Dwelling in one's own past for a bit, instead of Sherlock's

This evening seemed like a good time to absent one's self from the vexations of the world, leave social media and the thousand channels a-streaming behind, and visit an old friend in a year long past.

I remember when e-mail started killing off the letter, before social media started killing off the e-mail. It suddenly struck me that I was never going to get a six pages of single-spaced thoughts from an engaged Sherlockian mind written just for me. And I was not going to respond with same.

Knowing that you couldn't pass your written thoughts along with a trip to the post office meant you spent a little more time on said thoughts -- you could always drop off a letter on the way to work the next morning, so why not spend an evening on it? An essay for an audience of one.

There were years back in the eighties when a single year of letters from one Sherlockian friend could be as thick as a paperback novel. And I was lucky enough to have a few of those friends, probably because we had thoughts to exchange about Mr. Sherlock Holmes and the people who love him. "The Sherlockians I know seem to share a love of five things, in varying order," one friend wrote, "Holmes, drink, food, books, and gossip." Personally I might have gone, "Food, Holmes, gossip, books, and drink," but there was plenty of letter-writing material to be found in that list. And with a whole evening to write, you didn't have to just stop at the first or second.

I was sorting through some boxes and taking a few notes when I decided to just spend the evening in the company of one friend's thoughts from a single year -- a very important year in my Sherlockian life, when important decisions were being made. But it wasn't anything about me that made this evening worthwhile. No, it was all the other people we wrote about, the lives we were all leading then.

So many names of much-loved Sherlockians long gone, and even one recently gone, wander into the paragraphs, with little stories of their words and deeds that make one smile and feel their loss. Friends you've lost touch with, for reasons you simply cannot remember. And even parts of yourself you'd let slip away.

The daily mail delivery was like a little Christmas morning every day on a good week, during parts of my correspondence years. And really, I could probably tie the waning of a few friendships to the rise of e-mail and fall of the letter --  we just didn't all adapt to the new tech at the same rate. I have to wonder what life would be like today, had not the internet age happened? 

Ah, but that's the nostalgia kicking in, isn't it? Or maybe just the weariness at the current state of things.

Perhaps I'll pick up that book that came in the mail today, rather than getting close enough to Facebook or Twitter to post a link to any of this. Finding any excuse to step away from the current vexations for a while is not exactly a bad thing these days.

If you're paying attention, you usually know when a winter storm is coming. Wrapping yourself in a blanket to get through the night is nothing to be ashamed of, and can be kind of nice. Because when the morning comes, you'll be ready to get out and shovel the snow.

Because there's a lot of a four-letter word that begins with "s" to shovel off the world's driveway right now. And all the things that an eight-letter name that begins with "S" has brought to our lives are there to help.

Shersneetchiana

 There's an aspect of many a hobby that we don't like to talk about too much.

We're attracted to a thing for the joy it brings, we do a thing because there is pleasure in it. And then, at some point, it can take a turn, and we start wanting it to fill other needs. other gaps in our lives. It can give us purpose and meaning that our primary occupation might be lacking. It can give us a hope that we will be remembered when we're gone. It can give us power, or at least the perception of power, that we might crave.

That last one is a bit of a trouble spot. In every fan cult, there are always a few who want to be cult leaders. That doesn't usually happen, of course, as Sherlock Holmes fans tend to have an independent streak. Every time somebody starts trying to hand out awards, degrees, black belts, etc. in Sherlock, though, I start giving them the ol' squinty eye. 

Perhaps I was overly influenced by Dr. Seuss's story of "The Sneetches."

But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches
Would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.
With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort
"We'll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!"

I can think of a few Sherlockians who surely never had that book as a child, so I don't think that was a bad thing. 

"We're afficionados," they'd sniff and they'd snort.
"We're nothing like that regular fan sort!"

Yes, definitely never read Dr. Seuss.

And in that tale, along comes Sylvester McMonkey MacBean to cash in on that desire to be a special, star-bellied sneetch. Because like we have our fancier sneetches in Sherlockiana, we also have our Sylvester McMonkey MacBeans, who want to stroll in and sell us a machine to attach stars to our bellies. They may not be asking for cash in payment for their machine, just simple acceptance that they have the power to attach those stars.

We have a lot of clubs and such where you get a free nickname with membership, which is open to all. We did that with our local Sherlock Holmes society for its run, but there's a big difference between a whimsical practice that's open to all and any mechanism that declares this Sherlockian better than that Sherlockian. We all know who the better Sherlockians in our lives are because of their words and deeds, words and deeds that can be their own reward. We're not Hollywood stars who need an Oscar to boost the ticket sales of our next picture. The Sherlockian community is not so large that good work can go unseen. The word gets out.

As a result, almost all newer attempts by Sylvester McMonkey MacBeans to work across the Sherlockian world don't go on for all that long. Some fade out with the loss of interest of their founder, some become increasingly insular as the outside world moves on without giving them traction. Only one has ever had real success, but I'll let that one lie for the moment.

Shersneetchiana is just something we have to deal with every now and then, as someone comes along thinking it's an idea worth trying, people being people. Dr. Seuss was a good one with certain timeless truths in his kids books.

The one we never saw coming

 Enola Holmes is sitting at a "Certified Fresh" of 92% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. It's number two in popularity on Netflix in the U.S., and number one elsewhere. And it has its own fans, at least one of who suggested basing a new religion on the movie, which is a very cult-Sherlockian thing to say.

So far, Enola seems to be the most successful Holmes since BBC Sherlock in the English-speaking side of the world. And here's the big kicker . . .

Enola Holmes is the most successful Holmes besides Sherlock, ever.

Think about that. Mycroft has had a few books, but no movies or television of his own (and don't say "Mr. Mycroft," as that was pseudonym-Sherlock, and just TV at that). Basil of Baker Street had a movie, but c'mon, he was a mouse and a mouse who copied Sherlock, which puts him in the category of Mr. Data and Solar Pons. 

Enola Holmes isn't just "girl Sherlock," a little sister carbon copy of her brother. She's an original who was influenced by not only Sherlock, but the household that grew Sherlock as well. You could call her a spin-off, but spin-offs that do this well are far and few between.

Did any of us in the Sherlockian world see this coming at all? Our eyes constantly focused on new Sherlocks, maybe enjoying the myriad Holmes-related books out there . . . Nancy Springer's six novels might have gotten lost in for most of us, if not for Millie Bobby Brown. It's a very crowded field, with Brittany Cavallaro's Charlotte Holmes having caught my readership long before Enola.

But Enola dared to go Watsonless (unless you hold to my theory of the audience-Watson for the movie). She doesn't have that drug issue. She makes a definite statement about a point in history, and I'm not talking Victorian times here. Despite her origins in the Holmes family, Enola now seems to have sprung forth as an original character, worthy of her own franchise, and showed that Sherlock Holmes can be a mere supporting cast member if you make the main character engaging enough.

Think about that one for a second. How many times have we seen a creator try to steal the spotlight from the legendary Sherlock, only to see it gravitate straight back to him?

Irene Adler, Mary Russell, Shadwell Rafferty . . . they all made it to several novels, but none escaped Holmes's gravity enough to become the titular character of a movie. Sure, Enola benefited from her brother as a booster rocket, but, you know what? I'd watch a movie with Enola Holmes and no Sherlock. at this point. And the books certainly dodge him as much as possible.

Enola Holmes is something special, and a next-level moment for Sherlock Holmes in our culture. That's something to take a moment and appreciate.

Diagnosis: Murrrr . . . errrrr . . . .

 Perhaps it was the zoombombing of our latest Sherlock Holmes Story Society discussion that put me in a rather persnickety mood with "Dying Detective." Or perhaps I was just thinking too much this time, and the story is like one of those movies that entertains while you're watching it, but the minute you leave the theater and have time for your own thoughts, it falls apart.

The zoombombing was probably due to the library posting the Zoom details on Facebook and it's website. The movie comparison, I think, was the thought of Amanda in our group, after four of us made the leap over to a private Zoom meeting. It was a very good point about "The Dying Detective," however, as it is one of those stories that you just have to go along with.

I mean, that "hide behind the headboard" thing. I mean, really. Been in any bedrooms lately?

But the more I thought about the whole disease this story centers around, now that we're in the Covid era of disease awareness, the more it falls apart.

Holmes calls in Watson, a doctor, and goes, "I, a detective, have somehow diagnosed myself with a very rare disease that I picked up at random on the docks." Watson, a doctor, goes, "Okay."

Doctors are more familiar than anyone with hypochondriacs who self-diagnose. And Holmes, who is also demonstrating signs of being out of his head with random info dumps on oysters and coins, has no real reason to know how he could have a specific fever from a specific place just from catching something at the docks. Has Holmes beat Watson down so much over the years that he just gives into anything?

And how did Sherlock Holmes, great detective that he is, wind up trying to solve the mystery of a young man who got sick and died? Young men get sick and die occasionally, and probably a lot more often in Victorian London with all the polluted fogs. Who was his client, and how did that person known enough about Culverton Smith's favorite disease to know Victor Savage died from it?

"The Dying Detective" is an easy-in, easy-out, BOOM-it's-over story. We're so charmed by Mrs. Hudson's appearance, Holmes's antics, and the fact he has tricked Watson yet again that we just take it at face value and don't delve . . . unless we're trying to proving his bogus Tapanuli fever or Black Formosa corruption were more real than that swamp adder.

It's a very weird story, anyway, with disease-based crime, which is basically germ warfare ahead of its time -- remember how Culverton Smith had a whole array of deadly germs on his shelf. The tale is also ahead of its time with Holmes basically using Watson as a tape recorder to catch the killer's confession. And very much like a movie or TV show, which makes one wonder why Doyle went with "The Mazarin Stone" to do a short play and not this one.

It's almost fan fiction, as it the whole mystery is about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, with no client, no victim that we really get to know, no murder scene, just Holmes and Watson in what's almost a goldfish bowl of a Baker Street tale. Almost.

I'm still glad "The Dying Detective" is in the Canon, but tonight . . . I was just feeling a little persnickety about it.

Enola Holmes's Watson

 As the host of a podcast called "The Watsonian Weekly" and editor of a journal called The Watsonian, I find myself of late being rather Watson focused. And today, with Enola Holmes arriving on Netflix, one might think, "How sad, no Watson for a Watsonian to fuss over in this Watson-less film!"

But after two viewings of that very delightful film, I have decided it has one of the most remarkable Watsons any movie has ever given us.

And, no, it's not Tewkesbury. Come on, now. Tewkesbury. Pshaw.

No, the movie Enola Holmes gives her a Watson that embodies exactly what John H. Watson has often been at his best, what Conan Doyle gave us with the original John H., and what many a Sherlockian has seen Watson as over the years: an everyperson.

Watson is us, finding Holmes remarkable, hearing his thoughts that no others hear.

And in the case of Enola Holmes, her Watson is, very literally, us.

I was delighted to see her fourth-wall breaks in the previews, so much like Deadpool and with Millie Bobbie Brown showing all the charm of a Ryan Reynolds in talking straight to the camera. But what I didn't realize then was that the movie was going to use that technique to make us her Watson.

Enola Holmes lets us accompany her throughout the adventure as your silent companion, giving us her side comments and sometimes just a look. The audience was entirely meant to be her Watson, and I'm amazed that no one has tried it before. Or maybe not, because John Watson is so fitted for Sherlock. But a new kind of Holmes deserves a new kind of Watson, and director Harry Bradbeer made a brilliant choice in using the fourth-wall breaks to give Enola that Watson.

There is a lot to love about this new Holmes film, and what more could any Watsonian want than to get to be a Watson for an adventure like this?  Bravo to everyone involved.

It's Enola Holmes Day!

 "It's a jolly holiday -- Enola!
"Enola makes the world so bright.
"None of us still own a Victrola,
"But Enola entertains just right!"
                  -- Re-lyricized Mary Poppins song

No spoilers, no review, just a few words to celebrate the best September holiday of 2020, Enola Holmes Day! 

Didn't you get the day off work where you are? Well, did you ask for the day off? These holidays gotta start somewhere, chums! 9/23/2020! Enola Holmes Day! Hurrah!

And like my typical Christmas morning look at Santa's gifts under the tree as a child, I was up at 4 AM watching Netflix. And, after hitting the store to get the ingredients for tonight's Enola Holmes Day feast, I went for an envigorating constituional, followed by this bit, cleaning up, and then heading out to deliver the Enola presents to all the good little Sherlockians. (Or at least those I needed to take some duplicate Sherlockian books to anyway, and, hey, I got the day off!) (Also, sorry, Rob, you live just too far away to fit into my Enola day. Maybe I'll pay you compliments of the season two days from now . . . oh, but that's Friday, I have to work . . . sorry.)

Can you tell I'm just filled with the Enola Holmes Day spirit?

Still working my way through the book series, but today I'm also reading the IDW's Euro Comics adaptations today . . . which means I now have three versions of Enola Holmes in my head.

There's so much I want to say about that character and her supporting cast of characters, but the day is still young and at least one more viewing awaits. So in any case . . . .

HAPPY ENOLA HOLMES DAY, EVERYBODY!

Sherlockian generational wealth

 This morning, I subscribed to a year of Sherlock Holmes Magazine for fifty-eight dollars and seven cents. A reasonable price for a big, glossy, well-written magazine coming all the way from Great Britain, but at the same time, spending that much on a periodical always gives me pause. Not that long ago, I remember having to make the decision to forego a year of The Baker Street Journal due to a post-Christmas budget crunch, even though I'm a fairly successful member of the tail-end-of-the-Boomer generation.

I look at that luxury item I just bought, realize how many of the other Sherlockians who will be buying it come from a generation that didn't have to take out something like a home loan just to attend college, many of whom got no-longer-existing retirement packages that let them quit working in their fifties, and that doesn't even include those folks in our realm who inherited enough from their folks to go full-geek early on. I know, I know, most of us have jobs, earning what's available at the time we're living in, but if I look at all the Sherlocking I did in my twenties, like subscribing to every single Sherlockian journal available, and try to imagine doing that now?

Hard enough to imagine living the lifestyle of my 1980s Sherlockian self in the 2020s with four times the income . . . but if I was at the relative income level of my 1980s self now? No way would I be living the Sherlockian life I had then.

Sherlockiana is a bubble of sorts, where we have always intermingled with folks from all walks of life, and it's easy to think, "Oh, Sherlockiana is the same as it's always been," when, like every other part of the world, it's slowly evolving. Sometimes so slowly that we can pretend it's staying the same.

Should membership in a Sherlockian society be based upon the subscription price to a journal that might have been the ambitious project of the well-off Sherlockian that started it? That's a question I've raised and will be raising with the John H. Watson Society, as I think we need to start taking economics into account as we move forward as Sherlockians. You might not think that the game is rigged, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, or that folks like Jeff Bezos raise their income by taking income away from the middle class and below. You may think that even suggesting that idea is "politics," the word for any part of reality there might be room to debate. But our little bubble of Sherlockiana isn't an air-tight biodome or terrarium. The outside world affects us.

It's easy to take pot-shots at country club Sherlockians who think that an annual trip to New York is the baseline cost for being in their club. But sometimes we have to step back and look at our own parts of the hobby, and how generational wealth might be tilting things toward a certain market of buyers rather than actually spreading the legend of Sherlock Holmes far and wide as we might prefer.

The game may be afoot, but I'm sure we'd rather it wasn't fixed, wherever the opportunity to even up the playing field can exist. There's enough corruption and bad-actor gamesmanship in the outside world right now working against our younger Sherlockians, so opening doors wherever we can, making things more affordable wherever we can, in events and publications, is probably something we should think about.

Especially in a hobby based around two guys who had to share rooms because they couldn't afford to live without each other.

The impossible, the improbable, and the impractical

 One of my co-workers added this little inspirational tag to their profile last week: "Nothing is impossible, only mathematically improbable."

Any longtime Sherlock Holmes fan has to have an immediate, almost instinctual, reaction to that statement. "Nothing is impossible? What can you eliminate, if that's the case? How do you get to the truth? "

Because, as Sherlock's dictum tells us, time and again: "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I was surprised at how strong my feelings about the impossible were. If not for the impossible, I would constantly be jumping into the air, hoping that I would fly on one of my attempts. If not for the impossible,  my list of personal goals would shoot through the roof and form a ladder to the moon -- because that wouldn't be impossible any more, either. The impossible makes our lives livable, because we're not sitting at our work desks with a crucifix and a crossbow, ready for potential daytime vampire attacks. (This is probably on my mind as I work at an office -- when I'm in my office -- full of crucifixes. No crossbows though, because no daytime vampires.)

We live in a time when many of the things that Sherlock Holmes would have ruled impossible are now possible. What, you woke up, travelled a thousand miles, had lunch, travelled a thousand miles back, and slept in the same spot you work up in? Impossible in 1887, not so impossible now. We all carry magic genies in our pockets, and our personal list of "possibles" has increased to an exponential degree from what was available even to Queen Victoria during Sherlock's time.

While it becomes tempting to say things like "Nothing is impossible," the thought is, at the very least, impractical. We can't do everything. We can't perfect everything. But as Sherlock Holmes said, "We can but try." And we also really need to eliminate those pesky impossibles in looking for possible explanations for things. As Holmes also said, "No ghosts need apply." He plainly placed them in the bucket for "impossible."

And why not? Otherwise, the minute ghosts entered the equation, anything becomes possible and there's no reason to keep looking for actual explanations. How does this blender work? Ghosts! Why doesn't the mailman show up until two in the afternoon? Ghosts! Who killed Sir Charles Baskerville? Ghosts!

While Sherlock Holmes might have called himself "the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather," he was not nearly as lazy as the person who stops at the first imagined explanation for an event, a.k.a. ghosts, not to be picking on ghosts all the time, but . . . ghosts!

We've got enough intellectual laziness out there right now without letting the ghosts apply.

Is believing in the impossible a thing now? Another side we have to choose? Well, as I have just proven to myself the impossibility that twin versions of me are sitting next to each other typing this by alternating one-finger pecks on the keyboard, I think there might just be such a thing. While it might still seem improbable, yet possible, to the reader, I think you should trust me on this one. Twin blogging Brads looks pretty impossible on this side of the screen. So I'm going to eliminate it, myself, but you do you.

Good luck figuring out your own impossibilities to eliminate. 

And P.S. . . . don't eliminate these guys. They were my first favorite rock band.

Last dance with Quizzy Jane

My friends down in Southern Illinois never did quizzes in any capacity with their club, the Occupants of the Empty House. I always kinda envied that. They were like monks that way, choosing to live their lives without a particular Sherlockian vice. And after forty years of indulging, I think I've finally decided to join that philosophy and take a vow of living without the Sherlockian quiz.

I should have done so after the locally notorious night of unending tie-breakers back in the eighties, when three of us memorized a story so completely that we couldn't miss a question. A little competitiveness is okay, but when you've hit that point, there might be a problem. But I grew up with siblings, and you tend to get a little competitive from that. And when you're a newbie Sherlockian, trying to prove your mettle, quizzes seem like something that can do that, even though they never seem to impress anyone, really.

The key to any activity is purely how much you enjoy it, and I don't think I've ever really enjoyed scrabbling at the Canon for details to answer queries posed. The casual impromptu verbal quizzery at a picnic or party is fine, if done with a sense of fun, just to see what you hold in your head at any given moment. But to pound away at an obscure question, requiring you to go beyond mere empathy to try to figure out what another human was thinking when they wrote the wording of a question before you can start to look for an answer . . . who has the time? Not I.

So, as one of the two quiz masters of the John H. Watson Society Treasure Hunt for 2020, I found myself split into two people: The kindly fellow who wanted to spare my fellow Sherlockians the grief of a quiz and the evil mastermind who had to come up with challenges for those who actually want to fight the battle. And so, with my partner in crime in agreement, I came up with a second quiz. A friendly quiz, for those who wanted to be a part of the proceedings without taking on an obligation they might never finish.

Still, the harder part had to be written, and during that, I started to feel like a victim of abuse who was turning into an abuser of the next generation. Because coming up with a tough question in the age of search engines can take you to a very dark place, especially if you're short on time and can't fully test out a question with human trials.  Merely posting a disclaimer like "Some side effects may include confusion, begging for an explanation, or loss of interest" seems hardly enough. Warnings still seemed necessary, and would be applied.

And yet, even that was not enough. I think we might have broke some people this year.

Had it not been for the pandemic, 2020 would have seen two happier versions in a similar realm: Pub Trivia. Both 221B Con and St. Louis's "Holmes in the Heartland" were to feature something I put together called "Alpha Inn Goose Club Trivia Night." The con was the hour-long test run, and then St. Louis would have featured the full after-dinner entertainment. And the difference between pub trivia and the standard quiz? The former is meant to be live and social. A good pub trivia question is entertaining even if you don't know the answer. And there's also room in the format to put something fun in there for everyone beyond just answering questions, which can be a lot like a game show from earlier days, where there it's just fun to watch someone taking part. There was going to be a goose!

But, alas, none of that got to happen, and here we are in September, with the final winners of the John H. Watson Treasure Hunt about to come out. Anyone who got a hundred percent score probably has hacked into my computer, because, looking at the answers now . . . this was insanely hard. No one could reasonably be expected to interpret a few of the answers. The final four who actually turned in answers deserve a medal of valor. Look for those names on this week's episode of the Watsonian Weekly, and on the John H. Watson Society website.

As for me? No more quizzes. I'm retiring from creating or taking them. This pub trivia thing, though . . . when the pandemic has calmed, my friends, we are going to have some parties.

Sherlockian pancake fever

 How much do five-year-olds know about pancakes? 

That non-Sherlock-Holmes section of A Study in Scarlet is our only Canonical reference to pancakes, that king of breakfast culture. And that one reference is weird.

"I'll bet she meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot of buckwheat cakes, hot and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was fond of."

Little Lucy, last name unknown, is thirsty, so that pitcher of water makes sense. But those dry, crispy pancakes? No butter, no syrup, but somehow important that they are "toasted on both sides."

Who toasts their pancakes on only one side? Who leaves one side of their pancakes raw, wet, and bubbly?

Of course, little Lucy, last name unknown, is wearing a pink pinafore in the middle of a barren wasteland, having just been told that everyone she knows has died of thirst, which she somehow was sheltered from, as if she was just carried into existence by a weather-beaten old guy she didn't know too well before he decided to raise her. Maybe we can't expect her to make much culinary sense.

Now sugar maples grow throughout the part of the country where Lucy surely came from  -- "down in Illinois." Maple syrup could be had, as well as butter. To not think of those two things, and just hope that your pancakes are just "toasted on both sides" is rather sad. Lucy does talk about the trees that the current barren wasteland is missing, so she was familiar with those big plants that make the syrup juice. 

But she doesn't mention the syrup . . . maybe at age five she thought it was an automatic part of the pancake. Or maybe in the 1800s, with no Cheerios to give toddlers to chew on, Lucy's Southern Illinois clan just gave the tots silver dollar pancakes to keep them quiet. Mom could carry a buckskin bag of the things around with her to calm a hangry Lucy.

We never hear what happened to brother Bob. (Which concerns me a little bit, because I can think of a couple Sherlockian couples who were named Lucy and Bob, but weren't siblings, still, we hate, therefore, to think of anything bad befelling a Lucy and Bob. Especially if they liked pancakes.) He did like those double-toasted pancakes, though.

There's just a lot of weirdness going on with that Lucy kid in A Study in Scarlet. And the pancake issues seem to get right to the core of it.

Sherlockian cobitment?

There's a phrase in certain circles of comedy known as "cobitment." A mash-up of the words "bit," as in comedy bit, and "commitment," as in sticking to a thing. It is basically an expression of committing one's self to continuing a joke or gag long past when others might have given it up. The thought of cobitment came to me this morning in relation to this game Sherlockians have been playing for so very long.

Whether one considers it "the grand game" or "the great game," a game is what we call the exploration of the sixty stories found in The Complete Sherlock Holmes as history. Real, factual history that intertwines with those things we find in other historical records of the era, requiring research, documentation, and all those things normally reserved for serious minds doing serious things.

It's not really a gag or a joke. We're not looking to lead anyone down a Watsonian path and then suddenly go, "Ha-ha! Fooled you!" It's not a joke made funnier by repetition or extending it out, as one would think when using that "cobitment" idea I started this train with. So what is our game?

It's really a sort of "let's pretend," where we gather up the like-minded scamps and indulge ourselves with an imaginary landscape for a time, laid over the world we know. We can peruse the theatrical records and look for traces of Irene Adler. We can take old maps of London and hunt up Saxe-Coburg Square. We can take a safari thought J.G. Wood's works for a glimpse of cyanea capillata. And with each foray into such adventures, Mr. Sherlock Holmes becomes a little more solid, a little more real in our minds.

Now, occasionally the adults on the porch are going to shout, "ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE! ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE!" and call us in to quite playing for a while and deal with serious matters. I always have found that a little irritating, but then, I'm not so mature nor well-behaved as some of the other children. Sometimes, the other kids go in for a dose of proper medicine, whilst some of us stay out in the yard, chasing Garridebs. Is that sticking with a gag that has gone on too long? Our just wanting to stay up and play just a little while longer in that world that hides all around us.

Writing our own tales of detection and romance can be fun, letting Watson's spirit flow through our fingers into the keyboard, creating worlds where Sherlock Holmes and John Watson roam where we'd like them to. But that thrill will never match finding that one sentence in that one old book that tells you, "Yes, this thing I read in 'The Bruce-Partington Plans' is actually a real thing!" or finally putting your hands on a bullseye lantern and feeling that surface that Sherlock Holmes once felt. 

If that was committing to an ongoing joke, that little thrill would not be there. That little moment of impossible possibility that the legends could be somehow true. It's ironic that I've actually heard Sherlockians express fears that our game might lead someone to believe that Sherlock Holmes was real, and that Conan Doyle was a mere literary agent, somehow losing all deserved credit for his work. For I think Conan Doyle saw the magic in crossing into "that fairy kingdom of romance" for a time, and had he not found himself dead center of the Holmes hurricane, would have enjoyed the game.

Perhaps, rather than a joke we're committed to, our game is a opiate that we're addicted to. Perhaps there should be warning labels for us, rather than those we're in danger of tricking with our games. But that's for the surgeon general to decide. 

Me, I'm going back outside to play.

The legacy load

 Here's something in my basement.

It's the official podium of the Hansoms of John Clayton, the Sherlock Holmes society of Peoria, Illinois.

Built during the heyday of the Hansoms, it once moved from house to house, meeting to meeting, and from behind it, toasts were given, presentations were made, and the Clayton Ritual was responsively read. It was the centerpiece of Sherlockian functions in Peoria for decades. And here it sits.

I've started and abandoned a few Sherlockian societies in my day. Who knows? They might still exist, on hiatus until some air-gun crime of fate lures them back into town. But I did not start the Hansoms of John Clayton, and its slumber weighs more heavily on me for that very reason. Even though one of the original founders still roams the Earth, somewhere other than Peoria, I was the one left holding the reins when it quietly came to an end. Once the meeting attendance dwindled to four people in the early 2000s, and the only two regulars lived in my house, it came time to call it "on hiatus."

A legacy Sherlockian society will always weigh heavier than your own personal attempts that fail. You never know the limits of what your locale or speciality will bear until you try, and all trial holds that potential for failure. But that other thing, that thing someone else started and had a good run with, before handing it off to you, whether or not you actually wanted it . . . well, nobody wants to be the one to turn off the lights on their way out the door.

Now, before you go, "But Brad . . . !" in a burst of Sherlockian fervor, let me get to the other side of that coin, our enthusiam. When people get fancy with our hobby, they like to call themselves (and us, just because they don't want to seem to egotistical) the exotic sounding words "afficianados" or "devotees." The better fancy word might be "enthusiast," because enthusiasm is what drives us, our enthusiasm for all things Sherlock and John.

New ideas give you enthusiasm. 

"Hey, let's start a club!" 

"Hey, let's print a journal!" 

"Hey, let's do a weekly podcast!" 

"Hey, let's have a month-long quiz every August!" (Did I get too specific there? Maybe.)

And every one of those things is great, especially that first time. And the second or third. And maybe for a while. But every new idea ought to have an automatic term limit built in, because even if you're someone who loves ritual and routine, eventually you're going to hit your life's term limit and someone else is going to have to continue that repetition, playing your greatest hits night-after-night as the cover band with the same name as the original.

Now, Sherlockiana has had some really great achievements in carrying on traditions in some areas, but has also paid the price for some of those as well, when holding on to past glories has stunted current potential for new glories. It's a very hard balance, keeping enough of the old to have some sort of continuity while keeping things fresh enough to make it interesting for those who aren't into the security of the same-old, same-old. A lot of times, that's accomplished by passing a duty from hand-to-hand-to-hand. But we can't just expect people to carry things on in exactly the fashion they were before like robots. Even that mega-corporation McDonald's, the king of comforting sameness, couldn't keep things how they were forever.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday, as he was contemplating taking up a new Sherlockian task. I might have been exactly the wrong person for that conversation, being a little burnt-out on some things at the moment -- there are some of us who cycle burn-out and enthusiasm as if we're the cylinder of an internal combustion engine. But that's Sherlockiana. That's any creative endeavor. You're gonna have high energy moments, and you're gonna hit rock bottom. But if you find a fuel line to keep the motor running, you'll be okay.

Okay, got lost in my metaphor for a moment there. The point is, as much as Sherlockiana is a joy and a light in our lives, there can also be a laborious side to it, where hard choices have to be made and that beautiful idea someone had once does not get to go on forever. As any creative person knows, you get idea after idea after idea, and if you jump from one to the next constantly, you'll never accomplish any of them. But at the same time, we can't beat a dead horse at the cost of getting those new thoroughbreds out on the track. (Gone from engines to horses. Metaphors!)

Today is Labor Day in America. We don't usually stop and think about folks who labor at the tasks that keep our world running, both inside and outside Sherlockiana. Podcasts like "I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere" and "The Tree Patch Podcast," publications like Canadian Holmes, The Serpentine Mews, and those ones with "Journal" in the title. The Baker Street Journal and The Sherlock Holmes Journal probably get the least respect in terms of the labor that goes into them, as we can easily look at institutions like those and just think they magically exist because they always have. But there are people behind all those things who are carrying a load, a load they bear in addition to their normal workaday lives, if they aren't retired folks, which so many aren't.

We are enthusiasts. That's what starts us out, that's what drives us. But no matter what you do in Sherlockiana that isn't just taking it all in, there's going to be some labor involved eventually. So, on this Labor Day, here's to you, all you laborers in the Sherlockian and Holmesian fields past and present. This oft-irritating blogger loves you all and the work you do, the work you try, and even the work you occasionally fail at and have to quit. It's all part of our laborious "game." 

But I've rambled on enough . . . time to get back to work.

Hot characters of the Sherlockian Canon

After the recent discussion of hot Sherlocks, perhaps we should turn to our much-respected Canon and see what the citizens therein thought was hot and what was not. Being Victorians, they were not like Paris Hilton in her heyday, pronouncing every other thing as "so hot." Yet they did seem to have a few opinions on the topic, from which we might learn a thing or two. What were they?

"He was so hot that I think he would have thrashed Drebber with his cudgel . . ."

               -- Jefferson Hope on a man his was obsessed with, in A Study in Scarlet

"So hot was I . . ." 

              -- John H. Watson, The Sign of the Four

". . . the scissors-grinder, who was equally hot. . ."

            -- John H. Watson, also The Sign of the Four

". . . he was hot . . ."

            -- John H. Watson, regarding Sherlock Holmes in "Beryl Coronet"

"I have reason to think that they are hot . . ." 

           -- Sherlock Holmes, regarding Moriarty's gang, in "The Final Problem"

"I think that we are particularly hot . . ."

          -- Sherlock Holmes, upon himself and Watson, in The Hound of the Baskervilles

"Well, Jack, you are very hot."

         -- Beryl Stapleton, about her brother/husband in The Hound of the Baskervilles

"He has a reputation of being hot . . ."

        -- Mycroft Holmes on Cadogan West in "Bruce-Partington Plans

". . . I was hot . . ."

      -- John H. Watson, looking for "Lady Frances Carfax"

In any survey of the Canon, we're always going to get John Watson's opinion first and foremost, and the preceding quotes do tend to hit him the most. John Watson apparently thinks he himself is hot more often than he thinks Holmes is. This would correspond to the longtime idea of Watson as the looker of the two, the serial lover of the two, and . . . well . . . that moustache. 

Holmes seems to favor the criminal element in what he finds hot, Mycroft likes a young government clerk type, and . .  well, Watson has a scissors-grinder kink. (Oh, wait . . . scissoring . . . grinding . . . NEVER MIND!) There is info here for further investigation, to be sure.

These are actual quotes from the actual Canon after all, whatever the context police might want to tell you. I'm just reporting. It doesn't answer our ongoing questions about Jeremy Brett, but I'll leave those to his stage-door jennies and loyal followers.

Hot Sherlocks

Excuse me while I take out my figurative long cherry-wood pipe ala Sherlock Holmes. The mood this morning is "a disputatious rather than a meditative mood."

Ahem.

Okay, we all know the world is pretty messed up right now. You don't need me to go into details, we all know. SO messed up. But there are lines, folks. There are lines that once we cross them, we're just going into cloud cuckoo land and never coming back. And today, I think I saw some folks happily stepping over that line, and even though it may risk me getting cancelled, I'm going to call it out.

A troubling poll

Somewhere out in the Twitterverse -- let me run the math here -- one hundred and fifty-four followers of The Baker Street Journal on Twitter have something odd going on where they don't quite understand what the word "hotness" means.

Where I come from, it has always meant "someone who sexually excites you." It does not mean "someone who is your favorite at what they do." I get the feeling a lot of older cis-het guys were skewing the numbers on this one. Cis-het guys have long been the mainstay of The Baker Street Journal, and I doubt they all went, "Well, since I'm not attracted to Sherlock Holmes, I'm sitting this one out."

Yes, I have met women who found Jeremy Brett attractive in the day, some who prefer older men, etc., but they've usually been the outliers. Sherlockians, as a whole, do react to most stimuli in the variety of ways that non-Sherlockians do, and presented with that list of four, I don't think you're going to find a sudden variation from those norms just because someone was a Sherlockian.

I mean, seriously. Do people not have Netflix accounts?

Cumberbatch is cool as hell and is the man that actually brought sexy Sherlock to the world. Not just to fans of Sherlock Holmes who were staring at Rathbone anyway when the mood hit, but the guy that caused folks to actually go, "Wow, Sherlock Holmes in nothing but a sheet is something I was ready for."

Robert Downy Jr. is one of the world's most charming human beings. His bod may not be in the best shape all the time, but that guy can get it done.

And Henry Cavill? Henry Cavill? Superman? The Witcher? The baddie who does that cool shoulder-cocking move before helping Tom Cruise destroy a restroom in Mission Impossible: Fallout?

I am sorry, but I'm calling total BS on the idea of a majority of actual humans putting Jeremy Brett over those three lads in any true "hotness" contest. Hell, I'm 98% straight, but I'd stop to think about if one of those three propositioned me. Jeremy Brett, at the age he played Sherlock? Well, we might have a lovely tea.

We all know (I hope) that we shouldn't base our current view of reality on Twitter, where chaos is constantly reigning and K-pop fans rule the Earth. Same goes for Facebook, which skews whatever way it thinks you need to be skewed to make their ads effective.  There are certain subjects we need to step back, observe as objectively as Sherlock Holmes himself would, and look for the facts behind the spooky tales of demon-dogs, Peruvian vampire-women, and Jeremy Brett's hotness.

I mean, Sir Ian McKellen. Sir Ian McKellen.

Really. Put those DVDs away and watch some stuff.