Okay, I'll admit it. I had to take a nap.
Stayed up too late, got up too early, not really a napper, but sometimes, ya just gotta recharge. As a result I missed George Skornickel's "Every Poster Tells a Story." Ed Petit from the video podcast Sherlock Monthly had started his presentation when I rolled downstairs again, even though I'd set an alarm for myself.
Ed spoke about how his job at the Rosenbach collection in Philadelphia evolved, under the title "Sherlock Monthly: Smoking, Drinking, and Talking My Way Through the Canon." Having found Ed outside the hotel front door with a few others smoking cigars last night, the love of smoking he speaks of during his talk is already well evidenced this weekend. Smoking a pipe and drinking during his podcasts has become a habit, and he's made sure he had a drink in hand for his talk. Mary Alcaro, his show's mixologist, was on the program but unable to attend, and, if I remember right, was the designer of "the Great Mogul" that's being served at the bar this weekend. Her Sherlock Holmes story based recipes get a little bit of celebration.
Cocktail hour, quite appropriately, followed. Folks change clothes, some dressed up, some dressed down, no real pattern. Many Great Moguls were ordered and visible amongst the crowd in the bar. And then we all headed in for the dinner banquet. Toasts (all of a reasonable length and not whole presentations looking for a timeslot, as sometimes happens) were proposed and cheered, the most memorable of which was to the orangutan from "Speckled Band," a character whom I don't remember getting such attention in decades of Sherlockian presentations and toasting, with a notable orangutan impression supporting the toast from the crowd. Dinner was a buffet with all the meats (and salmon) which was very nice. I was lucky enough to sit at the speaker's table which got to go first. Both the cost and added benefit, however, was sitting at a table of very smart and learned folks where you occasionally think, "Man, I'm the dumbest person at this table!" (which is definitely good at keeping the old ego in check).
The after-dinner speaker, and reason for our choice place in the buffet line was the never-boring Erika Dowell, speaking up "The BSI Archive: From Every Point of View." The archive, held at Indiana University's Lilly Library and its storage facilities, is a key resource for anyone studying the history of Sherlock Holmes fan culture in the United States, not just the Baker Street Irregulars, and Erika gave us a sense of the unexpected connections that can be made delving into the documents, photos, manuscripts, letters, etc. It was a great talk for a nice after dinner treat, and Kyndall ended the evening program with a few remarks before the crowd headed their different directions.
At the previous hotel, the little bar would have karaoke until the DJ got sick of us, and there was a valiant attempt by the organizers to have some late-evening karaoke that just didn't catch on for a few different reasons, so we didn't even get Ira doing "Baker Street," or even an attempt at the theme from Young Sherlock, which seems like an excellent karaoke choice. (221B Con is much more karaoke friendly, so we still have that to look forward to.)
A few of us played Mystery Fluxx while the first episode of BBC Sherlock played on the big screens, which was a nice post-event wind-down. By the end of the episode, we were just watching the show, which was made a nice circle back to the initial talk of the morning.
After that, we talked about the conference in general, and how much the new hotel improved things. The issues that did come up were mere fine tuning compared to the issues of the previous hotel, and overall it was deemed a successful weekend. Dayton will surely continue as a destination for Sherlockian spring doings.
With that, I will apologize for any errors, or photos that might not portray the true handsomeness of our day's speakers of either gender and call it a weekend. Safe travels to all, wherever you roam this Sunday.
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