Just bicycle the hell out of that story, Violet!

With a mini-vacation last week, I had to miss our local Sherlock Holmes Story Society's discussion of "The Solitary Cyclist," which seems a tiny thing next to the juggernaut of the Avengers: Endgame event of a movie, which I was enjoying two states away. But now that the weekend's hoopla is done, it's good to get back to that simple tale of a woman and her bicycle.

When Violet Smith comes to 221B Baker Street, the pair living there have some very telling reactions to what Watson calls "the beautiful intruder." She is one of three women whom John Watson refers to as both tall and queenly, and given that Queen Victoria was five-foot-nothing, he was not relating them to the current monarch. The doctor is plainly elevating these women above his station, but whether that pedestal is raised by a bit of envy or his own humility is hard to say.

Sherlock Holmes, on the opposite side of things, picks up her naked hand like it's a Times crossword puzzle, works out a few answers, and literally drops it when he loses interest. When he speaks of her employer, he says the household paid "double the market price for a governess," which seems to emphasizes his view of her as a specimen or object.

Violet Smith, however, is not wanting for male attention, which is the entire crux of this tale. She's had several admirers in her life and at least three men ask her to marry them. But it's her weird stalker-on-a-bicycle that has her curious, even though she seems capable of chasing him off whenever she feels like it. Given all this male attention, it's interesting how Holmes and Watson don't seem to want to give her any more.

Both make the trip to her locale, Watson to secretly spy on her and Holmes to punch out the most unwanted of her suitors, embodying both flight and fight in their approaches. But neither seem to bother to talk to her when they're right there -- Watson even right where she has just seen her stalker again! None of the boys in this story come off too well. Holmes disfigures a man so badly that he looks like he's been in an accident and is delighted about spending the afternoon doing so.

There's a lot of concern for whether or not Violet Smith gets molested from many a man here, and the man Holmes already wrecked takes another bullet in yet another battle for male dominance . . . and literal possession of Violet Smith, after already played cards for her once.

Anyone going on about the charm of the Victorian era after recently reading "The Solitary Cyclist" definitely has to have an XY chromosome, because this tale is really a nightmare piece from a feminine perspective. When the twist is that the client's stalker is just trying to keep her from worse crimes, England of that time does not seem charming at all. The nicest male in this piece, when it comes to Violet Smith, seems to be Peter, the teenage driver who we only see laying in the fetal position after a whack to the head. Hopefully he didn't hit on her before the attack, because given everything else that went on in that part of the country, one has to wonder.

Hopefully the discussion group had some fun with this tale last Thursday -- this re-read for me was just a little bit too full of men behaving badly, and the one poor woman whose best bet was marrying an electrical engineer. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

"A knight can make a knight."

If America had knighthoods from the get-go, we might not have the BSI shilling today.

Sherlock Holmes has turned many an American into an Anglophile, and, ah, the knighthood. Even if it no longer comes with armor and a sword, next to pirate and cowboy, what more could a boy-heart ask to be?

For many that came to Sherlockiana in decades past, a Baker Street Irregular was seen as one knighted in the service of  king Sherlock Holmes. As Sherlockiana had no queen, that “knighting” came from the “captain of the guard” and whatever councilors from whom he took advice.  Still, all mystical and magical enough to allow those who wanted a certain distinction in their service to Sherlock Holmes.

At some point, the Baker Street Irregulars added an “Inc.” to part of its activities, its Baker Street “journal” took on some aspects of an academic journal, and its publishing arm into what was basically a small publishing house. The measurement of a Sherlockian knight’s worth seemed to trend more toward what he or she could contribute to business of the BSI. Criteria for new members was circulated that might have seemed a little like a job description from an HR department to a cynical mind.  And as the membership was limited to the amount a single dining hall could comfortably handle just to suit a single banquet, practical choices were made accordingly . . . and sparingly.

And the Sherlockian world outside grew, in ways no one expected.

Practical choices and private club limits, however, have never been quite enough for the more romantic among us, as visions rarely have limits. We usually seem foolish that way to the practical, as dreamers often do.

So, speaking of dreamers, this week I had a fun bit of travel time listening to George R.R. Martin’s A Knight of Seven Kingdoms. One of it’s notable points is something that just came up in a recent episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones: the quote: “A knight can make a knight.”

As the Sherlockian world seems to have grown too big for those practical and miser-ish limits to what we used to think of as the American Sherlockian knighthood, perhaps we need some new conventions for validating our own Sherlockian coming-of-age moments, conventions that don’t have elder Sherlockians waiting in long lines for a nod from the captain of the guard, nor admit that new ways of Sherlocking have value as well.

 “A knight can make a knight,” has a certain lovely ring to it, and for those willing to vow dedication to Sherlock Holmes, maybe there’s an aspect worth a thought.

For, really, how is it that one first feels validated as a Sherlockian? When one finishes reading all of the original sixty stories? When one creates that first fulfilling piece of writing or art in honor of Holmes? I would wager that those sorts of things put you on the road, but our first validation always comes from talking to another human being who recognizes that spirit in us that is kin to our own. That one other person who sees us as a fellow Sherlockian, that first kudo from another person, that first experience shared around the fire that is Sherlock Holmes.

We make each other Sherlockians, every one of us. And if the old ways come to have limits that can’t work as they did decades and decades ago, we very well could see more new ways as the great Sherlockian river flows around obstacles that stand in its path. Starting to see that happening with a thing or two of late, and I am curious as to where it might eventually lead. Perhaps we don’t need “knightly” aspects any more, that being such a boy’s game.

But finding ways to let each other know how much we value our fellows and their contributions is something we can all do and give some thought to now and then.

Sherlockians: The Next Generation

It's hard to think of 2003 as "way back when," but at this point, we're sixteen years past that point in history. Adrian Monk was the closest thing we had to a TV Sherlock Holmes. Netflix was still only sending DVDs out through the mail. I was publishing The Holmes & Watson Report every other month and writing Sunday night HTML blogs on the Sherlock Peoria of that era, along with doing Sherlockian roleplay in the Dark Lantern League.

And that year, the Beacon Society was founded by Sherlockians concerned at the lack of other Sherlockians younger than fifty. It's goal: to help promote a Sherlockian future by encouraging teachers and others who worked with kids to bring a little Sherlock into their young lives. And now, sixteen years later, the Beacon Society is doing well, with great examples of kids getting excited about Sherlock Holmes every year.

When the Beacon Society was founded, I think it's safe to say that we all thought sowing the seeds would bring new generations of Sherlockians that were pretty much like us. And when we thought of "us," we probably weren't realizing then how diverse "us" really was.

Seven years later, new Sherlockians started appearing, but via a route no one had expected: Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch, along with all their associated writers, producers, fellow actors, and media fanfare. A grand, great wave of brand new Sherlockians. Seeing them gathered at the first 221B Con was like a miracle, a miracle too few pre-2010 Sherlockians got to see.

The thing was, to many a Sherlockian, these were exactly the "like us" Sherlockians they were expecting. More female, more LGBTQA, more fiction-writing, and more . . . young, with all the things that word brings with it. Coming in with new enthusiasms, new favorites, new rituals, and maybe not just sliding into the familiar patterns like past generations did. And there are those who are still struggling with complete acceptance of this next-wave Sherlockian.

Which brings me back to the Beacon Society and those great kids it's bringing to Sherlock Holmes every year, since 2003.  They're very young, born into a world with songs those of us over sixty might never have heard, using smartphones at an age when most of us hadn't touched a computer, connected to the world in ways of which we can't even conceive. If they start with "The Speckled Band," and their parents aren't too restrictive with the remote, "A Study in Pink" or "Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows" might not be too far behind. And once they get a little older, a little more interested in non-childish things, and morally flexible enough to click "I'm 18" on a website, they could possibly wander into Sherlockian turf none of us even knew existed in the 1970s. (Seriously, we thought Liberace was a lady's man.)

The paths a new Sherlock Holmes fan will take if they start that journey in 2019, may strike chords familiar to us if we listen, and some of the stops may be the same, but, boy, are they heading into an entirely different world than the one we knew. The one we might have thought would go on forever. But that's okay.

Every generation brings their own lights to our friend Sherlock Holmes. And I'm just now realizing that all those kids the Beacon Society is turning on to Sherlock? Well, the ones who hold onto him into adulthood, aren't going to be the 2060s versions of you or I. They're going to be something really special. Kind of like the ones we're seeing emerge now.

So let's inspire as many of those as we can now, and then get the heck out of their way.

The avalanche

It's been a mere two weeks since a single tweet went out from 221B Con.

A single tweet. A single unhappy tweet.

And, two weeks later,  four hundred and fifty people join a new social media group in a single day. A deluge of happy welcome messages accompany that, turning an otherwise joyous holiday into, well, and even more joyous holiday for a lot of Sherlockians.

How did we get here? How does on tweet cause an avalanche like that?

Well, I'm not going to drag us through the detailed muck after such a pleasant Sherlockian day, but there were definitely layers to the avalanche coming down. First came the insulting tweet, which led to discussions of behaviors beyond the tweet, which led to discussions of how to corral said behaviors, which let to attempts to corral those discussions, which led to . . . .

I don't think we quite reached the point where the words "Sherlockian Civil War" applied, but there were moments when one started to see the potential for one to come. A lot of long-held dissatisfaction with a lot of Sherlockian people, places, and things out there that started rising to the surface. People had things to say, about a whole lot of things.

There was a particular discussion I got into at 221B Con, one morning before all of this went down,  about how a lot of folks were afraid to speak openly about some Sherlockian things due to a certain longstanding gatekeeper system in our hobby. Afraid to speak openly -- that's not a phrase one ever sees in a happy context. A calm, rational conversation about a topic should not be something one is afraid to get blacklisted for. And if one can't have a calm, rational conversation, then what finally comes out might be neither, which isn't good for anyone.

People need to be heard. Maybe not troll-people, who are just in it for the reactions, but those with actual stories, and actual concerns, need to be heard. And hopefully, they're getting a better shot at that as things move along like they did today.

The avalanche has come down, and we now have a pretty, white bed of fresh snow to make tracks on, in a brand new social media group "221 Be Here."  The snow is still falling, though, and future avalanches may be coming. There are still a lot of conversations to be had, and issues that will have to be dealt with, one way or another.

But today, we got to see a positive thing come out of a negative beginning, and if that's not something to celebrate on a holiday weekend, I don't know what is.

Want to be like Sherlock Holmes? Evolve.

Sometimes, something in your past is just going to remain there to haunt you.

"Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst," Trevor senior said in "Gloria Scott," because the ghosts of old lovers are the ones you tend to bring back yourself. Not nearly as bad, but still pretty pesky are the ghosts of our old hatreds, because your friends are going to bring those back to haunt you, as they should now and then.

And, since the internet remembers everything, my joining of Doyle's Rotary Coffin and embracing the motto "No Holmes Barred," as well as the Baker Street Babes' "All Holmes is good Holmes," is more than a bit tarnished by my very public stance on the first half of CBS Elementary's run. I was, sadly, having too much fun on the side of the haters on that show, even if I kept it pretty confined to this blog and didn't go out to Facebook or Twitter trolling folks. (I'm not a complete arsehole.)

Ghosts are a good thing, in the way old Trevor and I are haunted, I think. They remind us that we should probably attempt to be better people in the days ahead than we were in the past. We don't know if Trevor senior became a Justice of the Peace as a result of his feelings for his lost loves and possible part in their loss, but for the sake of this metaphor, I'm going to think so.

My best example of personal evolution, however, comes from our friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Remember his statement in The Sign of the Four, "Women are never to be entirely trusted,  -- not the best of them"?  Yes, Sherlock Holmes said those very stupid words. But did he continue to live them, the rest of his life? The answer is a resounding "NO!" I once did a book-length study of Holmes and his relationships with women titled Sherlock and the Ladies, and what I found over the course of his life, is that Sherlock Holmes evolved when it came to women.

You can even see it in The Sign of the Four itself, as Holmes advises Watson not to tell Mary Morstan too much at one point in the case, and utters that "not to be trusted" line, then later talks about how he is so impressed in Mary Morstan that I was considering working with her, if Watson hadn't announced he was marrying her.

So when Sherlock Holmes makes Kitty Winter his partner in crime in "The Illustrious Client," it really demonstrates how far his journey took him. He actually trusts Kitty and doesn't even seem to turn on her when she adds some extra crime to his crime.

Kitty Winter has long been a favorite Canonical character of mine, and her appearance as a character on Elementary, and even as a partner to Sherlock Holmes (See? I didn't call him "Mr. Elementary!" Progress!) softened me up on the show a bit, just as the continuing appearances of Clyde the turtle have. (And with Clyde now in the movie Holmes and Watson, how could I hate any show that gave us Clyde?) Just wish they'd give us a little more of Ms. Hudson, too. 

I'm really looking forward to blogging about the final season of Elementary as a test of my own personal evolution, and glad it made it to season seven to provide such a test. Going to still have to live with my past as a hater, and I deserve that, ghosts and all. 

The world changes all the time, and locking ourselves into a single position, while often perfect for reaching a short term goal, is not healthy over time. Sherlock Holmes got it, and hopefully we can do the same.

The fan who speaks for us all

"We're not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down to -morrow there's not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad to shake you by the hand."

--G. Lestrade, "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons"

Over the years, Inspector Lestrade seemed to warm a little bit to Sherlock Holmes. Maybe more than a little. In 1894, after a few years without the consulting detective, Lestrade is all "I've got you now, you over-rated consultant!" in "Norwood Builder," but eight years later, when he utters the statement above, he's all Sherlock Holmes fanboy.

But was everyone else at Scotland Yard so thrilled with their Baker Street benefactor? Had Gregson come around as well? How about Constable Rance or one of the other officers that suddenly found themselves looking foolish in Watson's best-sellers? And have you worked anywhere where outside consultants were brought in because their skills were so publicly lauded over the home team?

I suspect Lestrade was exaggerating Scotland Yard's complete and total affection for Holmes a little bit.

But such is the way of the exuberant fan, the sort of person who steps up to the mike at a celebrity Q&A, designates themselves the speaker for all of fandom, and proceeds to say whatever they themselves feel in their hearts, amplified by words like, "I just want to say for all of us . . ." while at least one person in that room rolls their eyes.

Speaking for just myself, here, because I am that eye-roller. I usually let those happy enthusiasts off the hook, though, as they're caught up in the moment, and faced with a celebrity, who among us might not feel the urge to puff ourselves up to a larger size just to face said person of greatness. But there's also the darker version of that same sort . . . the fan who wants to speak for the rest of us just to define what our fandom thinks or does to anyone who will listen.

We have a wonderfully accepting Sherlockian community, where your ego can get a nice petting on occasion . . . nothing at all wrong with that. But if your ego starts to mainline that petting and swell up to a place where it's issuing royal edicts or hobby-wide proclamations, well, maybe it's time to dial it back a bit and lay off the juice. Lately I've been seeing some names pop up from a few . . . ummmm,  "folks" . . .  whom I'd forgotten about, who were fond of presenting themselves as a speaker for Sherlockiana decades ago, and still seem to be at it today. The sort that even when doing something so positive on the surface as bestowing an honor on someone else, it was plain that their apparent ability to hand out that award was as much about confirming their perceived status as honoring their target. But I really don't want to insult our pal Lestrade with any collateral comparison damage there, so back to business.

I'm not exactly sure why Lestrade had decided to speak for all of Scotland Yard in that moment in "The Six Napoleons." Maybe he felt Holmes's achievement in solving the case was so masterful that the compliment of a single inspector would not be enough, and needed to be amplified by making it come from all of the Yard. Lestrade, by 1902, had been taken down a peg so often that he definitely wasn't doing it to try to show himself as more important at the Yard than he was.

Sherlock Holmes certainly believed Lestrade's words, as we see from Watson's description, "it seemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human emotions than I had ever seen him." (Sherstrade fans, this might be your quote to needle your local Johnlocker, if you're friendly enough to do a little ship-poking.) So even if Sherlock Holmes knew the words weren't exactly one hundred percent factual, the fact that Lestrade cared enough to express it that way did seem to mean a lot to him.

And that, I suppose, isn't worth the eye roll that an old cynic like me might have given Lestrade, had I been there. Speaking for no fans but myself, let me say this: Good luck figuring it all out. It's yours to figure out, though, in any case.

A mission from Doyle's Rotary Coffin

We all know how easy it is to proclaim our values for the world to see, but actually going out of one's way to put those values into action . . . not always so easily done!

Tonight I found my own values put to the test as I undertook a mission for Doyle's Rotary Coffin, that swarming society whose members have vowed that "No Holmes barred!" is the way to live a proper Sherlockian life. The group's current project, a defense of the "35 Worst Films" as called out by slashfilms.com, is working to mount a defense of each of those thirty-five films. As no single human mind could bear such a task in a short amount of time, the DRC has been looking for volunteers to man the parapets. I stepped forward this morning, and was assigned 1990's Hands of a Murderer, a film that I remembered being horribly disappointed in back when it came on network television.

I had enjoyed Edward Woodward in The Equalizer, but his Sherlock Holmes had seemed somehow less British than his CIA agent in that show. And John Hillerman's Watson seemed at that time like he was still talking to Thomas Magnum instead of Sherlock Holmes.

But almost thirty years gives a person some perspective, and after learning to appreciate such films as the Asylum's "Sherlock Holmes and Dinosaurs" as it came to be called (real title Sherlock Holmes), The Hands of a Murderer was now chock-full of unexpected charms.

Colorful characters, borrowed details from both the Canon and Rathbone movies . . . Woodward's stockier-than-normal Holmes was more than made up for by all the rest of it. And I'll leave more than that to my defense over at the Doyle's Rotary Coffin site, which should be appearing there soon.

Edward Woodward's Sherlock Holmes did not get barred this evening, and Doyle's Rotary Coffin has triumphed yet again! May many another victory lay ahead for its battle against stockaded Sherlocks.

Watson, Victorian Nick Fury, Lestrade, and Sherlock Holmes