This was a test . . .

Now that the all the hoo-hah may be over, I still keep waiting for the "all clear" to sound and the announcement that "this was a test of the Emergency Sherlock Verification System."  I'd find real comfort in that.

Not because I'm living in a fifties-era mindset where I love such official government announcements, mind you. I'd just feel really good in knowing that we didn't just have Sherlockiana's best and brightest all running to answer the alarm and slide down the firehouse pole for something as purely silly as a Scottish event pamphlet being passed off as original Sherlock.

Modern journalism has become so shoddy that news items are selected for headline value, judged by what their potential for sensationalism is without any real investigation, and quickly thrown at the public in hopes of getting the much-desired "viral" effect. And that's what we saw in the case of "Scottish amateur historian discovers long-lost Sherlock Holmes story."

So a retired guy (and retired guys are mostly amateur historians, if you hadn't noticed) found a pamphlet with Conan Doyle's name somewhere in it, and Sherlock Holmes's name somewhere in it. He hopefully jumped to a "wishful thinking" conclusion. What passes for news media these days excitedly jumped at the chance to publish more photos of Benedict Cumberbatch, and ran his wishful thinking, along with the "story."

And before all the analysis by experts and commentary by name Sherlockians, thousands of us just took one look at the thing and went, "Yeah, right, this is crap." 

But we live in an era where the public is fed the "news" it wants and not the news it needs. In the days that followed, we saw the story evolve through sort of a "Wikipedia" model. The media passed on what it was told and then people who actually knew something made their own changes to the story and the media passed along that as well. No experts were sought when the original discovery was made, as people would love to see a new Sherlock Holmes story by Conan Doyle, so they were given one . . . even if that wasn't what it truly was at all.

While it was nice to see everything the Sherlockian community would bring to the table were a new Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story to actually be discovered, it was also a bit disheartening to see all that energy wasted on such a silly little fraud. So the best way I can frame it all to feel a little better about it is to think of it as a test, and only a test, of our Emergency Sherlock Verification System.

Because this certainly won't be the last time it gets used, I'll wager.

Behind the times.

Well, out of sheer boredom at the "NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY!" parade and some interest caused by Graham Moore's recent blog about how to write good smart people, I ventured out to the local Barnes & Noble on Saturday in search of a real book. I had never gotten to Moore's The Sherlockian, and seemed to remember them having it in stock.

Of course, I hadn't heard about Graham Moore's Oscar nomination for The Imitation Game, or even associated the novelist Moore with the guy who wrote that movie. And that meant, even if it hadn't sold out previously, The Sherlockian had surely gotten some small Oscar bump and was sold out. Disappointed, but willing to pick up a substitute, I soldiered on through the mystery section.

Eventually I came to a series of three books that I didn't recall seeing before, and the title The Baker Street Brothers caught my eye. It took a while for me to figure out which book was the start of the series -- The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson -- and quickly realized why the title hadn't tripped any triggers. Between Sherlock Holmes Letters, edited by Richard Lancelyn Green, and Letters to Sherlock Holmes, by that same editor, actually containing letters sent to the real 221 Baker Street, it seemed like a "been there, done that" on the title alone.

So this week I'm hunkering down with a head cold and reading a five-year-old book. So far so good.

A Christ-centered education.

I knew I had gone too far down the Sherlockian rabbit hole the day I drove past a church, saw the phrase "Christ-centered education," and immediately thought of Jay Finley Christ. I was reminded of that moment this morning as I read Chris Redmond's guest blog on "I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere."

The Jay Finley Christ abbreviations for the sixty cases of Sherlock Holmes have been a part of our world for a very long time. Even though a few contrary Sherlockians, including an editor of The Baker Street Journal, have come out against them, the four-letter abbreviations are our shorthand, our way of communicating with our fellow Sherlockians without wasting those minute bits of time needed to write the full titles of things like "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton." "CHAS" is so much simpler.

If one added up all the seconds that every Sherlockian writer or researcher saved with Christ's abbreviations over the decades since they were introduced, I'm sure the mass of time saved for other Sherlockian work would be worth considering. And not just the writing, but the reading as well.

Critics fuss about the abbreviations not being friendly to the newcomer, probably because they experienced such issues in their own early days. But, really, how hard are they to pick up on? If you know the story titles with the familiarity of anyone who has truly crossed the threshold of Sherlockiana, they're very easy to recognize. If you don't know "THOR" refers to "The Problem of Thor Bridge," you've obviously never heard of the story, and if you haven't heard of the story, then what the hell are you doing reading Sherlockian scholarship? You should finish reading Watson's original sixty stories.

Jay Finley Christ's abbreviations are, to Sherlockians, what Latin medical terms are to the medical community, what any insider language is to its field of endeavor. One can complain that they aren't open and easy for the uninitiated, but they were never meant for the uninitiated. Christ wrote them for those who love Sherlock Holmes and know the titles of the sixty stories, at least well enough to access a title with a four letter key word. I really doubt we've lost any potential Sherlockians because they ran into the Christ shorthand and gave up on Sherlock out of sheer frustration. If they did, well, I'm guessing they just weren't into Sherlock Holmes that much to begin with.

I mean, how much can you love a guy who spent a whole story deciphering what dancing men symbols meant if you can't handle four-letter abbreviations?

Eureka!

I found a new, original Sherlock Holmes story by Conan Doyle on the internet today.

Want to see it?

Here it is.

The Craxton Goppage

By Arthur Conan Doyle

Winslow Purster, the duck of a thousand faces, came home one evening to find that his children had rifled the linen pantry. This defeated the entire purpose of his life savings of Bermondsey cheeses, and Purster was beside himself with dismay at the small black terrier whom his neighbours had posted at their gate, even before the linen business.

"Let us divest ourselves of these rags!" exclaimed Mrs. Purster as the sight of her lawful husband's return. The marmalade had run out earlier in the day. 

The servant girl suggested that they call Sherlock Holmes.

The End

How Conan Doyle managed to get it on the internet is not readily apparent, but the fact that he lived in a country that now has internet service should be telling. Doyle was a forward-thinking individual and in touch with many whose special focus was on communicating in ways previously unproven. The most important facts, of course, are twofold: 1.) His name is on it. 2.) It also contains the name of Sherlock Holmes. 

The fact that it is neither entertaining nor worth anyone's while other than as a novelty for speculation should not hinder our embracing of this fragment. I mean, really, it's been a slow week.

Such a slow week.

Sigh.

E3:15. Well, it's not chartered accountancy.

Poor Andrew Paek. How many times must he die over and over in Elementary's "previously on" segment? Eventually he may get more air-time in his death on the show than he did with his life.

His purpose in dying on this week's Elementary isn't clear at first, perhaps to give some vague reason to Joan Watson moving back into the brownstone with Mr. Elementary, who now is practicing hitting his dummy with two sticks instead of one, which makes one wonder if that particular martial art is now called "doublestick."

In between the domestic arrangements of Joan Watson and Mr. Elementary this week, we follow the adventures of a sweet young lady whose hobby is shooting poor people with her silencer-equipped pistol and leaving envelopes of money on their bodies. She has her own reasons, of course, and I suppose we're waiting for Mr. Elementary (or Joan, as one never knows) to tell us what those reasons are.

I miss Kitty Winter.

IMDB says Kitty's portrayer, Olivia Lovibond, will be in movies entitled Man Up and Gozo. I hope they're worth seeing, as it would be good to see Kitty's face again. Of course, I've got Guardians of the Galaxy on DVD. That might be a pleasant watch.

Oh, yes, this week's Elementary. The plot seems to be revolving around insurance actuarial formulae. And that's always a crowd-pleaser, right?

I'm going to sleep well tonight. This is the sleepy Elementary I remember, not that ridiculously irritating lesson in how not to run a TV show that came along last week.

Waiting for Mr. Elementary and Joan drag themselves to finding out what we already know on this episode is a slow and painful ordeal. At least the duo break it up with a discussion of their living arrangements . . . a relationship that's probably as dull as . . . DING! DING! DING! Finally, a mention of the late Andrew, the reason for revisiting his death one more time in the opening.

"Is there something so wrong in me feeling that this is home?" Joan asks Mr. Elementary just before they decide to go back to the insurance mystery.

Yes, Joan. Yes, there is. You could have a life, helping people with your medical skills, making friends, doing so many things besides fixating on this poor excuse for a consulting detective whom you don't seem to be in love with, yet are drawn to as obsessively as a Twilight vampire's girlfriend. Flee, Joan, flee like Kitty Winter did!

Hmm. Next Thursday is the "Victoria's Secret Swim Special" in this timeslot. Perhaps this is Elementary's attempt to keep up with Sherlock's upcoming Victorian era Christmas special -- Queen Victoria's lingerie chain having a special all its own.

Oh, wait! The killer's sister is solving the murder ahead of Mr. Elementary and Joan. Those two ladies could have fought it out and saved us a trip to that dreary NYPD interrogation room and the extensive and over-complicated explanation of the killer's motive.

Come on, letter from Jamie Moriarty!

Dear Joan,
         I see you have moved back in with the only man whose brain is my equal, and that you're both spending more time in that basement that I didn't know existed at his house. You seem to have the intention of making it your play-detective office, in the manner of those teenagers who move into their parents basement and pretend it's an apartment. 
        Don't you wish you could hear my voice reading you a letter right now, to tease your much-abused readers of that blog/book/manuscript-on-a-destroyed-computer that you never seem to spend any time writing? 
        Enjoy your basement.
              Happily in a prison far from New York City,
                   Jamie Moriarty, a.k.a. Irene Adler, a.k.a. "Cressida be making bank, bee-yotch!"

Yes, tonight's Elementary did wind up in the basement. No other comment needed.

A letter to Mr. Sherlock Holmes

A few days a  Sherlockian request came from Ted Cowell on Facebook . . . which is odd in itself, as I have rare few Sherlockians on my Facebook roster, seeking to keep some mystery in life. Ted's request was both simple and, at the same time, a bit of a challenge. For what he wanted was this:

A handwritten letter to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, as might have been transfixed to the great detective's mantelpiece with a jack-knife.

Easy enough sounding, isn't it? Handwriting is not yet such a lost art that we can't all do it, and sending that letter off in another envelope to Ted via snail mail is still workable enough to most of us.

And yet, consider it for a moment. A piece of unanswered correspondence that seemed worthy of sticking to the mantel for future consideration by Sherlock Holmes.

What date would the letter have? What sort of paper would be used by the writer you had chosen to have sent such a letter? Known Canonical character or new creation? Indeed, one could spend a long, lazy day just pondering such trivial matters and finding just the right, and most appropriate tale for one's letter to tell.

Unfortunately, my time was very short this week, so the letter I came up with was the mystery at the other end of a mystery . . . which short-circuited many of the detail questions I had, just by the very nature of the person involved. What if their situation had them unsure as to the actual date? What if some detail of their stationery added to that puzzle upon close examination? And what if the situation was such that Sherlock Holmes would not be able to take immediate action, due to some factor?

I've always been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes artifact, and it was great fun to try to create one, even if time might not have allowed me to put as much thought into it as I would have liked. And mantelpiece letters are a simple and fun thing that might even make a good activity for a Holmes society club night, in the right company.

My contribution to Ted's letter pile goes out tomorrow, but that is one idea I'll have to file away for use at another time as well.

When it comes time to move the Sherlock on . . . .

Every now and then a comment gets promoted to the main blog, and the latest comes from Ian Schoenherr, who writes:

"I wonder how - 2 1/2 years after posting this - this situation panned out. I'm in a similar state: years ago I boxed up all the tacky, vaguely SH-related tchotchkes, ugly reprints, awful pastiches, multiple duplicates, clippings, etc., but I can't bring myself to cart it all to the Salvation Army, six blocks away. I still hold out hope that I'll find somebody who really - passionately - wants that Snoopy-wearing-a-deerstalker eraser, the Sherlock Hemlock finger-puppet, the grubby paperback novelization of 'Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother'... Help me." 

The blog post he was commenting on came in autumn 2012, as I was trying to figure out how to start weeding out my "everything Sherlock Holmes" collection, built up over three decades. Little did I know, at that moment, things were going to get a whole lot worse in a very short time.

My longtime friend and neighbor, Bob Burr, who had gathered a collection almost identical to mine in the same period I had, passed on and left me his entire collection as well. In a few short months, my collection, quite literally, doubled.

As Ian writes, one hates to cart such joyfully-gathered tributes to our beloved Sherlock Holmes to the Salvation Army, where the chances of them getting picked up with the love you know is out there. But it's just silly to hang on to the stuff. And nobody is getting rich selling Sherlock stuff from the 1970s and 80s, even if you want to go to the trouble of dealing with eBay. So that spring I came up with two different solutions.

In scenario one, Mohammed came to the mountain. I offered a Sherlockian friend who lived a few hours away a massive amount of Sherlockiana and Doyleana for his scion's annual auction, as well as for his own colection. In return, he offered to drive up and pick it up. If you've got anything worth a drive in your clean-up pile, this solution has its merits.

In scenario two, the mountain goes to Mohammed. I loaded up my own car with a massive amount of pastiches, plushies, and sundry items and took it to the first 221B Con in Atlanta, where I gave it for dispersal to the con organizers, panel discussion folk for giveaways, and event-holders for contest prizes.

A huge amount of Sherlockiana left my house in 2013, and I am astounded at the incredible amount that is still here. Some day when I become an ascetic practitioner of Zen Sherlockianism, I will disperse the lion's share of that as well, probably picking some other event where younger Sherlockians gather, like 221B Con, to spread things around. Sure, it takes a little effort to cart all that stuff somewhere, but you can have a lot of fun doing it.

Even before 2013, I slimmed down my duplicates, etc., but getting a dealer's table at a weekend symposium or two and running a Sherlockian dollar store. Due to the location, you know the stuff will find a good home, and people will pay a buck for about anything.The Sherlockian dollar store wasn't about making money (though it's funny how the dollars add up), but it makes the items a little more meaningful to people than if you just put a sign out that said "FREE STUFF" (in which case certain sorts would grab everything their arms can carry, whether they want it or not). You don't have to spend time pricing or tagging items, just pile up all that stuff you'd be willing to let go for a dollar. And most of us have a bit of that.

So those are all my schemes, to date, for getting rid of large amounts of Sherlockiana that you just couldn't help but collect. Let me know if you have any others, because, you know, there's always going to be another time to unload . . . .