The Blood and Bone of Sherlockiana

 During some recent conversations about The Watsonian, the journal of the John H. Watson Society, I started thinking about the body of the Sherlockian party and its two most important parts: the blood and the bones.

The bones of Sherlock Holmes fandom are old and solid, over a century old. The original Canon. The Victorian era. The Sherlockian societies. The pseudo-scholarship, studying Holmes as if his were historical. Traditional Sherlockiana.

The blood of Sherlock Holmes fandom are hot and fast-moving, surging and receding. The movies. The TV shows. The popular Sherlock in any medium, getting people excited, inspiring them to write, to draw, to create . . . and to learn more about Sherlock Holmes.

And like any body, we need both to keep Sherlockiana alive.

The bones might look at the blood and go, "This blood was not here last year and will be gone next year. It does not have the importance of bone. It flows here and there and does not stay in one place as bones do. Bones are secure. Bones give comfort."

And the blood, the blood just looks at bone and goes, "Boring old bones. Never changing, not moving on the way blood does. Blood is life, blood is energy, blood powers action, creativity, joy."

When BBC Sherlock came and hit Sherlockian fandom, there were many on the side of bone Sherlockiana who were a little afraid of blood Sherlockiana flowing in and replacing their cherished tradition with a tide that would ebb. They set up walls and went "this is a literary hobby," knowing full well that Sherlockian cinephiles have been with us as long as movies. And the new blood so often replied in kind, not having the patience to deal with those old dry bones and their stiff traditional structures. And yet, there were still old bones who welcomed the energy of new blood, and new blood that saw the value in old bones that had been holding up Sherlockiana before they came.

Sherlockiana, like any body, needs both to endure. New Sherlockians rarely come from reading Victorian literature for entertainment without being led to it by some more modern text, be it written, filmed, or otherwise made to intrigue the mind of today.

The John H. Watson Society and its publications have long had one foot in both worlds, publishing both fanfic and the most studious of papers on Dr. Watson's life. Not every publication has the bandwidth or audience to do that, we've been lucky that way. Exploring a man with so much mystery and depth as John H. Watson takes both research and imagination, treatises on the Battle of Maiwand and fic explorations of how his character would live as a leprechaun cohabitating with a pixie Sherlock Holmes. There is something to be gained from looking at all sides of this gem of a man.

The blood and the bones of Sherlockiana. Together they make us whole and bring this hobby to life, every single day.

221B Con 2024: The Penultimate 221B Con?

I was a younger man when 221B Con started eleven years ago. That's my primary excuse for not keeping up with ongoing blog reporting as the weekend went on this time. Also, I'm not sure how I found the time in the past . . . or the wifi connection? In any case, my lack of ongoing reportage is not because there are things to report. And I did try, as you will see. 

So let us return now to Thursday of last week . . . 

Here’s the initial pro tip for attending 221B Con: Arrive on Thursday, if at all possible. Also, don’t spend the entire day driving, if you can help it. My sweet spot itinerary is to get the to eastern side of Nashville by Wednesday night, then make the scenic drive down through Chattanooga Thursday morning, lost that hour in the dreaded time zone crossing, stop at the Georgia Welcome Center, then get to the Atlanta Marriott Airport mid-afternoon before rush hour fills up the ring road.

After checking in and settling down, the hotel has a really nice area for watching the familiar faces roll in, and those initial hellos are one of the best parts of any Sherlockian weekend. Giving them a little extra time in never a bad idea.

Last year I made the mistake of becoming a dealer’s room dealer and didn’t get to bounce around the con like usual, but the one thing I did get in during 2023 was an early meeting of what was initially called “the Southern Waffleers.” That Waffle House based Sherlockian society has grown immensely since we dragged Paul Thomas Miller there last year for his and my first time at the classic southern eatery, where the waitress was more shocked that there was an American of a certain age who had never been there before than an Englishman. So when the Waffleers headed out at 8AM Friday morning, I was with them. And when we returned and found my friends from the John H. Watson Society had slept late and still needed an alert Waffle House driver, I decided a second Waffle House visit was needed.vAfter returning to the same table and freaking out the same waitress two of us had served only an hour before, I settled into the waffle I skipped during first breakfast. A second good time was had.

And then back to the hotel, yet again, where we ran into Marilynne McKay, one of the original fiver traditional Sherlockians who had been there at the first 221B Con eleven years ago. Getting the big table near the entrance, my fellow podcast bullpups from the John H. Watson Society and I recorded our weekly review of Sherlock & Co. with Marilynne as our guest. Soooo, podcasting taking precedence over blogging . . . another excuse from me for not getting this out sooner.

Late afternoon is registration time for the con, and the numbers of Diogenes Club (lifetime con attendees) in their registration line was longer than ever. This con has a very dedicated core following. A quick circle of the dealer’s room, which was still getting its tables filled when it opened at five, and I was off to the first set of panels, already in progress.

The room for “Adapting Sherlock Holmes” was full, so instead of creeping in to a corner there, I headed next door to the 25th Anniversary of The Phantom Menace, which a certain person had encouraged me to attend due to a bit of a debate we’ve had over that film. That room was so cold, however, that I went to my room to retrieve my sweatshirt, which turned out to be still in my car. When I eventually made it back to the con area, I ran into Rob Nunn which . . .

[SCREECHING HALT IN MY TYPING]

As I type this in the “221B Con Redux” panel reminscing about past cons, we just got the announcemnt that next year will be the last con. The BBC Sherlock surge that made a con of this size financially possible has faded, so I had started to wonder about such things. And while the news is sad, I’m sympathetic, and the fact they’re giving us one last year to go out with a last hurrah is definitely the way to go. 

I hate to jump in time, from Friday to Saturday, but the news and a break between panels sent me into retail therapy mode in the dealer’s room. (Operating on five hours of sleep, for reasons to be described later, and I’m a little more emotional than I would be on a full night’s sleep.) Some good artists that I haven’t seen before have some nice stuff, and while I’m not a Johnlock shipper, there’s a parody of the classic Sidney Paget train art of Holmes and Watson that has them bending forward for a kiss that’s totally delightful in both execution and rebelling against tradition. After years of admiring the wardrobe vendor’s wares, I went for a shirt and vest that were very reasonably priced. Conversations happen about the last-con news as I move through the dealer’s room, and even after I drop my purchases off in the room and hit the food truck outside, 

But let us now return to Friday eve. I had run into Rob Nunn just before he was sitting on his first panel -- on Sherlock and education, which I then attended. While I hadn’t signed up for an panels this year, the “Arthur ‘Continuity’ Doyle” panel had a panelist who couldn’t make it, so I was asked to sit in, having done it many years before. So 6:30 found me in the Georgia room, discussing all the little continuity issues, primarily about Watson -- wounds, wives, knowledge of Moriarty, all the raw materials Sherlockians have let their imaginations run wild on for over a hundred years.

The Victorian manners panel starts a bit later after than, and following that, I suspect I settled into conversation somewhere, as one does at 221B Con, and missed a panel or two after that. Some 11 PM pizza in the bar, more socialiizing, and eventually hitting the already full-force karaoke party at 1 AM. Rusty Mason used his influence with the DJ to get me a spot on the already full song list, and a couple of songs later, I wind up bellowing my go-to, “Flagpole Sitta.” And suddenly it’s two in the morning. A mere five hours sleep followed, as I had to be up for another Waffle House trip at eight.

By the end of Saturday, the “Southern Waffleers” were officially renamed the “221st Southumberland Waffleers” by the head waffle (or whatever position Steve Mason holds). Yes, it was my third Waffle House visit this trip in 24 hours. Does that make the Waffleers a cult? As I write this on Sunday morning, I’m actually wearing the paper WH hat from our most recent trip -- our waitress had actually run outside with a stack of hats for us as we posed for a photo by the roadside sign, which was handy when Ashley Polasek suddenly expressed the need for one during the later BSI scion society panel.

Back the con, the first panel of the morning for me was not “Mycrofts through the Ages,’ but "221B Con Redux," a panel about past con memories, where the announcement of next year’s final 221B Con came out. After that, I went to the dealer’s room to tell a few friends the news.

A lot of bouncing around between panels and the food truck followed. The Sherlock & Co. panel was one of the best panels of the con, with four enthusiastic panelists who introduced themselves as Coat, bullpup Maddie, bullpup Starlight, and Jones. (Hint: The editor of The Watsonian, two cohosts from The Watsonian Weekly, and artist 4thelneyj0nes, from my POV.) Jones turned out to be the artist whose work I'd already admired in the dealer's room, and finding out that some of the art I didn't recognize what his visual interpretation of the Sherlock & Co. audio characters, I had to go buy some more art.

At that point, I'm not sure what happened in the haze of con stuff, but I missed the Dynamics of a Podcast "From Baker Street to the Holodeck" panel. Some panels moved around on Saturday night, so things got a little more hazy as I write this two days later. There was a Sherlolly panel, a fan fiction workshop panel, Victorian soda fountain creations . . . and some other Sherlockian things I definitely missed.

Eventually it lead to hanging out in the bar, the Saturday night dance party and all of us dressing up in whatever we had on hand for "prom" photos that the official con photographer Christ has somewhere. We wound up in Mrs. Hudson's lounge at some point, for more chats with different folks, but I forced myself to end the evening at 1 AM this time to try to get a little more sleep (this weekend had a few necessary naps in it).

But since this is 221B Con, Sunday is still a day of programming, and after a nine-Sherlockian trip to Waffle House yet again, there was a queer interpretations of Canon panel, an "ASH, BSI, and Other Sherlockian Orgs" panel, one on Young Sherlock Holmes, a nap break, Ashley Polasek and Curtis Armstrong in full academic gear doing a "Skippable Canon" hour of entertainment, and finally the "Our Last Bow" panel at which our con hosts let the attendees ask questions and offer appreciations. With the news of next year being the final con, this eventually turned into a "How do we keep this going?" discussion, as diehard 221B Con Bees brainstormed, suggested, and wondered about how to keep next year's con from being the last.

Was it just working through the "bargaining" phase of the five stages of grief? Or will something catch fire and somehow keep 221B Con going? The next year will tell that tale. And just because something goes away, as we learned during Covid, it does not necessarily mean it won't come back in some form. The alchemy that created 221B Con might not be a recipe that works as well in 2025 as it did in 2015, and sometimes that's just life. BBC Sherlock gave us an energy that's worn off at this point, and one questions if CBS Watson will even be a small jolt -- CBS's Elementary never had the presence at con of its British counterpart, and media representations are a big part of 221B Con. But as we learned Sunday afternoon, it's easy to do sports-type analysis of what coaching can make the team have a successful season next year.

I think I'll leave it at that, because it's Monday and I now need to pack up my car to start driving home. Had a great time, as always, and wondering how long the infinity symbol "temporary" tattoo is going to be on the back of my left hand. More blogs to come . . .

The Full Spectrum Sherlockian

 We were discussing pastiches the other night, and it got me to thinking about all the different ways we celebrate Sherlock Holmes. And in considering it, I started to realize there's a bit of a spectrum to it all. And in delineating it out, it seemed to need a coding system to it, and I bet you can guess what the "R" and the "F" stand for. So here's my first draft:

• R4 - England. (This topic more favored by Americans who aren't living it every day.)
• R3 - The Victorian period in England, its history and culture.
• R2 - Conan Doyle's place in the Victorian period, his life and literature.
• R1 - Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, the history of their creation and publication.
• F1 - John H. Watson's Sherlock Holmes stories, the history of their creation and publication.
• F2 - Sherlock Holmes's place in the Victorian period, his Canonical life and career.
• F3 - The 221B Baker Street period, the non-Canonical history of Canonical people, places, and things.
• F4 - Any world with Sherlock Holmes in it.

Me, I tend to stay in the "F" end of the pool, where we splash around and play. The "R" side of the pool is where the swim team plays by the rules of their swimming and diving sports. Some ambitious swimmers can do both sides of the pool, of course, being disciplined and staying in the swim lanes for certain events, then coming back to enjoy the water slides and lazy rivers, but that's not to say that the "F" side of the pool doesn't have people working just as hard at their fun as anyone on the "R" side.

Worn that metaphor out yet? I think so.

Anyway, the thing that has kept Sherlockiana alive all these years isn't just that people love that Sherlock Holmes. You can only read the original sixty stories so much, no matter how much of a purist you are. At some point you have to go outside the Canon proper and find something else to do, some other trails to follow. Could be studying Conan Doyle, could be writing your own stories, but they emanate from the same place: that love of Sherlock Holmes that takes you beyond level one, be it in the direction of "R" or "F." 

And here's the other thing -- there's so much Sherlock Holmes out there at this point that there are Sherlockians who didn't start their journey at "R1" or "F1." If you came to Holmes from Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes, for example, you might have started at F4 and worked back to F1, maybe even continuing the journey to R2 or R3. It's very common to wander around that spectrum in search of a comfy place to settle. And I can already see the problem with a linear view of the spectrum. Where do the people that love to study the history of Sherlockian fandom find a spot on there? How about Holmes film historians? 

Suddenly it seems there has to be an "R2A" or "F4B" for Christopher Morley or CBS's Elementary. Some things just can't be put in a box, no matter how hard you try, kind of like the reason the DSM has had five editions since its inception in the 1950s. (Not to say that Sherlockiana is a mental disorder -- I'll leave that diagnosis to some of our friendly experts in that field.) We don't need to classify our fellow Sherlockians.

But the exercise of pondering a spectrum of Sherlock Holmes fandom is good for reminding yourself of all the varieties of folks and fun we have within this hobby of ours, and taking a panoramic view of just how lovely it is when you step back and look.

The Valley of Fear-ly Odd Nudity

 Another Holmes discussion group eve at the North Peoria library, and always some new treat from an old story from one of our regulars. Tonight Dale pointed out the oddest part of phrases regarding how the victim was dressed:

"He was clad only in a pink dressing gown . . ." is a plain enough phrase. The dead guy only had on a pink dressing gown, right? But then you finish the sentence, and find " . . . which covered his night clothes."

Don't night clothes count as clothes? But it doesn't stop there!

"There were carpet slippers on his bare feet." How could his feet be bare if he had slippers on?

And in both cases: Why does Watson seem to want his corpse to be naked so badly? It's almost as if he is giving us hints to the answers to this mystery. The dead man came wearing different clothes and got shot in the face. Then somebody stripped him down, so he was naked at one point, at which point one of the men who stripped him down also got naked. Is there a secret Sidney Paget drawing somewhere where the naked dead man is laying there while the naked live man starts to dress the dead one in his clothes?

Or of the naked live man putting the naked dead man's clothes into the moat before scampering off naked to find more clothes?

Should we even let children read The Valley of Fear with all this shocking implied nudity!?!

And John Douglas went immediately into the hidey-hole of his after the clothes-switch, and Watson never states he was wearing anything but a wedding ring when he comes out, so are we to then surmise that the entire final scene of the mystery has a naked man in the middle of it?

Watson's narration is quick to leave that scene and move on to the flashback part of the novel, possibly so he doesn't have to describe John Douglas finally getting dressed again.

There were a lot of other comments about The Valley of Fear tonight, and the fact that Allan Pinkerton seems to have thought about suing Conan Doyle for turning a private conversation into a novel really fascinates me. But the true surprise was finding out just what the naked truth of this novel was.

It's practically the Poor Things of its day!

Crimes Against Sherlockiana

 Communities.

Gotta love ‘em. Just spent a very lovely weekend in the heart of one of our little "family reunions" as some have called a good Sherlockian weekend. One of my favorite moments even occurred after it was all over and done, when everybody just decided to have their departure breakfast, not in the hotel's free breakfast lounge, but at the local Waffle House. Waffle House restaurants are not that big, but there were fifteen of us, taking up all the booths and seats in the main seating area. Old friends, new friends, and a great spirit of community.

There's a lot of love in Sherlockiana. But at the same time as I was enjoying this weekend's festivities, another friend was going through the opposite side of the coin. Because Sherlockians may be the best people in the world, a fact we will state easily after a good weekend like the one I just had in Dayton, but we also have our assholes and we also have our tempers. We discuss Sherlock Holmes, not politics or religion for the most part, which is our lovely common ground. And most of us have the good sense to steer away from politics or religion when those come up. Texans and Californians can sit down at a Sherlockian dinner table and get along just fine.

But occasionally, one of us will get all fired up with righteous anger at some matter or the other that has nothing to do with the Sherlockian world (or within it) and cause a hard break with another Sherlockian. This has happened twice in the last six months with different folks that I know of, and it's something that happens in communities. Fighting, when it doesn't get physical, isn't necessarily a crime. And being an asshole in itself isn't a crime. But when we get put in a situation where we have to start deciding who our better friend of two Sherlockians is . . . it almost starts to feel like crime and punishment, because oftimes, somebody is going to get ostracized from part of the community, or exile themselves rather than put up with a certain person. Either way, we lose.

As a Sherlockian who has behaved badly upon occasion (and still can blunder into that realm on occasion), but still considers himself a sweet and lovable soul, I really hate to see when this stuff happens to other people. Nobody wins, even if one of the parties gets a whole "God is on my side!" self-righteous thing going and won't let go of it. (Been there, done that.) Because once you start @#$%ing with people's friends, they may not come at you directly, but you can start getting quietly left off guest lists and other such things.

I'm seriously thinking about dropping a person off a certain list I manage right now, for going after one of my friends. And I hate that. It's been done to me, and I don't want to be that person. Nobody wants to be a gatekeeper, even if that gate is only for one individual. (But, goddammit, you don't go after people's friends.) We should all know better, or at least learn that at some point. And we might be at a point where someone needs to learn to do better, because no matter how right you think you are, when you do damage in our Sherlockian community, more people are gonna feel it than you realize. And you might just rob us of some talent we really enjoy, which is definitely a crime.

Sherlockiana is a great community, as we know. Communities as a whole, are a key part of the human experience. But living in a community does not come without some work and some responsibility. We have to actively work on being our better selves, forgiving a few moments of bad choices now and then, and taking serious care when deciding that someone needs to be excommunicated from our personal version of that Sherlockian community. While nobody has the power to completely banish someone from Sherlockiana, even with a full cancellation campaign, a lot of folks will decide to leave due to one asshole treating them badly, or one incident where they got triggered to behave a little badly themselves. 

We miss those people. Our numbers are not so large that we don't notice new gaps. And we're always glad to see a familiar Sherlockian face turn up at a gathering just like a surprise "221B" sticker on a bumper in a parking lot, or a bunch of folks at a Waffle House.

So be careful out there. 

Holmes, Doyle, & Friends: Nine

Outside of the BSI weekend in New York, I don’t think any. place has hosted many Sherlockian weekends as Dayton, Ohio. Decades and decades of weekends, organized by different generations of hosts and hostesses, have brought Sherlockians to Ohio for both scholarship and fun in about any way you can imagine.

My day began very early, as I wanted to join the latest gathering of the Southern Waffleers

After an hour or so of dealer’s table browsing and socializing, David Harnois began the program with “Setting Up Camp: How I Build A Scene.” Using the classic tent joke for his example, David showed us the layers of building an audio scene in Audacity. I learned a few things for my podcast work, which may or may not be a good thing, depending upon your view of the proliferation of podcasting at this point.

Kira Settingsgard came up next, starting with a disclaimer that her talk titled “We Love Sherlock ... but Would Sherlock Love Us?” would not involve diagnosing anyone in the Canon or not. Would Shelrock Holmes come to Sherlockian events? What were his attachments based on? What were his attachment styles? We soon learn it’s “dismissive or avoidant” . . . and suddenly I’m feeling very called out as we get into what that means. Her analysis of Holmes’s friends is fascinating and shows us just how real Sherlock Holmes was as a character.

I like a talk where I get details of the Canon I had never thought about before, and Kira’s point that both Watson and Victor Trevor bonded with Holmes at a time when they had a dog is very interesting.

A break follows, and time to dash around and see what the other vendors have to offer, which is tricky when you have a dealer’s table to man, which I did this year.

After the break, Texas Sherlockian Tim Kline starts his talk singing, and quickly gets into talking about games and Sherlock Holmes’s appearances in them. Did you know the very first Clue game had Sherlock Holmes’s name on the box? Yes, Doyle’s kids didn’t like that very much and made Parker Brothers take it off. There are more games with Sherlock Holmes on them than you ever imagined, and Tim rolls through more weird and wacky bits about Holmes and games than I can easily mention here. Another great talk -- the variety this year is far-ranging and enjoyable so far.

Madeline Quinones follows time with a history of Sherlockian podcasts -- can you believe we’ve had enough podcasts and time with them passed to have history? Starting with “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere,” the grandpappy of Sherlockian podcasts” (which is a weird thing for me to say for such young show), Madeline walks us through more podcasts than any of us knew existed, and makes me realize that these weekends are going to be more and more a source of learning just all that exists.

That brings us to lunch, and I have to say -- Madeline did a good job of holding my interest and winding up before hunger started distracting me!

After a quick sandwich lunch, more dealing and shopping in the dealer’s room, David Harnois and Mike McSwiggin portrayed Holmes and Watson in a little “playlet” reminiscent of a certain Abbot and Costello routine. A recent Dayton staple, Ira Matetsky, educates and entertains us on Liberty magazine and its time running later Sherlock Holmes stories. A memorable key fact toward Doyle’s motivations for his last run of stories for Liberty -- adjusted for time and inflation, etc., Ira estimates Conan Doyle was making about $85,000 per story.

Ira winds up answering questions and gets in a good ad lib about not getting a spirit connection from Doyle in the next world, which leads well into longtime BSI George Skornickel speaking on Conan Doyle spiritualism.

A break celebrates Bob Sharman’s birthday, which happened to be today, with a cake with his face on it. My particular dealer’s table went into “going out of business” mode, slashing prices to nil, which tends to move some merch. And then it was time for Max Magee to explain to us one path to becoming a Sherlockian. Where do we fit on his Sherlockian version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? He then illustrates what each step entails, complete with hats. Was Max’s talk so enjoyable for us because he was talking about us? I would not say that was NOT the case.

After Max has explained the levels of Sherlockiana to us, it is only fitting that the last speaker of the day is a top level Sherlockian like Burt Wolder. In lieu of a slide show, Burt gave us all a souvenir card reproducing Conan Doyle’s 1929 drawing “The Old Horse.” Burt’s talk then goes through the various boxes loading the wagon of Doyle’s life in his drawing with well-thought expertise. It’s a novel way to look at Conan Doyle’s time. He brings it back to our own lives in the end. And with that, the program begins to wind to a close.

On to happy hour and banquet time!

Dayton 2024 - The Friday Night Festivities

 The "Holmes, Doyle, & Friends" symposium in Dayton, Ohio each spring is an annual event, and as with any regularly occurring event, traditions will be born and traditions will continue. With Dayton, there are the official parts, like the Friday night reception held by the Agra Treasurers, and the unofficial parts, like certain dining habits or . . . for the third year in a row, some karaoke.

I'm going to limit things to first names here to protect the innocent, even though you might know a few of these folks. I'm a big fan of karaoke for people who don't usually sing. Bars full of good singers are kind of obnoxious, but a bar full of normal folk challenging their limits can just be a good time. And Sherlockians like a good time.

The biggest problem with Sherlockians singing karaoke, I think, is that not enough popular songs have been written about Sherlock Holmes or used in Holmes films. We don't want to hurt ourselves doing "Stayin' Alive" just because Moriarty used it as his ringtone. 

So "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" starts the evening by our Sherlockian champion of karaoke, Ira. Me, I've the courage of a shameless fool, so I'll attempt "Shake It Off" and lower the bar for all that comes after. David, Madeline, Steve, Regina, Ira again, me again . . . and many an abstaining individual, especially those who want to have a voice to do their presentation the next day. 

But there is one song that tradition (and Ira) requires we do on these evenings, and I think this time around we started a new tradition: Ending the evening with that one song, and getting as many people as we can to sing it. That song?

Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street." It's actually not too had to sing, even if you start singing "DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOOOOOO!" along with the saxophone riffs. Monica, Max, Ira, and myself joined for the finale this time, and I hope we get more on Saturday night, as we head back in for another round.

For now, though, it's time to sleep before tomorrow 7 AM Waffle House run . . . another growing tradition, thanks to a certain Texan. 

More to come!

Sherlockiana, the Lower Bar, and Those Two Initials

 One of the great things about Sherlockiana, or any fandom, that you never hear mentioned is the low bar for talent. I don't want to insult anyone here, but let's be honest.

We love Sherlock Holmes and all things Sherlock Holmes. We want to create journals, newsletters, websites, anthologies, events, etc., etc. in honor of that love. And we need content for those things. If you've ever been an editor of anything but one of the top prestige journals, and you're not a complete ogre, you have, at some point, accepted something you might not have taken just to give someone a chance to see their name in print. And that's a good thing.

We all have to start somewhere. And we all need to practice what we do and build our skills. So that acceptance of beginners' work is a good thing. Many a skilled writer or speaker of today got their start in a fandom. I would hesitate to call myself "skilled" at this point, but everything little thing I know about writing, I learned from practicing on the Holmes field in little newsletters and journals. If you do something enough, chances are you're going to get somewhat better.

Enter that cursed non-human thing we call "Artificial Intelligence."

It's not our friend, whose feelings we don't want to hurt. It's not an original artist whose skills we want to encourage by giving it a pass when it can't draw hands or plainly steals from better artists. It's software to provide an easy tool for performing a task that was previously done by humans, that will be exploited by those who don't have talent and don't want to learn actual skills.

Our fannish enthusiasm is going to draw a lot of Sherlockians to AI, and already has. If you love Sherlock Holmes, you want more Sherlock Holmes, and if a machine will churn out more Sherlock Holmes for free, an ardent fan is going to use that machine. And an ardent fan is probably going to be willing to overlook a few flaws in the final product, just as we've done for years with human-produced work. But when we did that in the past, we were always inviting another human into our community by accepting their work.

Do we want to invite ChatGPT into our community? Do we want to see it at events, have dinner with it, enter its name on our club rosters and get excited if it gets a BSI shilling some future January?

No. No, we don't.

So we probably shouldn't lower the bar for AI just because we want more content and want to encourage it to do more work. That space that it fills in a journal could be filled by someone who may eventually become a dear friend, rather than a collection of bits and bites . . . who, admittedly, is trying to become people's chatbot friend in many a venue. You might even be able to sit alone in a restaurant with your device and have dinner with that software pretense of a human, but you aren't going to invite other people to join you and that thing are you?

So maybe we want to hesitate in welcoming this new non-human writer/artist/"friend" to our Sherlockian ranks in any form for a bit. We'll talk when Mr. Data shows up and pretends to be Sherlock Holmes. But for now?

Let's force that stupid thing to try a little harder.

The Most Important Day in Sherlockiana!

 I'm going to do something unusual this week and give you the words that I am going to be speaking into a microphone on the Watsonian Weekly podcast on Sunday night, because I think you need the forewarning to prepare for Monday -- the most important day in all of Sherlockiana! And, no, it's not "Hug A Holmesian Day" on March 11, a week later. In fact, we should really celebrate this entire week ahead of us with all the fervor of that arbitrary January business . . . or more, actually. Why? Well, let me tell you, as I'm going to actually tell those blessed few who listen to the Watsonian Weekly at the start of each week.

So here goes . . . 

March Fourth is here, and I don’t know why we don’t celebrate this day more than some made-up birthday date or Reichenbach Falls day. for March Fourth, most likely the one in 1881, is the day that John H. Watson meets the real Sherlock Holmes for the first time. Not the day he met the man, not the day he met the chemist, but the day Watson meets Sherlock Holmes, the world’s first and foremost consulting detective as they embark upon the case Watson would first call “The Lauriston Garden Mystery.”

Sherlock Holmes has finally explained to Watson what he does for a living over breakfast on March Fourth, and as they finish that conversation, a commisionaire brings Holmes a letter from Tobias Gregson, whom Holmes calls “the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” with Lestrade coming in a close second as “the pick of a bad lot.” 

Watson reads the letter, and what is his immediate reaction?

“Surely there is not a moment to be lost. Shall I go and order you a cab?”

Watson isn’t even thinking of going along with Holmes, but his first instinct is to help. Not as a partner, not as a chronicler, just as a guy in the same room who knows immediately that what Sherlock Holmes does is important.

Holmes hustles about, getting ready to go, and tells Watson the most critical words in the entire Canon, three words we sadly overlook in favor of that Afghanistan line when the two first met. And what are those three words?

“Get your hat.”

That’s all it takes. The trigger for the creation of the Sherlockian Canon as we know it.

“Get your hat.”

“You wish me to come?” Watson asks politely to confirm the implied invitation. And Holmes, being Holmes, gives a casual, “If you have nothing better to do.”

And he knows Watson has nothing better to do. He also sees how excited Watson is about the whole thing. And we next read those wonderful words: “A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously for Brixton Road."

It is a beautiful, wonderful, glorious moment and one we should all celebrate March Fourth for, by . . . I should think . . . at least following Holmes’s command as Watson did on that day.

Get. Your. Hat.

March Fourth, a date and a homonym that need to be celebrated. March forth, it’s March Fourth! But get your hat first. Because it's the day that all our Sherlockian adventures truly began.

Can a second Sherlock Holmes survive in a free Sherlock world?

Today I stopped in at the latest online meeting of the Praed Street Irregulars, the society dedicated to Solar Pons in the way the Baker Street Irregulars are dedicated to Sherlock Holmes. And there's a reason for that parallel, of course -- when Wisconsin writer August Derleth wrote to Conan Doyle and got a "no," he created a detective who decided to be the next Sherlock Holmes. His own Irregulars, his own "B" address, his own doctor companion, his own landlady whose name ended in "son," the whole kit and caboodle.

When I told a friend about the meeting, and its familiar Sherlockian speakers Peter Blau and Max Magee, they were a bit surprised that Peter was interested in Solar Pons. And then it hit me . . . to a Sherlockian who wasn't in the hobby decades ago, Solar Pons doesn't make much sense. Why would anyone need a detective who copies Sherlock Holmes when we have so much Sherlock Holmes?

I read all of the Solar Pons books back in the 1980s. In an era when the Holmes fan fiction was not coming hot and heavy and published pastiches were months apart, Solar Pons was the thing that got you by, not Sherlock Holmes but close enough and written well enough to do the job. We all read the Pons Canon back in the day. The whole Pons Canon even came in a boxed set of paperbacks.

Solar Pons has had a very loyal following for a long time. The Praed Street Irregulars who first organized in 1966. New stories have been written about him, new books are still coming out starring Pons. But like other ancillary Sherlock Holmes subfandoms, its numbers are a but a fraction of the main man's hordes. Yet they persist, despite never having a movie, TV show, or cartoon. (A character on Twin Peaks did get last-named after Pons, but that's as close as he got.) 

Would a CBS series starring some good-looking Brit as Solar Pons power him up to the next level? Could Pons survive a modern-day adaptation? How would a gender-bent Solar Pons work? Could he be in love with Dr. Parker? And could Solar Pons have his own Solar Pons, like a 1960s detective named Spellman Nonce with a partner named Dr. Halston living at 45B Cable Street?

With Sherlock Holmes free of his copyright chains and able to now morph into a thousand other versions of Sherlock Holmes named "Sherlock Holmes," Solar Pons remains more of a fixed point in a changing age than even Watson can now claim to be. Pons's copyrights are still in force with the August Derleth estate. It makes him unique.

And as today's meeting of the Praed Street Irregulars demonstrated, Solar Pons isn't done yet.

The Era of the Collected Work

 Sherlockiana has always come in waves.

A new screen Sherlock triggers a wave of fans. A best-selling pastiche teaming up Holmes with a historical character triggers a wave of Sherlock Holmes crossover books. Covid inspires Zoom use inspires online groups. And then there's the rise of the collection, once publishing a book became relatively easy.

Writing and entire book, especially and entire novel or nonfiction book on a single topic, is hard. Writing an essay or a short story? Not nearly such a mountain to climb. And if you get a bunch of people to do that easier task, and collect enough things to fill a book . . . well, you still have a book. And now, we have a lot more books having to do with Sherlock Holmes than ever before.

Sherlockiana has always loved a collection. Profile By Gaslight was collected by Edgar Smith in 1944 and remained a "must have" piece of Sherlockiana for decades, and is the only "many hands" collection to make it into Eckrich and Nunn's recent Canonical Cornerstones: Foundational Books of a Sherlockian Library. The 1990s saw a wonderfully ambitious series called The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes, where editors Christopher and Barbara Roden published volumes of essays where each book collected works on a single Sherlock Holmes story. (I'm a bit amazed no one has picked up that idea in the 2020s yet.)

But those are just the essays. Pastiches were held at the starting gate by certain Doyle offspring, with The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes being a rare exception to slip through the gate, collecting various authors works. Ah, but if those Doyle brothers could now see MX Publishing's The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, starting in 2015 and now up to at least 42 volumes -- well, that's a reaction I would love to see. Anthologies are now flowing steadily from various publishing outlets.

Our current wave of new Sherlock Holmes books is a bit overwhelming with all the available routes for publishing a book, including those that cost no overhead other than your own ability to format a file, and it shows no signs of stopping -- this wave has become a flood that will leave us in a virtual Waterworld of books on Sherlock Holmes. I always just shake my head at the enthused bibliophile claim that you can never have too many books -- tell that to the person who eventually has to clean out your house fifty years later. The only virtue of massive book collections is that their weight isn't the total back-breaker of massive vinyl record collections.

For both book buyers and anthology editors, selectivity has become a very necessary skill. Neither can have it all and would be mad to try. And time will sort things out somehow. As a movie fan, I'm always amazed at the amazing amount of movies out there that none of us have ever heard of, even though they came out in theaters nationwide at one point. Even movies we've seen and then forgotten existed. Yet some persist through time, either as classics or cult favorites. What will the classic collections be, fifty years hence? What will the cult favorites be?

Some of our younger friends might be influencing those choices as they wax poetically about the virtues of their favorites decades from now. If you're putting out a collection, you might want to consider sending them a free copy. 

The Case for a Modern Adaptation

 Okay, it's blasphemy time.

Today saw the release of the second part of Sherlock & Co.'s podcast adaptation of "The Gloria Scott," and I'll say it plain: This new "Gloria Scott" is better than the original. Here and now, in 2024 where we all live, Joel Emery has written a better version of the tale than Conan Doyle. 

And I will argue that point with anyone who thinks straight word-for-word adaptations of tales written for the denizens of the 1800s is what we all need now.

Yes, Doyle does get credit for the frame Emery hung his version upon, and the original is worth thinking about. But Joel Emery plainly did spend some time thinking about Doyle's "Gloria Scott," and what it would mean for the people in that story to be in the situation they're in. He took that, put it into modern words and a modern frame to best given a modern listener a feeling for what those events would bring forth in a person.

In the original tale, we are told how Victor Trevor was heart-broken and left England after the case was solved, but it's a postscript we don't feel. Sherlock Holmes is telling a story long after it happened, and it doesn't hit nearly as hard. Bringing "The Gloria Scott" not only to the modern day, but letting us listen to Holmes and Watson having to deal with the Trevor family in person puts us in touch with the drama in a way the original can't. Where the original is Watson sitting cozily in Baker Street while Holmes tells him a tale of his college vacation, we now get to listen in as the events unfold.

We now get a chance to really hate Hunter (the renamed Hudson) and feel badly for Trevor up close and personal before the twist hits and we find why James Armitage became a new man and never told his son about his past life. And this time, up close and personal, you can almost start to sympathize with the tale's Hudson when the truth comes out.

I don't think I was ever affected by the original "Gloria Scott" as much as I was by Joel Emery's modern adaptation. And while a Sherlock Holmes fan is always going to have a soft spot for Holmes's original detective origin story, having listened to why people think "Veiled Lodger" is a bad story this past weekend, I suddenly realized just how much "Gloria Scott" and "Veiled Lodger" are alike: More about somebody telling a story from the past than an actual investigation. Sure, there's that code bit, but how much investigation is Holmes looking at a piece of paper and in the next paragraph, going "Oh, it's really this." The code is just the woman in the mask to dress up the tale of a tale being told.

It's impossible for any human being to experience both Conan Doyle's "Gloria Scott" and Joel Emery's version for their first "Gloria Scott" to compare reactions. And you're probably going to find either one more interesting once if you enjoyed whichever one you got to first, unless a particular detail triggers your displeasure. A fan of the podcast might find Victorian prose a bit dull. A fan of the original story might get irritated listening to John and Marianna shopping. But if you're somewhere in the middle, and can enjoy both . . . well, go, you!

But it's 2024 and we are citizens of the twenty-first century, getting further and further away from that audience that the "The Gloria Scott" was written for with each passing year. An update that makes a story of our favorite detective resonate even harder with us right here and right now is something special.

So this week, I will be celebrating that something special. You have to take such moments when you find them.

From the Shaw 100 down to the Eckrich and Nunn 17

 After their interview about Canonical Cornerstones: Foundational Books of a Sherlockian Library on the Watsonian Weekly last week, the book's editors, Peter Eckrich and Rob Nunn sold me on immediately ordering a copy from Wessex Press. It was a good interview, and the duo spoke highly of their notable list of writers. When the book arrived this morning, I was immediately struck by the slimness of its one hundred and twenty-five pages, even though that makes perfect sense for a book of seventeen essays and an introduction or two. But it set me to thinking . . .

Jim Hawkins is quick to remind us of John Bennett Shaw's influence on our hobby of late, and I was just reading some of Jim's notes on Facebook this morning, which brought the Shaw One Hundred to mind. Since the final version of Shaw's list, others have made some attempt at such a foundational list for a Sherlockian collector, but nothing gained the traction of Peter and Rob's new book, and it's succinct list of seventeen. And from one hundred down to seventeen? That's some Marie Kondo style housecleaning!

Shaw's list, as many of us know all too well, contained some rarities, some true collectables. Very hard to find and afford, all told. The Eckrich and Nunn list, while not cheap to buy all at once, is easily acquirable. Doing a quick online shopping trip, I found I could buy almost all of it for $255.14, not including The Baker Street Journal, which is either a whole collectable hard-copy quest, or a less challenging but still problematic search if you go digital with what's available. (There was also a particular item on the list that I made a substitution for that the author of the essay on might not consider perfect, so I won't call it out.) All told the most expensive item of the Eckrich and Nunn seventeen is the Les Klinger Annotated, which is in that weird niche of being newish and not yet reprinted.

Shaw's list was that great collector's opinion at each moment he came up with it. The Eckrich and Nunn list was concocted in a more democractic manner, surveying, asking, and asking again. And, with John Bennett Shaw being John Bennet Shaw, Sherlockians of a certain generation were not wont to argue with his choices. The Canonical Cornerstones, like any democratically elected group, is up for debate -- there is one item on the list that I actively hate. But Peter and Rob state in their introduction that their hope is that the book leads to discussion of what Sherlockian books are key for the enthusiast looking for something to add to their collection . . . and I'm sure that will come.

To look at the landscape of Sherlockian works out there, past, present, and still coming, as they never stop coming and think that even a hundred books form a perfect core collection is a bit mind-boggling. And Canonical Cornerstones: Foundational Books of a Sherlockian Library was published for and marketed to a particular, more traditional sort of Sherlockian. We do have our prejudices as a hobby culture and we do like to stay inside the box a little bit -- if you look across your own shelves, you might discover a favorite or two from folks you never hear of in our normal circles.

But we do like a good shopping list, a goal, a mile marker in our reading travels. This new, more travel-sized list, with sales pitches from those well qualified to give them, makes a much easier start than what we had before.

Sherlockian Ghosts of Past Selves

When you go to the movies, sometimes it makes you think about the topics involved for a while after the movie is done, and I see a few movies. And being an ardent Sherlock Holmes fan, I often put Sherlockian twists on those thoughts. Thursday, for example, I saw The Beekeeper, about a secret organization of uber-vigilante beekeepers and thought about Sherlock Holmes having something to do with its origins. Then on Saturday, being a bright and sunny day despite the cold, I ventured out to see the latest incarnation of Mean Girls, a musical tale of social orders and how we treat ourselves and others. Which I then cast around in a Sherlockian way as the evening went on.

Except I wasn't thinking about Holmes, Watson, and their friends. I was thinking about the Sherlockian life. One, hopefully, cannot find too strict a parallel between Mean Girls and Sherlockian life. I mean, the head of the Baker Street Irregulars isn't exactly Regina George, the queen bee of North Shore High School . . . unless you count the part about who gets to eat at what table. But the trials and tribulations of the characters in that movie do get you to reflect a bit on your own past, social flubs, toes you might have stepped on, people you actually hurt. If you're at all self-aware, that list gets longer with time, and the memories are helpful aids in not doing THAT again.

So, I put a little post on Facebook on how sometimes all that comes back to me, more unforgettable than Watson's original name (which I forgot last week) or that guy who did that one thing . . . you know! That one guy! Anyway, it seems that our memories tie to our feelings and thus we get the oddest little moments stuck in our head. For example . . .

The year was 1984. The place was Dubuque, Iowa. Someone introduced me to a Sherlockian of note from the east coast. The name was familiar, but I couldn't place it, right on the tip of my brain. I fumbled around trying to remember where I'd heard the name until the person I was being introduced to politely made and excuse and move on. I never really had the chance to talk to that person after that, and they eventually passed away, and I was just left with this really awkward memory.

A decade later, somewhere in rural Minnesota visiting the home of a lesser-known but incredible collector of things that went Sherlockian and beyond, I got over-enthused and cried out "[Insert name here] is God!" I mean, what does that even mean, but it sure horrifies proper church folk. And it has come out of my mouth on a later occasion or two as well. I mean, I don't think anyone I've ever met is actually George Burns (old movie reference, kids) God on Earth, but when you really get excited you can say some weird shit. And I do.

Have you ever completely pulled a website off the web because you didn't like the hosting service, when you had people who had regularly contributed to the thing? Probably not. Yeahhhh . . . there's little mistakes you have to live with, and then there's big ones like that. A scion falls apart. A friend gets their bridge burnt in the pain of a moment. And suddenly you find yourself treating a blog post like it's your confession booth and the internet is your priest . . . say ten "Hail Marys" and don't post it.Unfortunately, I'm not Catholic.

But, what I am is a Sherlockian. And this little cult of ours is such a gloriously forgiving place to be a social klutz, a cranky ol' grump, or even a misanthropic hermit.  And while a life may hold many memories of moments we aren't exactly proud of, this hobby also can give plenty of moments of hearty camaraderie, moist-eyed affection, and just happy memories to counterbalance all that. It isn't perfect, and none of us are certainly perfect, but a fandom, a hobby, a culture of friendship needs a little forgiveness and the opportunity to forgive on occasion, especially if we can find it in our hearts to forgive ourselves.

Because that's the person you have to look at it the mirror every day, until Dracula converts you or something. (Which starts to look like a decent option as the aging process moves along. Sorry in advance, future victims.) (Damn, didn't I say I was socially awkward! Almost had this thing wrapped up with a nice bow and started talking about draining people's blood for eternal youth. Apologies to everyone with blood in their veins out there. Warm, life-filled bl . .. STOP IT!)

Okay. Time to hit "Publish." Don't think I'll put this one's link on the socials, though. This one's for those of you that care enough just to read past the previous entry that had a link. Thanks for sticking with it!

The self-discipline of the Sherlock & Co. Baker Street Irregular

Two things I really get along with came together this morning. The podcast Sherlock & Co. now has a Patreon, and a Patreon that offers some really sweet options. TOO sweet, actually.

My now-weekly excitement for the latest episode -- "Red-Headed League" this week!!!! -- has become . . . well, almost troubling with the embarassment of riches. I was enjoying the once a week thing, and doing our little podcast discussions on The Watsonian Weekly every two or three weeks when a two or three part story wrapped up. But now?

For six bucks a month, at their "Baker Street Irregulars" tier, you get all three parts of "Red-Headed League" the minute the first one drops. As a big fan of the podcast who does Patron and is not $30 a month rich, I immediately went for that middle-tier without hesitating. It's a great podcast, and I always think good art needs encouragement. But, having done that, I was immediately confronted with what previously was three weeks worth of Sherlock & Co. right there and available, transcripts and all.

Yes, I know it's unbecoming to whine about having it too good. Fitting yet another subscription into the budget when everything is now a monthly subscription isn't easy. But now I have to ration these beauties and have some self-control. On the good side, these are adaptations of the good old Sherlock Holmes Canon, so it's not like the endings of the mysteries are going to be spoiled if I don't listen immediately. But there is a lot going on with these that still could be. Moriarty sneaking in before "Final Problem." Marianna finally taking on a Mary Morstan place in John's life. All the little add-ons any adaptation brings along with it.

Sherlock & Co. has been a continual treat since its start, and offering its fans some really great Patreon benefits is a move that folks were asking for -- podcast listeners are probably more used to Patreons than anyone else. And here we are. This may not be a BBC Sherlock level wave of Sherlock Holmes fans entering the traditional spaces . . . yet. But I have a strong feeling about the show, and the podcast adding a solid Patreon to Watson's interactions with listeners is some next level stuff. 

Going to be fun to see how this goes.

Sherlock vs. Sherlock: The Barbenheimer Metric

 It's January, that time of year that brings back memories of theatrical Sherlock Holmes movies releases for me. One that did well with the public, one that did not so well with the public. But both had an impact, and both lead actors, our Sherlocks, have had ongoing success as actors on the big screen.

Rarely do we see two of our screen Sherlocks, however, go head-to-head in other roles in movies released on the same weekend. And rarely do we see two screen Sherlocks in movies of comparable quality released on the same weekend. Yet in the summer of 2023, we did.

One saw a worldwide box office success of $1,441,528,220 dollars. The other $805,600,000. Our two Sherlock actors played a part in the biggest movie phenomenon of the whole year, and both were notable in their performance and, while not starring, playing key roles.

Those two actors: Robert Downey Jr., playing Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, and Will Ferrell, playing "Mattel CEO" in Barbie.

Yes, Robert Downey Jr. from 2009's Sherlock Holmes and Will Ferrell from 2018's Holmes and Watson. Both January movies that shall remain in my memory as ground-breaking Sherlockian films. Each has its haters among our ranks, but each brought something special and brought it to the big screen in the January's that followed their release.

And I don't want to be an internet troll here, except maybe to one friend in particular, but I'd like to point out that on the now famous Barbenheimer weekend, when two Sherlocks competed on screens everywhere, Will Ferrell's movie did better.

That is all. Happy January!

Thoughts from the Saturday morning after . . .

 One of the things the greater share of humanity doesn't do well has always been allowing for two opposing thoughts to co-exist. "You're either for or ag'in it!" the crusty old-timer might demand, in that fictional headspace where archetypes live. But sometimes they do.

Earlier in the week, I did my semi-annual gripe about the BSI investiture system. "Oh, please, suh, may my friend have a shilling?" and all that. The non-transparent "benevolent dictatorship" might be pleasant mystery on one level, but it allows for entrenched bias on others. Yet, at the same time, I'm always very happy to see my friends get invitations and investitures. Why?

The answer is simple. The system may not make me happy, but everyone who passes through the societal gauntlet is happy at finishing the race, and I am happy that they're happy. Maybe sometimes even too happy, if I read a particular name wrong.

I don't participate in the nomination system, as one of the few voices to publicly criticize the BSI shilling business, the exclusive nature of the dinner, etc., I've never been a favorite of the ruling class, and as such, don't want to hurt anyone's chances by the powers that be seeing my name at the bottom of a letter of recommendation. I mean, you compare something to a Nazi eugenics program once or twice, you might get a reputation. It is what it is.

But Sherlockiana as a whole is a wonderfully welcoming world, and Zoom has opened it up even more. You no longer have to go to a particular Sherlockian's city or they come to yours to make a friend. We all do better in person, 'tis true, but the new connectivity is opening doors and offering opportunities like we never saw before the great pandemic. Our Sherlockian friends connect us to other Sherlockian friends and we can now meet more folks over the course of a year than ever before, across oceans and national borders that some of us might never cross. And when we do get to finally meet our new Zoom friends in person, what a grand thing that is. Having a lot of Sherlockians you hold dear is easier than ever, especially if you've been at this a while.

And when it's their special day, whatever the reason, you delight in their moment. Systems can be flawed, but our friends are still our friends. Both of those things can exist at the same time.

So congratulations to all who made the shilling list in New York for 2024 -- Rudy, Bob, Liese, Derrick, Fabienne, Danna, Jessica, Chuck, Daniel, Olivia, Maxine, Tom, and George. I'm quite pleased you get to be in the club that I will continue to hope figures our a way to open its doors to everyone one day.

We haven't eliminated the impossible in that hope, and as improbable as it remains, it's my truth.

The Partie Carré Experiment

 There was a lot of fun to be had at the Dangling Prussian virtual pub night on Zoom tonight, our annual fill-in for those of us who don't make it to New York for the birthday festivities. Some wonderful Sherlockians showed up, many of the usual suspects and some very happy surprises. Good conversation, toasts, our third puppet Sherlockian premiere, the induction of new members into the Montague Street Incorrigibles, and the very first time for a fun experiment in Sherlockian play.

And it worked.

With our core team of players being Mary O'Reilly as Sherlock Holmes, Edith Pounden as Dr. Watson, Kristen Mertz as Inspector Gregson, and Heather Hinson as Inspector Lestrade, we all saw a new client, the young blonde Lucy Slaney and her nanny Lanny come rushing up the seventeen steps and into the sitting room at 221B to begin the case that our Watson would come to call "The Adventure of the Scented Invalid." 

As I've probably explained elsewhere, with Zoom as our medium all the other attendees got to be parts of Sherlock's brain and feed our Sherlock information as they wandered from Baker Steet to the Surrey countryside in a sort-of "Dungeons & Dragons" style that require no dice and orc-fighting. We decided to call it "Skunks and Scalawags" at some point as the mystery involved a skunk brought over from America. Characters abound, from Brixton Bob, the simple carriage driver who liked his beer, to a certain dancer who held a grudge against inspector Lestrade, to a young boy in a Watson mask who was happy to meet the real Sherlock Holmes. The murder room was thoroughly searched, time was spent in a local pub (too much, according to Brixton Bob, and in the end, Inspector Gregson solved the case?

What the heck?

If you've ever played Dungeons & Dragons as it should be played, you know that it's a story not just being told by the dungeon master, but by the players as well, with the "yes, and . . ." quality of improv. Our Lestrade came up with a clue that was not at all in the script. A wandering naturalist, a singing milkmaid, and "maid number two" showed up out of the blue to add to the tale from the audience. Instead of dice-roll fighting, the key to getting past certain barriers in this game were things like singing or agreeing to a witness's unreasonable demands.

It took an hour and a half for "The Adventure of the Scented Invalid" to play our and be successfully solved, which is the right length for a movie. As Watson once wrote "It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy," but I think wound up with more of the former.

In any case, it was fun and we're definitely doing it again, and definitely before next January. The same game could play out with different people in different ways. And the best thing: It was an experiment in Sherlockian fun that worked. In the early 2000s when we tried a role-playing society out called The Dark Lantern League, I think this is the part we were missing -- it just took Zoom to make it possible.

Thanks to all the folks both mentioned above and unmentioned who were there helping us wander the halls of Morfield Manor and save an innocent skunk. We can never say it enough: Sherlockians are just the best people!

The Bovestrians of Ragged Shaw 2024

 Being a Sherlockian will inevitably take one to unexpected places in one's life.

This past Saturday, I found myself finally attending a meeting of a Sherlock Holmes society where I was the only human present, a meeting of the Bovestrians of Ragged Shaw. The Bovestrains, named for that moment in "The Adventure of the Priory School" where Holmes concludes, "... it is a remarkable cow which walks, canters, and gallops," hinting at the possibility that someone is out there riding cows instead of horses. Thus "bovestrian" instead of "equestrian."

The group started with some digital trading cards put together by my friend Mary O'Reilly back in September of 2021, after the idea of a society with that name came up at our local library Holmes group meeting. 

     

Other cards followed that fall . . .

And, eventually, in January of 2022, a meeting of the Bovestrians . . .

Baskerville the hound, Lucinda the cobra, Teddy the Mongoos, Car and Buncle the geese, and Toby the tracker dog all showed up for the first story discussion, showed at the first Dangling Prussian pub night. (Oh, wait, Silver Blaze was there, too! Missed her photo. Sorry, S.B.!)

To see how the first and second meetings of the Bovestrians went, here are a couple of links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZK8TmHH1ig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bNPwFlluCE&t=61s

This year, we'll get to look in on the Bovestrians one more time, which might be the last for reasons that will become apparent when we get to see it on Friday night at the Dangling Prussian virtual pub night. It's also the first meeting that I got to attend, even though the Bovestrians seem to think I founded their group, even though I did none of the amazing work that went into gathering what has to be the first non-human Sherlockian society on planet Earth. (Credit Mary O'Reilly and her Doctor Doolittle-like skills there.) 

Like I said at the start, stick with Sherlock Holmes long enough, and he'll take you to some very unusual places.