And now, a disclaimer . . .

 If you listened to the latest episode if I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, you might have heard something a bit unusual in Scott Monty's introduction of one of the guests, which included the line "Yet he's still a bitter, bitter old Sherlockian, and probably a monster in his own right." I have to tell you, I was a little shocked to hear those words from one of Sherlockiana's most trusted voices. I mean, Scott's such a nice guy, and all! 

But I probably shouldn't have been so taken aback, since Scott was merely reading from my little bio in the back of The Monstrum Opus of Sherlock Holmes, which I did actually write myself about myself. And Rob Nunn and I were on the podcast to talk about that very book. There are probably folks out there who haven't bought and read that book cover to cover, so I felt like I needed to blog a little disclaimer, just in cast anyone didn't catch the little wink in Scott's voice or my writing and were concerned that a nice podcaster was suddenly saying mean things about a poor innocent like myself. Here's the full bio:

Brad Keefauver is still bitter that he wasn’t asked to write for this collection and condemned to work in the galleys. He still manages to somehow enjoy all of the writers within this collection despite his utter jealousy of them all. Yes, he’s also host of The Watsonian Weekly podcast, the editor of Sherlockian Chronology Timelines, and blogs under the title of “Sherlock Peoria,” among other creative endeavors. Yet still, a bitter, bitter, old Sherlockian, and possibly a monster in his own right. But if you’re collecting essays for a book, please invite him to write something, and maybe he’ll be less bitter.

Yeah, no poor innocent had that written about him. I mean, come on, only a real narcissist would reprint his own bio from a book in his blog post, and just milk his own self-esteem issues for a sad attempt at getting one more person or two to pay attention to him, right?

Anyways, the point I'm getting to is one reason I find Sherlockiana to be such a marvelous hobby, and that for the most part, it's such a welcoming and accepting hobby that it embraces some real basket cases of all levels of tolerable and intolerable. If you think of the worst person you know in this hobby, I will bet you can find still a few other Sherlockians out there who think they're just the best. (Even if, occasionally, we might want to think hard about that, too.) Some of us may hold on to grudges a little longer than we should, but overall, we don't . . . for now . . . seem to have the divisive culture wars that social media algorithms and cable opinion channels love to stoke the fires to raise their own engagement along with the heat.

Which just made it sooooo weird to hear a Sherlockian publicly say something negative like that about another Sherlockian, even if it was done in good spirits with good intentions. Hence this sort-of disclaimer post. Probably not going to link it directly to the social media feeds, though, because it's just weird.