Sherlock for President 2015 . . . seriously?

Way back in the year 2000, I came up with a fun idea for a Sherlockian symposium presentation: Sherlock Holmes for President. His qualifications, his stump speech, posters, signs, hats, shills in the crowd . . . the whole bit.

Back then, it was, as with so many Sherlockian ventures, a light-hearted lark, a bit of silliness just for fun to distract or enhance the usual campaign slog. The idea that a person most think of as a fictional character, a figure who wouldn't fit into the traditional politician role, was, at that time, a thing of sheer fantasy, a thing just for fun. And, as always, the election went forward and we voted in someone who was not as intelligent or observant as Sherlock Holmes.

Every few years when the election cycle begins again, I think of our friend Sherlock and that crazy idea. And most years, it just seems like the silly sort of party game it was.

And then we came to this election cycle . . . .

A reality TV show character catapulted to front-running presidential candidate on a springboard of Neilsen ratings, rather than the usual political career resume.

And suddenly, I find myself going, "What's the difference between Donald Trump and Sherlock Holmes?"

Sure, one can make personal appearances. But does it really matter if one can only appear on TV with an actor standing in for him? He can still pull ratings.

Writers come up with speeches for all political candidates. Sherlock has writers galore. Image is what gains the most votes for every candidate. Sherlock has a worldwide image for problem-solving, justice, and making the world a better place. And did any candidate ever come so well pre-stocked with a running mate?

There's just one truly problematic thing about Sherlock Holmes running for president of the United States of America. He can't exactly move into the White House and do the job.

That's the real problem with fictional characters. We can get excited about them. We can rally behind them. We can even make them win a popular vote.

But in the end, we really do need someone who can do the job.

Pity, because I really think Sherlock Holmes would be an excellent choice.

An Amazon bargain: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadow Watchers

When I was an internet lad, you used to be able to search Amazon for Sherlock Holmes related Christmas gifts without being presented with a link to a B-minus Holmes film that your Amazon Prime account would start up with just a click.

So it was that I found myself watching Sherlock Holmes and the Shadow Watchers, a 2011 production that has "community theater" written all over it. An original tale, Shadow Watchers features a Sherlock whose idea of an experiment is holding his breath until he passes out, an Inspector Lestrade who bums whiskey off beat constables, and a Watson that . . . well . . . might have actually made a passable Watson with some better casting around him.

Shadow Watcher's Sherlock seems more like a country parson with a Holmes delusion than the real deal. Of course, this Holmes, like the one in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, freely admits that Watson's writings embellish him somewhat. So if you take it as a "Watson-embellished" Holmes, about anyone can play him.

Lestrade, however, is quite an idiot, even for Lestrade: "Someone will have to face justice for this, Raleigh, and I've told you, it's not going to be me." This Lestrade seems so incompetent that he might actually arrest himself by mistake. (His second suspect, after Raleigh, is Paganini.)

If Nicolo Paganini, however, had heard the violin-scraping that this Sherlock passes off as a Paganini tune, I suspect he might have made a new deal with the devil to have the cast and crew of this film taken to a special hell.

The mystery isn't too mysterious, as like many a TV show, we see the killer doing the killing. And prostitution in Shadow Watcher's London must pay well, as even when the journalist Raleigh tells the prostitute he's in love with that he can take her away from "all this," he's doing so in front of a marble fireplace in a a room with some posh Victorian furnishings.

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadow Watchers is one of those movies that seems best played with a little alcohol and friends. In one scene, Holmes and Watson are sitting together in a fashion that looks, for all the world, like Watson is Holmes's ventriloquist dummy. In another scene both night and moving fog look to have been laid in in post-production. And there's a red-robed cardinal who just won't shut up.

"Wait! I'm the bloody policeman!" Lestrade calls out, chasing after Watson during the exciting conclusion, like he's trying to direct the film from within. (The actual director is the Sherlock Holmes of the film, Anthony D.P. Mann. Holmeses are often their own directors, it seems.)

"A mummfied bog-man" is mentioned in the wrap-up as their next case, after much ado from the bad-acting Lestrade over no one talking about the current one, however, and I actually found myself wanting to see that case as well, so I guess there was something to recommend in this Canadian production . . . at least if you have an appreciation for a certain level of cinema.

And it was approved by the Conan Doyle Estate.

But now that I've seen it, it won't be going on my Amazon Wish List. Back to shopping.

Why I don't subscribe to the Baker Street Journal.

Early this morning, before heading into a rare Saturday shift, I was greeted by a note in the old e-mailbox from the supreme commander of the Baker Street Irregulars of New York. It was the annual announcement and write-up of the upcoming January doings, and it's nice to still be included in that, even though my past active participation was at least ten years ago.

But a question was asked, within those pages, and I figure I can participate enough to answer it, even though I know what comes out of my keyboard isn't going to satisfy anyone. It's not the answer anyone wants to hear, and the ad hominum arguments against any answer from this locale are probably pre-loaded with a few of those concerned. It's just Keefauver, after all.

The question from the head Irregular: "Can anyone enlighten me and others why there isn’t 100% participation of Irregulars in support of the BSJ by maintaining an annual subscription?"

As an Irregular who doesn't subscribe to The Baker Street Journal, my reason is pretty simple: I quit collecting everything associated with Sherlock Holmes. I had been receiving the Journal and not reading it for a couple years, and when the $40 subscription came due one year, I decided to spend the money on something else. This might be inconceivable to a lot of  Irregulars in good standing with the leadership, for as their chief states after his question: "I personally think that pride alone in our society would be enough to insure subscribing."

Personally, pride isn't really a motivator for me. Inclusiveness is. At some point, The Baker Street Journal became a separate entity from the Irregulars in my mind, as the quest for subscribers went on one course, while the quest for members went another.

"We could make it [subscriptions] mandatory as does the Sherlock Holmes Society of London," the B.S.I. commander-in-chief continued after his question, leaving out the fact that the Sherlock Holmes Society of London lets people sign up for membership to get their journal. The journal is just a perk of dues-paying members. If the Baker Street Irregulars wants to operate off the SHSoL model and let anyone be a member just by signing up and paying dues, I might proudly send them a check. Or not.

Because I'd still have to want to read it, and my tastes, as many a reader of this blog knows, are not always in the Sherlockian mainstream.

The world of print publishing is a hard place these days, yes. But The Baker Street Journal will find its niche and rise and fall in subscription numbers as it has always done. When it needed to be mimeographed and paper-brad bound, it still survived.  I have no doubt that it would go to a PDF format and go web-based, should the costs of paper and ink become too much to deal with. It's a great medium for getting content out . . . unless you really need something to collect, which, as I said, I'm pretty much done with. I'm not supporting the habits of those collectors who remain -- I've got too much stuff to get rid of as it is.

I really can't enlighten the supreme leader of the B.S.I. why others might not be supporting his favorite causes. I'd be curious to hear their reasons myself. As to why I'm not?

Just not interested at the moment. Maybe one day. But if that 100% subscriber number is important enough to trim the B.S.I. membership to attain it, well, they can have at it.

Lois Lane meets Sherlock Holmes.

At tonight's gathering of the Hansoms of John Clayton, Peoria's own little Sherlockian society, the topic centered upon "A Case of Identity," one of the most criticized stories of the whole Sherlockian Canon. Well, maybe the story isn't exactly what gets criticized so much as the client, to whom the whole mystery is a mystery to begin with. And that's where a curious new perspective came up.

"How stupid can she be?" has been the battle-cry for discussions of "A Case of Identity" for as long as I can remember. Miss Mary Sutherland, who makes her living at a typewriter, can't seem to tell one man from another simply because he disguises himself, primarily with a pair of glasses.

Sound like any other fictional character of note that we know?

Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane made her living at a typewriter keyboard, and was courted by a fellow in glasses who was really someone else in her life . . . Superman. Superman, of course, was not Lois's step-father (that we know of). Lois also had the benefit of just being one of the many citizens of Metropolis who were fooled by that simple disguise. She was just the one who should have had the best vantage point to see through it.

And it was Superman fooling Lois. The same thing happens to you and the guy without his disguise is James Windibank, the travelling claret import buyer . . . well, you don't quite get the same credit as Lois Lane.

But what if Miss Mary Sutherland had seen her fiance get into that four-wheeler that arrived at her wedding chapel empty and later discovered he had "Up, up, and away!"-ed out of the cab and off to stop some disaster on the other side of London? What if Mr. Hosmer Angel had turned out to be the Victorian Clark Kent? Would we still consider her such a dim bulb?

It's all in who's fooling you with that silly glasses disguise, I guess. Now that I see Mary Sutherland as the Victorian Lois Lane, I might have a little more respect for her the next time I read that tale.

If only she got to whack her step-dad with a little kryptonite . . . .

Picking up the ancient tome.

I remember as a kid seeing characters on TV and in movies do the coolest thing: pulling an ancient book from their shelves and turning pages to find just the right bit of old wisdom they needed. So this morning when I went to the shelves and pulled down that blue book with "1891" on the spine, it was hard not to get a little thrill.

It's one hundred and twenty-four years old. Older than any human being I know. And yet, here I am, looking into this mildly ancient tome to re-experience its words for tonight's gathering of the Hansoms of John Clayton.

The story I read was "A Case of Identity," one that longtime fans don't usually think of as such a big deal in the life of Sherlock Holmes, as no actionable crime (at that time) was involved, and Holmes doesn't even really help his client whatsoever within the pages of the story. Yet the story is so quotable, so rich in colorful detail, that it captures why these stories have been so popular, especially since the main plot is rather wanting -- and yet it is still fun to read.

It starts with some philosophizing upon real life and fiction. Sherlock Holmes does some things we don't usually associate with him, like showing off the big diamond ring he's wearing on one hand . . . this younger Holmes liked being "pimped out" when his pal Watson came to call, showing off that ring and offering the doctor snuff, apparently, just to do a "Hey, get a look at this posh snuffbox!" move.

I've always found Holmes's words on Mary Sutherland intriguing, as there are parts that belie his supposed disinterest in woman. His line "I found her more interesting than her little problem" is usually thought to be about all the details that he rambles on about immediately after saying that. But Holmes is a young guy talking to his best buddy here. Later, when he says, ". . . it was evident that with her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain single long."

"Fair personal advantages" has that restrained Victorian tone which makes one wonder just what a modern American male of Holmes's age and mind would have put in its place. Holmes and Watson obviously both spent a lot of time checking Mary Sutherland out in this story, and spend such an inordinate amount of time talking about her appearance that one starts to wonder what the parts Watson left out of his write-up were.

And if you think that's a little sexist, the story's ending is always the worst part: men pranking a man over something he did to a woman without seeming to do anything to help that woman's situation. Their reason?

"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember that old Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for him who taketh delusion from a woman.' There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge in the world."

Wow. Nice of Holmes to be all multi-cultural, but picking up the sexist attitudes of the old Persians does not seem too progressive. He even seems pretty young to be so jaded in his dealings with the opposite sex . . . his dating life must not have gone well at all.

The "ancient wisdom" I found in that one hundred and twenty-five year old book may seem a little dated on the surface, but people now are not all that different from those of Holmes's time. We do tend to allow others their "delusions" rather than have a frank discussion at times. (How much more current would if make the quote if I wrote: "There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for him who taketh delusion from a CBS Elementary fan." But I won't . . .)  There is so much to be found in any Holmes story that it is easy to garner something new out of any open minded re-reading.

And that's why we're still talking about these stories, after all this time. All fiction should be so colorfully painted, even when it's not as "infinitely strange" as real life.

He's back!

He came back tonight, and even though he wasn't quite as bad as when last I saw that face, it was good to see him once again.

Well, he was pretty bad . . . just not so clever with the evil. I think that's it.

Peoria's a funny old town. You can be the first person into the opening night performance of a new James Bond movie by showing up a mere hour ahead and buying your ticket. We don't sell out of much here, and we have some pretty good screens, so you can really enjoy an opening night, which I did tonight with Spectre.

Bond was back, with so many familiar Bond-ish bits that I actually feared for a Diana Rigg ending to the film. But the one thing that occasionally took me to somewhere else was the presence of Andrew Scott as a very powerful figure in London, sitting at the center of his own spider's web. I think he was cast in the role specifically for a hint of Moriarty, making you think he's not-so-innocent from the start. But just a hint, just an Andrew Scott look . . . the rest is a different sort of character.

Of course, James Bond has his own Moriarty, so Sherlock's arch-nemesis can't be the worst thing in the British empire. And we can't have Irene Adler in a James Bond movie, because James . . . well, there's a power dynamic conflict there that I don't think we'd want to see . . . somebody would wind up losing their mojo, and I vote "neither."

"M" isn't exactly Mycroft, and Money Penny is no Mrs. Hudson. Though they operate out of the same town, Holmes and Bond are two very different fellows.

Yet for a couple of hours, they share a certain familiar face this week. And that is not a bad thing at all.

Spinning sexual revolutions.

Sometimes when two thoughts love each other very much, they crash into each other and make little baby thoughts. I hope this doesn't come as a surprise, and that your parents fulfilled their parental obligations and didn't leave that education to the school system, because I'm going to relate a tale of idea intercourse in the following paragraphs.

I was reading a review of some published Johnlock fanfic by one of my male Sherlockian peers, who expressed that same curiosity that most of us boys have about the genre. (As in, "What the . . .?") And then I watched the past week's episode of South Park, in which two of the boys found themselves being drawn in a gay Japanese romance art created by girls for girls . . . which made one immediately think of actors Freeman and Cumberbatch. And as I watched the lads, Craig and Tweak, coming up with their own solution to the problem, it came to me: The conservative Sherlockian male's fanfic counter-move.

Let's face it, guys, the internet fanfic repositories are filled to the brim with guy-on-guy Sherlockian action these days. Metaphorical tons of it.  And it's not going anywhere, nor should it. People are gonna like what they're gonna like. But here's the way fanfic, the black market of stories, works: If you aren't getting what you want elsewhere, you write it yourself for you and your friends.

"You know, Sherlock," John said one eve, looking at his friend over a cuppa, "You'd probably be someone a gay matchmaker might pair up with me, but I am just inordinately fond of knockers."

"And said matchmaker would be hard-pressed to make a living, because I can't see myself carnally engaged with anyone who'd wear a jumper like that," Sherlock retorted. "Have you seen Irene Adler?"

Yes, just as Craig and Tweak had to fake a break-up to get out of their imagined gay romance on South Park, the answer for those who disagree with the entire premise of Johnlock fanfic is equally simple: Break 'em up. Or ever pre-break them up, writing a million variant scenes in which Holmes and Watson express their disinterest in each other. Create a new fictional multiverse in which our two heroes care more about solving crimes -- any crimes, no matter how dull -- than having sex. Publish a vast legion of books with that premise, to counter the tide and . . .

Oh, wait, that already happened once. A full century of it, actually.

And after that century of fairly sexless adventures, a sexual revolution came to the world of Holmes and Watson as they were pushed ahead into the modern era, and suddenly fanfic told us they were gay, very gay, and even mutatedly biologically gay sometimes . . . it's almost as if they're trying to make up for lost time, going at it like rabbits.

Yet the one exception to that tide, that one powerful opposing voice in the wilderness, that one corporate conservative punditry that has stood up and shouted the message "NAY! Sherlock Holmes is a heterosexual male who will have sex with almost anyone who has the appropriate opposite sex parts! And Watson? Sure, Watson wants to have sex with men, but because she's a woman, as God meant her having-sex-with-men desires to be directed!" to ten million Nielsen families on the CBS network . . . that one great defier of the fanfic weather is . . . is . . . .

And people wonder why I seem to be supporting the endless creativity we're seeing in Johnlock, etc., fiction these days.

It's a funny old world.