a Sherlockian event, and how we don't talk politics, yet come together with those we might otherwise now. Clubs, not exclusivity, and he touches on that one club for a moment.

The Game we all play, the joy of it, and how some might be a little more competitive and some may think there are rules or not. Tim is really continuing our theme of mass content deluges this weekend, and he's rolling out real ponderances like chocolates on Lucy Ricardo's inspection conveyer belt and we have to start stuffing some in our figurative mental blouses as they go by. I pause to pin on a button and just listen and he's on to Sherlock Holmes music and how there's not enough of it.

OH! Standing ovation for Tim! That was spiritual. Don't know if it's my aging hormone shifts, but it got me a bit teary. My seat-neighbor Kristin is next and a bit daunted to follow Tim, and I appreciate her being my buffer.

Posting this! I will be back!