Well, it's been a year, hasn't it?
It's getting harder and harder to exist in a public space without pissing a few people off, and this has been the year to just embrace who you are and go for it . . . at least, for some of us. Not so much for others.
Way back in March, in the run-up to 221B Con, I got called "the worst person in our hobby" by the Facebook of a certain Sherlockian book of note, but by the time the con was over, someone else seemed to have stolen the crown, at least on social media. It'll make for an interesting chapter in one of those Sherlockian history Christmas annuals of The Baker Street Journal in twenty years. But all of that showed me one thing about where we find ourselves as we end the 2010s: You both have to not care what others think, and care about their feelings as well.
Seem contradictory? Seem like a fine line? Well, yes, and no.
Creatively, you simply cannot give a crap about folks without craft who like to judge craft. You cannot limit yourself to only exposing those loves that everyone else will love, as there is no thing that everyone loves. If you have faith that someone out there will have a little fun with it, let it out.
But you also have to be aware of the world around you. At well past six decades of life, I've got crap in my head that does not fit in the modern world any more than a manual typewriter does. (Like how to use a manual typewriter.) I could limit all my time talking to people of my generation who get that stuff, but how dull would that be? (We'd mostly talk of our ailments at this point anyway. Shingles vaccines, ouch!) If I'm going to talk to everyone around me, I need to be a little bit aware of what's going on in their heads, even if it's hard to figure out sometimes.
If we thought life was going to be easy, 2019 had some things of its own to teach us, and hopefully, we can carry some of those things into the next decade.
I can't wait.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, icons for the future
The week ahead brings us to the year 2020, which for a lot
of us once seemed a lot like saying next year is Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd
Century. The future tends to get here whether we expect it or not, and history
is being made as we speak. This is what I was thinking as I finished up The Watsonian Weekly for this week, so I thought I'd expand on it a bit.
We often forget that the Sherlock Holmes stories, when they
were written, weren’t about looking lovingly back on the past – they were about
a visionary detective who was looking ahead toward what was possible, and
becoming the consulting detective he could envision when no one else could. Sherlock Holmes, when he first appeared, was the man of the future.
It's ironic that so much of Sherlockiana has become looking back, documenting the past, holding on to that frozen pod of Victorian imagination we call Canon. It wasn't built as a cozy comforter, but as a constant lesson in "the world isn't always what it appears to be." It taught us to look for the truth, even if the abused dog is much less romantic than a curse-created hound from Hell. It showed us to look past the fear to the factual, and hell if that ain't a lesson we need to learn again and again and again.
I always end each episode of The Watsonian Weekly with Watson’s good-bye to
Stamford as Watson walks away wondering about this fellow called Sherlock
Holmes, but just before that, just before Stamford says his own good-bye, he
has these last words: “I’ll wager he learns more about you than you about him.”
Live with Sherlock Holmes long enough, and he will show you
more about yourself than you are shown about him. It’s the Watsonian way. And in this new decade of the 2020s, we’re
sure to be learning a whole lot of new things about ourselves and the world around us. Some good, some bad, some merely "what is." We have no idea what's coming, exactly. Glimmers perhaps. Expectations of certain routine things. But a lot that will still be a little better with a view inspired by Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson.
And the game is afoot again.
Saturday, December 28, 2019
The Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend cometh
On the verge of January, the thoughts of a Sherlockian of my generation naturally turn to the upcoming Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend in New York. In earlier times, we'd call it "the BSI weekend," but as it has grown and expanded, and a new generation of Sherlockians has come along, not so invested in the old ways, "Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend" seems so much more appropriate.
Whilst the elder country club of the Sherlockian world might still hold dominance, deciding the weekend, inviting whom they please to their prom, it's all of those folks who quietly put together events outside of that institution that one has to have a great fondness for. They're just doing it for their fellow Sherlockians, and often go over and above in entertaining their guests. When I think back to my trips to New York in January, the more memorable moments seem to have occurred at those other events, where folks were a little more relaxed and not mainly waiting to see who the gatekeeper let in that year.
T'was the gatekeeping that first started those other events, when the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes former in the male-only sixties and started holding their own alternate dinner, which quickly gained a reputation as "the fun dinner." One of my great regrets in Sherlockian life is never having made it to a proper ASH dinner before it gave way to "The Baskerville Bash" in 1997, once the discriminatory reason for its existence disappeared. After nearly a decade, the Baskerville Bash gave way to that Gaslight Gala, and the tradition of welcoming Sherlockians to the Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend continued. Other events rose up to fill the week, and still do. When you get that many Sherlockians in one city at one time, spontaneous gathering are always going to occur -- if you could find an excuse to lure a hundred or two Sherlockians to any one locale with no program at all, chances are they'll start putting events together.
Last year was the final year for the Daintiest Thing Charity Ball put on by the Baker Street Babes, and that definitely makes the 2020 birthday weekend shine a little less brightly. It was a bold and beautiful event that actually looked outside the Sherlockian bubble to give an amazing amount of money to wounded veterans, all the while shining a light on the diversity and expanse that Sherlockiana of the 2010s has become. But NYC events are no easy thing to put on, and six years was a very good run, with so much to be proud of.
2020 should be an interesting year for the Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend. A lot of the official institutional business went out very late, and this year the autocracy changes leaders. Most of the business-as-usual will be business-as-usual, I'm sure. The bookstores will be frequented, certain bars will get a few more patrons than usual. But we're actually moving into a decade that few of us ever thought we'd arrive at back in the 1980s. The future awaits.
All that said, I don't know if NYC in January is a place a settled, small-town-raised fellow like myself is going to ever wind up in again. Like Chicago, it's not a place I find comfortable even among friends, and was always glad to feel that jet home leaving the ground, unlike other Sherlockian weekends that I'd happily never leave. Still, come January, one tends to look in that direction, to see what's going on there.
And still thinking that some other city in some warmer season might not just be a little more choice.
Whilst the elder country club of the Sherlockian world might still hold dominance, deciding the weekend, inviting whom they please to their prom, it's all of those folks who quietly put together events outside of that institution that one has to have a great fondness for. They're just doing it for their fellow Sherlockians, and often go over and above in entertaining their guests. When I think back to my trips to New York in January, the more memorable moments seem to have occurred at those other events, where folks were a little more relaxed and not mainly waiting to see who the gatekeeper let in that year.
T'was the gatekeeping that first started those other events, when the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes former in the male-only sixties and started holding their own alternate dinner, which quickly gained a reputation as "the fun dinner." One of my great regrets in Sherlockian life is never having made it to a proper ASH dinner before it gave way to "The Baskerville Bash" in 1997, once the discriminatory reason for its existence disappeared. After nearly a decade, the Baskerville Bash gave way to that Gaslight Gala, and the tradition of welcoming Sherlockians to the Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend continued. Other events rose up to fill the week, and still do. When you get that many Sherlockians in one city at one time, spontaneous gathering are always going to occur -- if you could find an excuse to lure a hundred or two Sherlockians to any one locale with no program at all, chances are they'll start putting events together.
Last year was the final year for the Daintiest Thing Charity Ball put on by the Baker Street Babes, and that definitely makes the 2020 birthday weekend shine a little less brightly. It was a bold and beautiful event that actually looked outside the Sherlockian bubble to give an amazing amount of money to wounded veterans, all the while shining a light on the diversity and expanse that Sherlockiana of the 2010s has become. But NYC events are no easy thing to put on, and six years was a very good run, with so much to be proud of.
2020 should be an interesting year for the Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend. A lot of the official institutional business went out very late, and this year the autocracy changes leaders. Most of the business-as-usual will be business-as-usual, I'm sure. The bookstores will be frequented, certain bars will get a few more patrons than usual. But we're actually moving into a decade that few of us ever thought we'd arrive at back in the 1980s. The future awaits.
All that said, I don't know if NYC in January is a place a settled, small-town-raised fellow like myself is going to ever wind up in again. Like Chicago, it's not a place I find comfortable even among friends, and was always glad to feel that jet home leaving the ground, unlike other Sherlockian weekends that I'd happily never leave. Still, come January, one tends to look in that direction, to see what's going on there.
And still thinking that some other city in some warmer season might not just be a little more choice.
Friday, December 27, 2019
The problem with Sherlock Holmes
"These people are so much cooler than anyone I could meet in real life."
Growing up as a reader and having weak social skills would seem to be a classic combo. It extends past those who read, of course -- gamers, Trekkies, movie buffs, you name it -- those who prefer to spend their time in fictional worlds don't always develop the best strategies for dealing with other humans. But it's a "chicken or the egg" scenario. Which comes first? Not dealing well with normal humans or retreating into fiction where the people are pretty cool and make perfect sense?
When someone asks you who your "hero" is, what do you answer?
Some flawed, smelly, potentially problematic historical figure? Or a nicely encapsulated, Canon-made fellow like Sherlock Holmes? (Or, perhaps, a family member or teacher, which is an entirely different mindset?) In any case, the answer definitely says something about you.
What is that thing? Well, I'll let you decide, but for me, one aspect is that character of fiction are designed to be relatable. Creators build them so we can feel a commonality, so that we can share their experience, even if they are so very different from us on the surface. Our empathy is pointed directly at them and given instructions on how to empath.
If normal humans all came with a short story you were handed at first meeting and given the time to read immediately, we might get along with people so much better. But, alas, it takes time to learn the story of another human, and there are just so very many of us, and the stories are just so . . . complicated.
Sherlock Holmes, as bright a boy as he is, is really rather simple.
Oh, yes, he's vague and mysterious, full of enough blank spaces that we can color in those gaps using our own personal crayons, and that's why he and the even-more-vague Johnny boy are such easy loves to have. In truth, they are us, extensions of ourselves, and even if we sometimes find it hard to love ourselves, we can still love that perfect part of us that we see in them. The potential for something special, like babies, but with a life already laid out in front of them.
Who can compete with that, except perhaps a young love whose spell has completely obsessed? Even those are often just other story-folk with similar stories behind them. Yet just as such fine story-folk as Sherlock Holmes provide escape from the dull little everydays of life, those messy, often-hard-to-read real people in our lives can also provide a relaxing escape from the demands of Sherlock Holmes, if you think about it. They actually have random thoughts on details that weren't spoon-fed to them and outside the Victorian period. Can Sherlock Holmes help you figure out what was going on with that CATS movie after you've seen it? Nope.
But we're glad to have him, whatever purpose he's serving to us. And that can be a good many things.
-- Nick (I think), The Final Podblem podcast on 3GAR
When someone asks you who your "hero" is, what do you answer?
Some flawed, smelly, potentially problematic historical figure? Or a nicely encapsulated, Canon-made fellow like Sherlock Holmes? (Or, perhaps, a family member or teacher, which is an entirely different mindset?) In any case, the answer definitely says something about you.
What is that thing? Well, I'll let you decide, but for me, one aspect is that character of fiction are designed to be relatable. Creators build them so we can feel a commonality, so that we can share their experience, even if they are so very different from us on the surface. Our empathy is pointed directly at them and given instructions on how to empath.
If normal humans all came with a short story you were handed at first meeting and given the time to read immediately, we might get along with people so much better. But, alas, it takes time to learn the story of another human, and there are just so very many of us, and the stories are just so . . . complicated.
Sherlock Holmes, as bright a boy as he is, is really rather simple.
Oh, yes, he's vague and mysterious, full of enough blank spaces that we can color in those gaps using our own personal crayons, and that's why he and the even-more-vague Johnny boy are such easy loves to have. In truth, they are us, extensions of ourselves, and even if we sometimes find it hard to love ourselves, we can still love that perfect part of us that we see in them. The potential for something special, like babies, but with a life already laid out in front of them.
Who can compete with that, except perhaps a young love whose spell has completely obsessed? Even those are often just other story-folk with similar stories behind them. Yet just as such fine story-folk as Sherlock Holmes provide escape from the dull little everydays of life, those messy, often-hard-to-read real people in our lives can also provide a relaxing escape from the demands of Sherlock Holmes, if you think about it. They actually have random thoughts on details that weren't spoon-fed to them and outside the Victorian period. Can Sherlock Holmes help you figure out what was going on with that CATS movie after you've seen it? Nope.
But we're glad to have him, whatever purpose he's serving to us. And that can be a good many things.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
The second day after Christmas
We tend to get our Blue Carbuncling out a little early each year, as waiting for Christmas can be hard enough for those inner children. And John H. Watson waiting until the second day after Christmas to call upon Sherlock Holmes just pushes things out a little further. Our Sherlockian Christmas story is really a day-after-Boxing-Day story, but since all the things within it are based on a mystery that occurred on Christmas Eve, it gets by.
And yet, one has to wonder about that second day after Christmas when Watson finally calls on his best and wisest friend. Both John and Mary Watson were notable for having no kin in England, even though Watson seems to have had a wife with a visitable mother at one point, so it's hard to imagine family matters causing the delay. Something as serious as illness would not have Watson running about in the cold with Holmes once the case has begun. And it's hard to imagine Holmes being so far down the list that Watson had to call upon Thurston, Stamford, the Whitneys, etc., first.
Watson is even just stopping by on his professional rounds, calling on patients, which he has to finish before returning that evening. It's not like he planned to spend much time with Holmes, just a friendly stop to say "hi." No gift in hand or anything. If Watson had seen Holmes earlier in the holiday season, there would have been no need for the "compliments of the season." So what is going on here?
One almost wonders if Sherlock Holmes had something against Christmas, and Watson was being very respectful of that sore spot. Peterson seems to expect that Sherlock Holmes will be home on Christmas morning and up for bringing a hat and goose mystery to.
It's interesting that Holmes calls it "the season of forgiveness," something that isn't usually the first spirit that comes to mind tied to Christmas. Generosity, love, joy . . . all of those might lead the way as Christmas spirits, and while forgiveness seems appropriate, one has to wonder if there was something big Holmes had to forgive at Christmas.
Was it his subtle way of getting back to some unspoken rift that had occurred between he and John? Was it some family betrayal from his past, the likely candidate being the elder brother? Watson's call on that second day after Christmas is a prompt to launch a thousand different stories of why the delay existed. One could even fill a nice holiday volume entitled The Second Day After Christmas if one were in the anthology business with variants on the theme.
But, alas, for this year, the day after Boxing Day is still three days away and I'm already two or three "Blue Carbuncle" references in, with possibly one more to come. I just can't wait like Watson did.
And yet, one has to wonder about that second day after Christmas when Watson finally calls on his best and wisest friend. Both John and Mary Watson were notable for having no kin in England, even though Watson seems to have had a wife with a visitable mother at one point, so it's hard to imagine family matters causing the delay. Something as serious as illness would not have Watson running about in the cold with Holmes once the case has begun. And it's hard to imagine Holmes being so far down the list that Watson had to call upon Thurston, Stamford, the Whitneys, etc., first.
Watson is even just stopping by on his professional rounds, calling on patients, which he has to finish before returning that evening. It's not like he planned to spend much time with Holmes, just a friendly stop to say "hi." No gift in hand or anything. If Watson had seen Holmes earlier in the holiday season, there would have been no need for the "compliments of the season." So what is going on here?
One almost wonders if Sherlock Holmes had something against Christmas, and Watson was being very respectful of that sore spot. Peterson seems to expect that Sherlock Holmes will be home on Christmas morning and up for bringing a hat and goose mystery to.
It's interesting that Holmes calls it "the season of forgiveness," something that isn't usually the first spirit that comes to mind tied to Christmas. Generosity, love, joy . . . all of those might lead the way as Christmas spirits, and while forgiveness seems appropriate, one has to wonder if there was something big Holmes had to forgive at Christmas.
Was it his subtle way of getting back to some unspoken rift that had occurred between he and John? Was it some family betrayal from his past, the likely candidate being the elder brother? Watson's call on that second day after Christmas is a prompt to launch a thousand different stories of why the delay existed. One could even fill a nice holiday volume entitled The Second Day After Christmas if one were in the anthology business with variants on the theme.
But, alas, for this year, the day after Boxing Day is still three days away and I'm already two or three "Blue Carbuncle" references in, with possibly one more to come. I just can't wait like Watson did.
Monday, December 23, 2019
The painful price of popularity in the present
Okay, we've had a new Star Wars movie for all of four days now and the amount of armchair re-writes gushing out of the internet are astounding. It seems to be the way fan engagement works at this point, bonding with earlier chapters of a thing, getting a sense of ownership via the love of that thing, and then having very definite ideas of how things should have gone.
It really makes me look at those key Sherlock Holmes stories like "The Final Problem," "The Empty House," and "His Last Bow," and wondering how the internet would have burned and recreated those tales the first week after they came out, were Conan Doyle subject to the same million-eyed-monster that goes after popular culture icons of today.
"Final Problem," of course, has the fact that Moriarty shows up out of nowhere, Dr. Watson getting dragged along until just before the climactic moment, and then left with no resolution nor satisfying relationship moments. And how is Moriarty's criminal empire ignoring all of the socio-economic factors behind crime and just saying it's this one dude? Never mind "Speckled Band" and "Red-Headed League" being totally superior stories, are still at the top of pundit rankings and this "Final Problem" has to fall down into the teens at the very least.
It's actually very hard to look at those original serialized entertainments from The Strand Magazine and see them in the context of the harsh scrutinies modern media endure. And they're in a written medium besides -- books rarely take the "everybody's a critic" pounding that TV shows or movies do because reading an entire book actually takes commitment. You can't just go "I'm going to kill two hours and watch the popular thing."
It's a bit of a stretch to try to imagine internet reaction to a Doyle short story, but it's a good mental exercise. Would "His Last Bow, with its completely different structure have totally thrown the internet for a loop? Would clickbait headlines try to suggest it was the start of a new series, with Sherlock Holmes as a spy? And how would the varied political factions dig in on Sherlock Holmes getting involved in pre-war international affairs?
It's kind of nice that the dust settled on the original Sherlock Holmes Canon long ago. We saw the nasty turn things took during that last season of Sherlock, whether it was what the creators did or how some fans reacted. Those sorts of things are so far behind us on Doyle Holmes that no one who was a part of them is either not alive or too old to hold a grudge.
It would be kind of nice is there was some sort of two-week moratorium where the internet would just let us enjoy things, or not enjoy them, and form our own opinions before forming the sort of lynch mob we saw coming for Holmes and Watson last Christmas, and CATS this Christmas. (Though I will honestly admit I did pick up a torch and a pitchfork and joined the villagers over that second one. Oh, lordy.) But such is the world we must adapt to these days, as it won't be changing anytime soon, I'm sure.
It almost makes one hope that Sherlock Holmes doesn't get another wave of popularity for a decade or two. Almost!
It really makes me look at those key Sherlock Holmes stories like "The Final Problem," "The Empty House," and "His Last Bow," and wondering how the internet would have burned and recreated those tales the first week after they came out, were Conan Doyle subject to the same million-eyed-monster that goes after popular culture icons of today.
"Final Problem," of course, has the fact that Moriarty shows up out of nowhere, Dr. Watson getting dragged along until just before the climactic moment, and then left with no resolution nor satisfying relationship moments. And how is Moriarty's criminal empire ignoring all of the socio-economic factors behind crime and just saying it's this one dude? Never mind "Speckled Band" and "Red-Headed League" being totally superior stories, are still at the top of pundit rankings and this "Final Problem" has to fall down into the teens at the very least.
It's actually very hard to look at those original serialized entertainments from The Strand Magazine and see them in the context of the harsh scrutinies modern media endure. And they're in a written medium besides -- books rarely take the "everybody's a critic" pounding that TV shows or movies do because reading an entire book actually takes commitment. You can't just go "I'm going to kill two hours and watch the popular thing."
It's a bit of a stretch to try to imagine internet reaction to a Doyle short story, but it's a good mental exercise. Would "His Last Bow, with its completely different structure have totally thrown the internet for a loop? Would clickbait headlines try to suggest it was the start of a new series, with Sherlock Holmes as a spy? And how would the varied political factions dig in on Sherlock Holmes getting involved in pre-war international affairs?
It's kind of nice that the dust settled on the original Sherlock Holmes Canon long ago. We saw the nasty turn things took during that last season of Sherlock, whether it was what the creators did or how some fans reacted. Those sorts of things are so far behind us on Doyle Holmes that no one who was a part of them is either not alive or too old to hold a grudge.
It would be kind of nice is there was some sort of two-week moratorium where the internet would just let us enjoy things, or not enjoy them, and form our own opinions before forming the sort of lynch mob we saw coming for Holmes and Watson last Christmas, and CATS this Christmas. (Though I will honestly admit I did pick up a torch and a pitchfork and joined the villagers over that second one. Oh, lordy.) But such is the world we must adapt to these days, as it won't be changing anytime soon, I'm sure.
It almost makes one hope that Sherlock Holmes doesn't get another wave of popularity for a decade or two. Almost!
Sunday, December 22, 2019
The things this world will let you do now
Sometimes, you just have to stop and appreciate the now.
Sherlockiana as a whole has a tendency to look backwards. The old stories, the old club, the old TV show . . . those moments from the past that just seemed so darned good. But every now and then you get a reason to take stock of the now, step back, and just look at things in slack-jawed wonder.
This morning, for example. In the past week or so, I was just too busy to appreciate what was happening as it happened, so it took a minute. But here's the thing:
Even though I'm not a technological genius, a billionaire, a particular theatrical talent, or all that good at connecting people, when someone brought up the idea of adapting "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" a couple weeks ago, the world we live in at this moment allowed me to go, "Sure, that's something I can do."
Gathering Sherlockians from Idaho, California, Oregon, Washington, almost-Missouri, and Illinois for one amateur production . . . audio, only, 'tis true, but technologically, I'd think one could actually do video with the right resources . . . in any case, all those people from all that distance came together in about a week's time to put on a show. Because we can do that now.
Not saying we've worked all the kinks out -- I had to use myself as my lead actor, not because I think I fit the role but because I was the one with the time most available to me. Had I been not under a pre-Christmas rush deadline, I probably could have spent some time and found somebody who could actually play the part well. And my audio editing skills are still not anywhere close to good, but once you get past all the quibbles, here's the thing:
We live in a world where you can do these things now. Amazing things.
We can do amateur adaptations of the Canon for our own amusement with our friends. And so much more than that. The biggest roadblock for most of us is the "I'm not good at this" fears. Or the glimers of "nobody wants to see this." But there's two movies out there that I always come back to, about two overly enthusiastic fellows who got past those dreads, Ed Wood and Dolemite Is My Name, two tales of people driven to produce what some would consider schlock, but people who also found satisfaction in doing what they loved despite common wisdom or worries of not being good enough.
Sure, you might only wind up entertaining a handful of people, but isn't that better than doing nothing at all, if you enjoyed getting there?
So here's a link to the Watsonian Weekly "Blue Carbuncle Special" if you haven't encountered it yet. If you listen to it and go, "Well, I could have done that!" . . . well, I'm not going to argue that point at all, and I wish you would do that very thing. Next Christmas, let's have a dozen "Blue Carbuncle"s out there. And twice as many the year after that.
The world is, at this moment, giving us the potential for great riches. And it all starts with "Hey, I could probably do that!"
Sherlockiana as a whole has a tendency to look backwards. The old stories, the old club, the old TV show . . . those moments from the past that just seemed so darned good. But every now and then you get a reason to take stock of the now, step back, and just look at things in slack-jawed wonder.
This morning, for example. In the past week or so, I was just too busy to appreciate what was happening as it happened, so it took a minute. But here's the thing:
Even though I'm not a technological genius, a billionaire, a particular theatrical talent, or all that good at connecting people, when someone brought up the idea of adapting "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" a couple weeks ago, the world we live in at this moment allowed me to go, "Sure, that's something I can do."
Gathering Sherlockians from Idaho, California, Oregon, Washington, almost-Missouri, and Illinois for one amateur production . . . audio, only, 'tis true, but technologically, I'd think one could actually do video with the right resources . . . in any case, all those people from all that distance came together in about a week's time to put on a show. Because we can do that now.
Not saying we've worked all the kinks out -- I had to use myself as my lead actor, not because I think I fit the role but because I was the one with the time most available to me. Had I been not under a pre-Christmas rush deadline, I probably could have spent some time and found somebody who could actually play the part well. And my audio editing skills are still not anywhere close to good, but once you get past all the quibbles, here's the thing:
We live in a world where you can do these things now. Amazing things.
We can do amateur adaptations of the Canon for our own amusement with our friends. And so much more than that. The biggest roadblock for most of us is the "I'm not good at this" fears. Or the glimers of "nobody wants to see this." But there's two movies out there that I always come back to, about two overly enthusiastic fellows who got past those dreads, Ed Wood and Dolemite Is My Name, two tales of people driven to produce what some would consider schlock, but people who also found satisfaction in doing what they loved despite common wisdom or worries of not being good enough.
Sure, you might only wind up entertaining a handful of people, but isn't that better than doing nothing at all, if you enjoyed getting there?
So here's a link to the Watsonian Weekly "Blue Carbuncle Special" if you haven't encountered it yet. If you listen to it and go, "Well, I could have done that!" . . . well, I'm not going to argue that point at all, and I wish you would do that very thing. Next Christmas, let's have a dozen "Blue Carbuncle"s out there. And twice as many the year after that.
The world is, at this moment, giving us the potential for great riches. And it all starts with "Hey, I could probably do that!"
Saturday, December 21, 2019
The doll and its maker
"So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle, the doll and its maker are never identical."
-- Arthur Conan Doyle, "To An Undiscerning Critic"
It's a curious thing that something Doyle once said to express that Sherlock's opinions were not his own is something that actually goes both ways. And that's a very good thing.
One of the perils of becoming an ardent fan (or aficionado, if you're all fancy) is that in trying to satisfy your desire for more of a good thing, you might follow the trail back to the source of your happy place and expect there to be more happy there.
This being the weekend of the grand finale of that trilogy of trilogies that my love of began around the same time as my love of Sherlock Holmes, I'm definitely reflecting on George Lucas and how I always avoided "Making Of" specials. The same has always gone for Conan Doyle biographies -- on my shelf for reference, but not for pleasure, as I avoid them as much as possible. Both men have their fans, but I am happy for the most part to accept the gifts they gave us without paying too much attention to their personal doings.
Of course, neither George Lucas nor Conan Doyle ever came after the place where I lived, either.
Conan Doyle was quite socially active in his day, an ocean and a century away, so it's easy to not get too concerned with any of the things he was about, like trying to convince people that seances were a preferred spiritual practice. If he lived in modern America and took a political stance that I am dead-set against, one that is incredibly stupid and literally destroys lives, and then actually made efforts to promote that agenda?
It might get very hard to look at his work without seeing that shadow falling over it.
Writers create our culture. Whether it's through scripts, novels, speeches, or ad copy, the ideas writers share wind up tying us together or breaking us apart. Of course, we also get to decide which of those ideas we pick up and which we leave on the floor, but this always gets interesting when we pick up a fantastic character like Sherlock Holmes for one set of reasons, and then find all the other ideas of a Conan Doyle being lifted up as well by the strings tying them to that character.
T'were Conan Doyle still an active celebrity, with a reality show tracking fairies like some do bigfoot, getting called out for racist bits on Twitter, and without all his rough edges sanded off by history and the polishing of his memory by his children and fans, one wonders how it would affect our view of Sherlock Holmes. Our predecessors seemed to have dealt with it by demoting him to "literary agent" and making Watson's handy first-person narration give us a nice no-rough-edges author to replace the celeb with. Would that work now? Who knows.
My sympathies go out to all the devoted fans of Harry Potter who are trying to deal with that very thing right now without a Watsonian buffer. I'm still leaving the Conan Doyle studies to somebody else, as well. That guy was weird.
T'were Conan Doyle still an active celebrity, with a reality show tracking fairies like some do bigfoot, getting called out for racist bits on Twitter, and without all his rough edges sanded off by history and the polishing of his memory by his children and fans, one wonders how it would affect our view of Sherlock Holmes. Our predecessors seemed to have dealt with it by demoting him to "literary agent" and making Watson's handy first-person narration give us a nice no-rough-edges author to replace the celeb with. Would that work now? Who knows.
My sympathies go out to all the devoted fans of Harry Potter who are trying to deal with that very thing right now without a Watsonian buffer. I'm still leaving the Conan Doyle studies to somebody else, as well. That guy was weird.
Thursday, December 19, 2019
A good day for a Sherlockian
Today started out as a really bad day to be me, forgetting to take my work laptop to work, having a dentist appointment that I didn't know if I needed, other odd bits . . . but then Sherlock Holmes entered the picture. I had half an episode of The Final Podblem on "The Retired Colourman" to listen to, and the evening held the promise of Peoria's Sherlock Holmes Story Society gathering at the library to discuss "The Abbey Grange." And that, my friends, is a combo that will just make your day.
I don't think I'll ever get over how much regularly listening to other people's takes on my favorite stories has become such a joy to me of late. I don't know if we were all just treading the same ground for a while, and it took a new crop of Sherlockians to bring the fresh or if I just was a complete narcissist before who was too busy with my own opinion. I'm sure there are a few who shouted "THAT ONE!" after reading the second option, but to each their own.
I don't think I had felt the actual horror of "Retired Colourman's" gas chamber crime until hearing Nick and Casey unspool Amberly's villainy from their fresh read. The idea of Watson just dealing with the matter, or an ongoing Barker series, were nicely intriguing as well. Plus, they just make me laugh like a good two person podcast should.
Eleven Sherlockians rooting around "Abbey Grange" live and in person is bound to turn up some previous unremarked facts. Like that I pay so much attention to Sherlock Holmes (and then Doctor Watson) that I completely gloss over bits like Captain Croker's flat-out racism for no reason: "I believe you are a man of your word, and a white man, and I'll tell you the whole story." I mean, hopefully, he meant that in a "white hat" sense at the time, but these days, it comes out flat racist.
And then there's the little side-jaunts one goes on because Google is in your pocket. Someone mentioned a Swiss Army knife being in the story, and that led to this:
The actual reference is to a "multiplex knife," which existed since the 1850s, and we know it couldn't have been a true Swiss Army knife as a.) The story takes place in late winter 1897, and b.) Though the Swiss Army knife came into being in 1891, it didn't gain a corkscrew, as was used in the story, until July of 1897 . . . about six months too late. (Just the sort of thing Vince Wright means when he says you have to look at every detail in a story to do deep-dive chronology on these tales.)
So then the mind goes: Wait . . . Moriarty died in Switzerland in 1891. The Swiss Army knife came about in 1891. Could it . . . naaawwwwww.
Funny though, that even a table of Sherlock Holmes fans all had to get five minutes of talking about our first time with Star Wars in tonight, as we were all missing the first showings of the end of the third trilogy. Never thought this day would come, but life is long and the world just keeps pulling rabbits out of it's Earth-sized hat.
So, when all was said and done, today was a good day, for a Sherlockian. This Sherlockian, in any case.
I don't think I'll ever get over how much regularly listening to other people's takes on my favorite stories has become such a joy to me of late. I don't know if we were all just treading the same ground for a while, and it took a new crop of Sherlockians to bring the fresh or if I just was a complete narcissist before who was too busy with my own opinion. I'm sure there are a few who shouted "THAT ONE!" after reading the second option, but to each their own.
I don't think I had felt the actual horror of "Retired Colourman's" gas chamber crime until hearing Nick and Casey unspool Amberly's villainy from their fresh read. The idea of Watson just dealing with the matter, or an ongoing Barker series, were nicely intriguing as well. Plus, they just make me laugh like a good two person podcast should.
Eleven Sherlockians rooting around "Abbey Grange" live and in person is bound to turn up some previous unremarked facts. Like that I pay so much attention to Sherlock Holmes (and then Doctor Watson) that I completely gloss over bits like Captain Croker's flat-out racism for no reason: "I believe you are a man of your word, and a white man, and I'll tell you the whole story." I mean, hopefully, he meant that in a "white hat" sense at the time, but these days, it comes out flat racist.
And then there's the little side-jaunts one goes on because Google is in your pocket. Someone mentioned a Swiss Army knife being in the story, and that led to this:
The actual reference is to a "multiplex knife," which existed since the 1850s, and we know it couldn't have been a true Swiss Army knife as a.) The story takes place in late winter 1897, and b.) Though the Swiss Army knife came into being in 1891, it didn't gain a corkscrew, as was used in the story, until July of 1897 . . . about six months too late. (Just the sort of thing Vince Wright means when he says you have to look at every detail in a story to do deep-dive chronology on these tales.)
So then the mind goes: Wait . . . Moriarty died in Switzerland in 1891. The Swiss Army knife came about in 1891. Could it . . . naaawwwwww.
Funny though, that even a table of Sherlock Holmes fans all had to get five minutes of talking about our first time with Star Wars in tonight, as we were all missing the first showings of the end of the third trilogy. Never thought this day would come, but life is long and the world just keeps pulling rabbits out of it's Earth-sized hat.
So, when all was said and done, today was a good day, for a Sherlockian. This Sherlockian, in any case.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Saying the words
Robert Perret made a confession on Twitter yesterday that a lot of us can relate to these days:
"Contributing to a Watsonian podcast has made me acutely aware of how many words I know but don't know how to pronounce."
Sherlock Holmes fans have always had an issue with pronunciation, give that our Sacred Texts of Sherlock are a.) Over a hundred years old, b.) For Americans, from another country, and c.) Full of both smarty-pants words and goofy slang. And even the familiar words get odd when you bring Sherlock Holmes into the picture.
For example, when quoting Sherlock Holmes, how do you pronounce "advertisement?"
Ad-ver-TIZE-ment or ad-VERT-iz-ment? Most veteran Sherlockians are familiar with the debates over Irene and Lestrayd, but the issues we have with those names apply to so many other words as well. Do we say them how we say them, or as fancy Victorian folk of our imaginations do?
In working out an audio adaptation of "The Blue Carbuncle" this week, my friends and I have been put through the wringer on pronouncing Watson-words. If you've never had to say the word "fiver" before, you might just come out with "fivver," just as a non-Sherlockian helper starts wondering about how a goose has a crop right in the middle of recording. It's actually part of the fun of Sherlock Holmes, I think, as that element of strangeness is part of the allure once you get over your initial reaction to it.
And it never ends. Having read and re-read "Blue Carbuncle" so many times over forty years, I was amazed at how natural a lot of the cadence and word-flow came to me . . . but those pronunciations? There's always some word in that sixty story Canon that you've never said out loud before, and they can take you by surprise. The thing is, where once your surprises were limited to small scion society meetings or conversations with other Sherlockians, now we can learn of them as we record and publish to the internet, where it has the potential to haunt us for a very long time.
But that's okay. As those who came before us often had a personal preference on "Lestrayd," some future listener might just take it as "early 2020s accent" or an affectation for fun. (Take a listen to some of the pronunciations in the movie Holmes and Watson if you think that doesn't happen.)
In any case, it's great that we have such words that we love enough to speak aloud. So we might as well do it, however they come out.
"Contributing to a Watsonian podcast has made me acutely aware of how many words I know but don't know how to pronounce."
Sherlock Holmes fans have always had an issue with pronunciation, give that our Sacred Texts of Sherlock are a.) Over a hundred years old, b.) For Americans, from another country, and c.) Full of both smarty-pants words and goofy slang. And even the familiar words get odd when you bring Sherlock Holmes into the picture.
For example, when quoting Sherlock Holmes, how do you pronounce "advertisement?"
Ad-ver-TIZE-ment or ad-VERT-iz-ment? Most veteran Sherlockians are familiar with the debates over Irene and Lestrayd, but the issues we have with those names apply to so many other words as well. Do we say them how we say them, or as fancy Victorian folk of our imaginations do?
In working out an audio adaptation of "The Blue Carbuncle" this week, my friends and I have been put through the wringer on pronouncing Watson-words. If you've never had to say the word "fiver" before, you might just come out with "fivver," just as a non-Sherlockian helper starts wondering about how a goose has a crop right in the middle of recording. It's actually part of the fun of Sherlock Holmes, I think, as that element of strangeness is part of the allure once you get over your initial reaction to it.
And it never ends. Having read and re-read "Blue Carbuncle" so many times over forty years, I was amazed at how natural a lot of the cadence and word-flow came to me . . . but those pronunciations? There's always some word in that sixty story Canon that you've never said out loud before, and they can take you by surprise. The thing is, where once your surprises were limited to small scion society meetings or conversations with other Sherlockians, now we can learn of them as we record and publish to the internet, where it has the potential to haunt us for a very long time.
But that's okay. As those who came before us often had a personal preference on "Lestrayd," some future listener might just take it as "early 2020s accent" or an affectation for fun. (Take a listen to some of the pronunciations in the movie Holmes and Watson if you think that doesn't happen.)
In any case, it's great that we have such words that we love enough to speak aloud. So we might as well do it, however they come out.
Monday, December 16, 2019
The Moriarty fallacy
We always thought Moriarty would be this genius, didn't we?
The ultimate criminal, capable of coming up with plots so intricate, so masterfully contrived, that even Conan Doyle couldn't tell us what they were. He could tell us about the ingenious things Sherlock Holmes did to shed light on a series of events that had no explanation, and show us the reasons for something that seemed impossible. But even Doyle couldn't explain how Moriarty's crimes were so much better than the average criminals, other than the fact that he didn't get caught or suspected while others did.
I grew up believing in Moriarty. Or thieves like Alexander Mundy or Thomas Crown. And then the TV show "COPS" came along, week after week, showing us what real-life criminals looked like. Not a lot of Moriartys or Thomas Crowns in that lot. Shirtless drunks suddenly seemed to be a large part of crime in America.
But it's not just American crime. The man who stole the Mona Lisa just walked in the Louvre, took the painting off its pegs and hit it under or wrapped in his smock and walked out with it. And maybe we still don't know for certain who Jack the Ripper was, but do you think it's because he was a genius? That guy just got lucky. (Or unlucky, if he fell in the river or something.)
We're starting to see some really incredible crimes these days, and they're not being done by Moriartys, either. Just folks with too much wealth and power going, "That law doesn't apply to me," and going about their merry crime way. Perhaps they have a mega-corporation under them, perhaps they're painting it with the "it's just political" brush that somehow magically makes it not subject to traditional criminal prosecution, but whatever the tactic, it sure isn't the work of a Moriarty-level genius. Obviously.
And yet, Moriarty, like Santa Claus, stills lives in our heads, doling out crime presents to all the bad little boys and girls. He's inspiring, really, for those who take on the role of law enforcement and criminal investigation, that great white whale that might be out there to one day catch among all the plain ol' stupid whales, who are still big and whale-ish and need dealing with.
Ah, but wouldn't the world make such comfortable sense, if there was a mastermind Moriarty with some specific end to all of what seems like nonsensical crime of late, someone whose skill one could admire as they vanished into the fog with their loot.
But, alas . . . .
The ultimate criminal, capable of coming up with plots so intricate, so masterfully contrived, that even Conan Doyle couldn't tell us what they were. He could tell us about the ingenious things Sherlock Holmes did to shed light on a series of events that had no explanation, and show us the reasons for something that seemed impossible. But even Doyle couldn't explain how Moriarty's crimes were so much better than the average criminals, other than the fact that he didn't get caught or suspected while others did.
I grew up believing in Moriarty. Or thieves like Alexander Mundy or Thomas Crown. And then the TV show "COPS" came along, week after week, showing us what real-life criminals looked like. Not a lot of Moriartys or Thomas Crowns in that lot. Shirtless drunks suddenly seemed to be a large part of crime in America.
But it's not just American crime. The man who stole the Mona Lisa just walked in the Louvre, took the painting off its pegs and hit it under or wrapped in his smock and walked out with it. And maybe we still don't know for certain who Jack the Ripper was, but do you think it's because he was a genius? That guy just got lucky. (Or unlucky, if he fell in the river or something.)
We're starting to see some really incredible crimes these days, and they're not being done by Moriartys, either. Just folks with too much wealth and power going, "That law doesn't apply to me," and going about their merry crime way. Perhaps they have a mega-corporation under them, perhaps they're painting it with the "it's just political" brush that somehow magically makes it not subject to traditional criminal prosecution, but whatever the tactic, it sure isn't the work of a Moriarty-level genius. Obviously.
And yet, Moriarty, like Santa Claus, stills lives in our heads, doling out crime presents to all the bad little boys and girls. He's inspiring, really, for those who take on the role of law enforcement and criminal investigation, that great white whale that might be out there to one day catch among all the plain ol' stupid whales, who are still big and whale-ish and need dealing with.
Ah, but wouldn't the world make such comfortable sense, if there was a mastermind Moriarty with some specific end to all of what seems like nonsensical crime of late, someone whose skill one could admire as they vanished into the fog with their loot.
But, alas . . . .
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
The real secret to collecting Sherlockiana
In contemplating a bust of Sherlock Holmes (As all Sherlockians are wont to do, right?) this evening, I came upon a revelation about collecting Sherlockiana. The real secret to gathering a really nice collection of Sherlockiana is this:
Try really hard not to die.
Live long enough and every piece of Sherlockiana in your collection eventually becomes an antique. Buy something at Barnes & Noble when you're sixteen that never gets reprinted, and when you get to age sixty-six, you own a fifty-year-old book that most won't have at that point. Pick up something created by an artist at a dealer's table, a privately printed book, something more rare than the Barnes & Noble find. Get the elder Sherlockian from across town to sign a little something, and eventually, that too, becomes a little bit of history in your collection.
Nobody with a grand Sherlockian collection filling their shelves today just had a truck back up to their house and picked it all up at once. Boomers might have had antique mall bargains, but they didn't have the long-distance connections, and, basically, opportunities arise over the course of any lifetime.
Some of those opportunities still haunt me, like that near-complete run of individual copies of The Strand Magazine in a Boulder bookshop that I only decided to buy one issue from. Some last-day-of-Bounchercon half-priced Sherlockian classics from a dealer anxious not to ship them home, that I only bought a fraction of. Didn't want to run up a charge bill, in both of those cases, but years later, one wonders what the harm would have been.
The best pieces are still the ones that come with a memory attached, though. The gift from a certain Sherlockian friend. The amazing find in that one old bookshop. The deal I did get at another con.
Things pile up over time, and eventually you have a collection. It's almost like you'd have to fight not to have a collection as the decades pass. In fact, I really think that it would require an incredible amount of self-discipline to lead an active Sherlockian life and not wind up some manner of collection. But good luck with that.
As I said at the start, the best collecting scheme is just to take care of yourself. Live long and prosper, as Vulcans advise. And since that's something your fellow Sherlockians would rather you did anyway, hey! Win-win!
Try really hard not to die.
Live long enough and every piece of Sherlockiana in your collection eventually becomes an antique. Buy something at Barnes & Noble when you're sixteen that never gets reprinted, and when you get to age sixty-six, you own a fifty-year-old book that most won't have at that point. Pick up something created by an artist at a dealer's table, a privately printed book, something more rare than the Barnes & Noble find. Get the elder Sherlockian from across town to sign a little something, and eventually, that too, becomes a little bit of history in your collection.
Nobody with a grand Sherlockian collection filling their shelves today just had a truck back up to their house and picked it all up at once. Boomers might have had antique mall bargains, but they didn't have the long-distance connections, and, basically, opportunities arise over the course of any lifetime.
Some of those opportunities still haunt me, like that near-complete run of individual copies of The Strand Magazine in a Boulder bookshop that I only decided to buy one issue from. Some last-day-of-Bounchercon half-priced Sherlockian classics from a dealer anxious not to ship them home, that I only bought a fraction of. Didn't want to run up a charge bill, in both of those cases, but years later, one wonders what the harm would have been.
The best pieces are still the ones that come with a memory attached, though. The gift from a certain Sherlockian friend. The amazing find in that one old bookshop. The deal I did get at another con.
Things pile up over time, and eventually you have a collection. It's almost like you'd have to fight not to have a collection as the decades pass. In fact, I really think that it would require an incredible amount of self-discipline to lead an active Sherlockian life and not wind up some manner of collection. But good luck with that.
As I said at the start, the best collecting scheme is just to take care of yourself. Live long and prosper, as Vulcans advise. And since that's something your fellow Sherlockians would rather you did anyway, hey! Win-win!
Saturday, December 7, 2019
My first published novel!
I admire the heck out of novelists like Lyndsay Faye. Not just for their talent, but for their discipline and all the other skills that get a novel to market. The first draft of a novel can be written on sheer obsession, and I've done that three or four times. The self-discipline it takes to do a second draft, to self-edit, to improve it, to market it to agents or publishers, and all that comes after? That takes somebody special.
But where those things never served to get me to even self-publish a novel, there's one motivator that finally got me over the finish line: guilt. My mama taught me how to access my guilt early on.
Sometime in October I was fiddling in Photoshop, emulating one of my favorite Twitter feeds, Paperback Paradise, and re-titling a funky old paperback copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the new title Radix Pedis Diaboliday by Sir Arthur Conan Doob. I tossed it out on Twitter, and didn't consider what the immediate Sherlockian reaction would be: To Google the book to try to buy one.
Well, having suckered a good friend in so, I felt kind of badly about it and with National Novel Writing Month coming along immediately after, I set myself a goal, to write Radix Pedis Diaboliday. The novel, it turns out, is the "Mormon segment," so to speak, of "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot." When Watson starting tripping on the African herb, he actually went a lot more places than in his paragraph or two in the story and just left that part out. His "dweller upon the threshold" actually had a very familiar name, and Watson's trippy tripping was quite a journey.
So with the goal of having a novel in print by month-end, I set about writing, as well as doing something else: Asking for addresses for a Watsonian Weekly "Christmas Card list." Sure, I wanted to publish one for the first person to try to Google the book, Paul Thomas Miller, but it seemed a nice little "Compliments of the Season" for a few other folks as well, like those dedicated souls who still send me Sherlockian Christmas cards after all these years. Once the thing got printed, by the ever-reliable 48 Hour Books, whom I've had good service from in the past, I sent the first copy off to Paul and packaged up the rest to go out after he got his, all the way over in Portsmouth.
Once that happened, the novel's actual release date to all those whose addresses I gleaned was set for Monday, at which point the other copies would be mailed out.
So now, among the billion other Sherlock Holmes works out there, is a silly little novelette (it's only about a 100 pages cover to cover) called Radix Pedis Diaboliday by Sir Arthur Conan Doob. There's only twenty-five copies, so it's not going to set the world on fire, but, hey, I finally published a novel! It might even prime the old clogged book-pump for something next year.
In any case, I definitely want to thank Paul Thomas Miller for being an inspiration this year, in so many ways. He's one of those Sherlockians that makes this party worthwhile, and I hope he gets a book dedicated to him one day that has more copies than this one!
But where those things never served to get me to even self-publish a novel, there's one motivator that finally got me over the finish line: guilt. My mama taught me how to access my guilt early on.
Sometime in October I was fiddling in Photoshop, emulating one of my favorite Twitter feeds, Paperback Paradise, and re-titling a funky old paperback copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the new title Radix Pedis Diaboliday by Sir Arthur Conan Doob. I tossed it out on Twitter, and didn't consider what the immediate Sherlockian reaction would be: To Google the book to try to buy one.
Well, having suckered a good friend in so, I felt kind of badly about it and with National Novel Writing Month coming along immediately after, I set myself a goal, to write Radix Pedis Diaboliday. The novel, it turns out, is the "Mormon segment," so to speak, of "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot." When Watson starting tripping on the African herb, he actually went a lot more places than in his paragraph or two in the story and just left that part out. His "dweller upon the threshold" actually had a very familiar name, and Watson's trippy tripping was quite a journey.
So with the goal of having a novel in print by month-end, I set about writing, as well as doing something else: Asking for addresses for a Watsonian Weekly "Christmas Card list." Sure, I wanted to publish one for the first person to try to Google the book, Paul Thomas Miller, but it seemed a nice little "Compliments of the Season" for a few other folks as well, like those dedicated souls who still send me Sherlockian Christmas cards after all these years. Once the thing got printed, by the ever-reliable 48 Hour Books, whom I've had good service from in the past, I sent the first copy off to Paul and packaged up the rest to go out after he got his, all the way over in Portsmouth.
Once that happened, the novel's actual release date to all those whose addresses I gleaned was set for Monday, at which point the other copies would be mailed out.
So now, among the billion other Sherlock Holmes works out there, is a silly little novelette (it's only about a 100 pages cover to cover) called Radix Pedis Diaboliday by Sir Arthur Conan Doob. There's only twenty-five copies, so it's not going to set the world on fire, but, hey, I finally published a novel! It might even prime the old clogged book-pump for something next year.
In any case, I definitely want to thank Paul Thomas Miller for being an inspiration this year, in so many ways. He's one of those Sherlockians that makes this party worthwhile, and I hope he gets a book dedicated to him one day that has more copies than this one!
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Cheers to the new arrival!
Today there was a truly delightful announcement in the Sherlockian world: A new home for peer-reviewed academic scholarship on Conan Doyle.
"Now, Brad," one might say, "that doesn't sound like your sort of thing at all. Your last symposium talk was on Conan Doyle psychically channelling a multiverse of Watsons!"
And that is true. My home Sherlockian turf is the whimsical side of the playground, and whilst that playground is attached to a school, I rarely go inside. (Maybe toss the occasional brick at the principal's office, but, hey, that's fun, too.) So why should I be delighted in a new focal point for Doylean scholarship?
Because it's time, and I'm not just talking about a time for Doylean scholarship. It's also a time for being glad that other people can enjoy Sherlock Holmes in their own way without feeling our own specialties are threatened. Do I get aroused by Johnlock kink porn on A03? Well, not unless it's really, really good (ahem!), but even though it's not my cuppa tea and I don't read it too often, I'm glad that's out there too. Sherlock Holmes, and his creator, should be celebrated by each of us to our own lights, and it's progress for all of us when someone achieves something new for any group of us. And even though Conan Doyle scholarship isn't completely new, this new journal, The Conan Doyle Review, will expand our world just that much more.
As a place for academics who may not be Sherlockians to publish, we will get to see work that only the most diligent of us might have dug up previously. And the fact that it took three women to finally get this thing achieved after such a male-dominated cultural history, well, there is a little social change icing on the cake that makes it even tastier.
I started this morning dwelling a bit too much on one of the shadow sides to our culture but the news of The Conan Doyle Review was a little beam of sunlight that helped push it away.
As Sherlock Holmes (or some writer who might be associated with him) once said (or wrote), "The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply." Holmes wasn't setting limits, as the world is enormous, full of natural diversity, with plenty of space still for us to stretch our minds and explore. We can let the spectres go, and in this case, I'm happy to let any feelings I might have had about Doylean endeavors in the 1980s not apply.
Here's hoping this new endeavor is a fabulous success.
The Ten Exemplars
In his final, ten-page letter to the Baker Streeet Irregulars this weekend, the departing head of the organization continued to push his thoughts on who should be a member of that group, laying out his "Ten BSI Exemplars" which will be published and distributed at their annual dinner this year. They are:
Well, this is where we are now.
- Promote and nurture Grand Game scholarship
- Diverse, exceptional, merit-based membership—not elitist
- Kind, welcoming clubbability with joyful, whimsical environment
- Altruistic volunteerism—giving more than you receive—“society above self”
- Aspirational, not reactionary
- Inherent modesty vs. taking oneself too seriously
- Extremely high standards—reject “good enough”
- Societal leadership fiscally responsible—sufficient funds maintained to accomplish most, if not all, objectives
- Societal and member Sherlockian charitable generosity
- No politics and no contentious agendas
Well, this is where we are now.
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
If you could publish anything . . .
If you could publish anything, what would you publish?
Sherlockiana has always had its share of small presses, limited print runs, vanity press books, and gettting-stuff-into-print-with-whatever-reproduction-device-was-available. Our love of our subject matter pushes us to get things out in whatever means is available to us in a given moment in time.
Someday it will be fun to see a University of Minnesota exhibit on "Sherlockiana Through Time" to see how we evolved in our publishing, but as we're still living the history that will be in that exhibit one day, what do we publish now?
I suppose it depends upon your skillset, pocketbook, and desire. Skillset, because you either have to write something or convince someone else to let you collect or reprint something of theirs. Pocketbook, because most available forms of print reproduction take a little money. And desire . . . ah, desire is both our curse and our magic power. Desire can turn into drive, and drive tends to get things done. Not always, of course. And that old notion of "anyone can achieve anything" is a bit dreamy. But if you've got enough desire to push you past the excuses, sometimes its enough.
Just getting one thing into print is often enough to prime the pump and set other ventures into motion.
Sometimes that one thing is the thing you wanted most to that point. Sometimes it's just something less important that you just did for whatever reason of the moment -- when Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, he plainly wasn't trying to do the one thing that would have satisfied him, or else he would have kept writing Sherlock and nothing else. But getting that one thing in print opened his life up to do so much more writing than if he hadn't.
More on this subject to come . . . .
Sherlockiana has always had its share of small presses, limited print runs, vanity press books, and gettting-stuff-into-print-with-whatever-reproduction-device-was-available. Our love of our subject matter pushes us to get things out in whatever means is available to us in a given moment in time.
Someday it will be fun to see a University of Minnesota exhibit on "Sherlockiana Through Time" to see how we evolved in our publishing, but as we're still living the history that will be in that exhibit one day, what do we publish now?
I suppose it depends upon your skillset, pocketbook, and desire. Skillset, because you either have to write something or convince someone else to let you collect or reprint something of theirs. Pocketbook, because most available forms of print reproduction take a little money. And desire . . . ah, desire is both our curse and our magic power. Desire can turn into drive, and drive tends to get things done. Not always, of course. And that old notion of "anyone can achieve anything" is a bit dreamy. But if you've got enough desire to push you past the excuses, sometimes its enough.
Just getting one thing into print is often enough to prime the pump and set other ventures into motion.
Sometimes that one thing is the thing you wanted most to that point. Sometimes it's just something less important that you just did for whatever reason of the moment -- when Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, he plainly wasn't trying to do the one thing that would have satisfied him, or else he would have kept writing Sherlock and nothing else. But getting that one thing in print opened his life up to do so much more writing than if he hadn't.
More on this subject to come . . . .
Monday, December 2, 2019
The Sherlockian Holiday Season
At some point, before other wild schemes took my mind, I was considering a blog version of an advent calendar, or maybe blog Christmas cards, or something else. But the odd little puzzle I kept running into was this: What, exactly, are the boundaries of the Sherlockian holiday season?
With John Watson calling upon Sherlock Holmes on the second day after Christmas, or Boxing Day, we have to at least go to the 27th. And New Year's is New Year's across the world, and a turning of the calendar we know the boys observed, at least in laying in a new almanac, if nothing else. And then there's Sherlock Holmes's birthday, and if Chris Morley is to be believed, as so many do, we have January 6th to push our holiday limits out five days more.
We have to be thankful that Thanksgiving wasn't celebrated in England, or we might be forced to bring matters as far forward as the holiday shopping gods would have Americans do. But when does the Sherlockian holiday season even properly start, then?
When do we start spinning our paper Doyle's Rotary Coffins, carol away like larks singing "Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay" (which comes out to the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" in my head), and wrapping our ear-ly gifts in brown paper and string?
Eating birds found on the street, visiting our maiden aunts, and watching that movie that Holmes recommended to James Ryder ("Get Out!") . . . Sherlockian holiday traditions can take many forms. (Neville St. Clair, one might recall, took a holiday to go begging on the street.)
Now, if New Year's Day is truly the day that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson first met, as it says on the plaque inside St. Bart's, we could wish each other a hearty "How are you? You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive!" and grip the other person's hand with a strength we don't get credit for. Seems like a grand thing to do when you first meet someone on New Year's morn, though spouses are probably going to look upon one in askance for it.
But maybe we just let the normal holiday traditions take hold and carry us downstream until we're left in mid-January with a depleted bank account like Watson postponing his holiday in "Resident Patient." There's usually enough to do just to make it through without all the adding Sherlockian trimmings.
You never know, though, just as we never know when the Sherlockian holdiay season begins or ends. So we might as well celebrate from here on in, I guess, which is a little bit of what Sherlockiana is about to begin with, celebrating Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H. Watson, and everything else we love about that Canon of ours.
With John Watson calling upon Sherlock Holmes on the second day after Christmas, or Boxing Day, we have to at least go to the 27th. And New Year's is New Year's across the world, and a turning of the calendar we know the boys observed, at least in laying in a new almanac, if nothing else. And then there's Sherlock Holmes's birthday, and if Chris Morley is to be believed, as so many do, we have January 6th to push our holiday limits out five days more.
We have to be thankful that Thanksgiving wasn't celebrated in England, or we might be forced to bring matters as far forward as the holiday shopping gods would have Americans do. But when does the Sherlockian holiday season even properly start, then?
When do we start spinning our paper Doyle's Rotary Coffins, carol away like larks singing "Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay" (which comes out to the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" in my head), and wrapping our ear-ly gifts in brown paper and string?
Eating birds found on the street, visiting our maiden aunts, and watching that movie that Holmes recommended to James Ryder ("Get Out!") . . . Sherlockian holiday traditions can take many forms. (Neville St. Clair, one might recall, took a holiday to go begging on the street.)
Now, if New Year's Day is truly the day that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson first met, as it says on the plaque inside St. Bart's, we could wish each other a hearty "How are you? You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive!" and grip the other person's hand with a strength we don't get credit for. Seems like a grand thing to do when you first meet someone on New Year's morn, though spouses are probably going to look upon one in askance for it.
But maybe we just let the normal holiday traditions take hold and carry us downstream until we're left in mid-January with a depleted bank account like Watson postponing his holiday in "Resident Patient." There's usually enough to do just to make it through without all the adding Sherlockian trimmings.
You never know, though, just as we never know when the Sherlockian holdiay season begins or ends. So we might as well celebrate from here on in, I guess, which is a little bit of what Sherlockiana is about to begin with, celebrating Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H. Watson, and everything else we love about that Canon of ours.
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Watson's Frozen Pirate
Going deep with Watson's words will always take you someplace fascinating.
This week I finally finished reading and recapping the W. Clark Russell novel The Frozen Pirate for The Watsonian Weekly, which started out as a bit of a lark, but then turned into something a little more solid in terms of actually wondering if John H. Watson had read that very book.
In "The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips," Watson tells us that it's definitely September of 1887, and that he's reading "one of Clark Russell's fine sea stories." He talks about the storm outside of Baker Street blending with the text as he read, and The Frozen Pirate is a book full of storms. It was also published in 1887, along with two other Russell books, A Book for the Hammock and The Golden Hope.
Was Watson the sort of Clark Russell fan to pick up the latest work by the writer of The Wreck of the Grosvenor? Or did he just come into The Frozen Pirate upon hearing good things -- Russell's biographer, J.G. Woods did include The Frozen Pirate in his short list of Clark Russell's six best books, according to Wikipedia.
It surely seems like a strong contender for Watson's stormy September read, but now I'm feeling like I need to survey A Book for the Hammock and The Golden Hope to see the amount and quality of the storms depicted in each.
The writer of the Historical Sherlock blog, Vincent W. Wright once told me that he thought a true attempt at Sherlockian chronology would require working with every single detail of one of Watson's writings, and I think placing what exact Clark Russell story Watson was reading would fit into that sort of thorough analysis. And in the case of "Five Orange Pips," that might mean reading all three Russell novels for 1887, and possibly those before that, checking papers and magazines to see which novels would have been currently on sale . . . but is a solid conclusion even possible?
Since Russell had been writing sea stories for over ten years at that point, the number of books one would have to review totals as many as seventeen. (The magic steps-to-221B number!) And Watson could have been given a second-hand book, had a favorite he hung on to from years past . . . so many possible routes for that book to arrive in his hands are available!
But sometimes, as Sherlockians, we take those voids and fill them with our own beliefs. Personally, I've come to put The Frozen Pirate at 221B Baker Street and in Watson's hands on the night John Openshaw comes to call. It's my headcanon, yes, but it's also a pretty good choice, having just finished reading it.
And the John H. Watson I know becomes a little more fleshed out, as he plainly enjoyed the book, and seeing what was enjoyable in it for myself shows me just a bit more of him, in that crazy Sherlockian way of bringing our heroes to life.