It occurred to me this morning, after working on a Sherlockian podcast that doesn't mention Sherlock Holmes, reading a Sherlockian tweet about a book that has the name "Sherlock" nowhere in it, and seeing a promo for Sherlockian seminar about building an archive of a club's history, that there is a point for the fan of Sherlock Holmes where the friendly confines of 221B Baker Street get left far behind.
I mean, we all start at 221B. Here's Sherlock Holmes! Here's Doctor Watson! Baker Street! London! Yay!
But as time goes by and we circle around the old Holmestead time after time after time after time, the orbit of that fixed point can start to widen. The Afghan War. Joe Bell. The Strand Magazine. The Mormon faith. The fiction of Clark Russell.
A bit more time passes, the orbit widens further. Lily Langtry. The Hammer Dracula films. Christopher Morley. The Boer War. The TV show Supernatural.
And eventually you find yourself in a place where your friends and co-workers say something like "You are into such a strange mix of things!"
And yet it all started at that one fixed point, that one placing of the sharp end of a jointed compass, when we found ourselves in orbit around the two occupants of a London flat. The magnetism of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson tethers us to them, makes us unwilling to let go. But as time passes and we reach out for new stimulation, new interests, new rabbit holes to fall down with one hand, the other clings to our friends at Baker Street.
The result could be shown almost as a genealogy chart of subjects, moving from one, to all those things connect to it, to all those things connected to them, picking out what interests us most or is the most fun to play with, and continuing on. Like the rings on a tree stump, you can probably tell the age of a person's Sherlockian hobby by the not-exactly-Sherlock interests they've added as time passed.
Of course, at some point in all that, you just wind up pondering Sherlockiana itself, and here we are.
Enjoy the orbits.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Back to the Nigel Bruture
Tonight I read an article about scientific advances with organoid cells, then followed that with a few minutes of a TV show called Just Tattoo of Us. It made me consider how the human race is running on parallel tracks these days . . . one seemingly getting smarter and smarter, and the other sinking into an unbelievable mire of idiocy. We seem poised to have the most incredibly advanced technology with its use being directed by the stupidest people imaginable.
And it made me think of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
That Holmes and Watson pairing has endured a lot of criticism for matching a brilliant-as-ever Sherlock Holmes with the biggest boob that ever had the title "Dr." affixed to his name. Why would they be friends? How could Sherlock Holmes tolerate a John Watson that's such a goof?
Well, maybe of all the Holmes/Watson pairings, this is the one that is actually our guiding light for our future. A "Nigel Bruture" of a future.
If mankind is going to continue to advance and fall backwards at the same time, the geniuses and the idiots are going to need to be friends. It's the only way this is going to work. I mean, I could pretend to do the false equivalency thing, and say, "Because we're all stupid sometimes, and we're all smart sometimes." Which is true. But on average, some have an overall average more like Basil's Holmes, and some have an average that's more like Nigel's Watson. Which one are you? Does it matter?
Bruce-Watson was clear-headed enough to recognize when Rathbone-Holmes was right about something. Rathbone-Holmes was empathic enough to see that Bruce-Watson had worth. The two incarnations of our favorite pair were friends, and worked well together as friends, enough for fourteen movies.
Even in the movies, one would occasionally get irritated with the other. (And if we consider those two characters non-movie everyday lives, it had to be much worse.) But somehow they made it work. They didn't wind up repeatedly punching the other one or otherwise abusing each other, the way some of our more recent, closer-to-equal Holmes/Watson pairs. And maybe there's something in that.
I don't know. Maybe one of these days I'll stroll back through that series of movies with such a thought in mind, so see if there is inspiration there. But for now, the thought that there was such a Holmes paired with such a Watson and they prospered . . . well, it's a little ray of hope for our future.
Just as Sherlock Holmes should always be.
And it made me think of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
That Holmes and Watson pairing has endured a lot of criticism for matching a brilliant-as-ever Sherlock Holmes with the biggest boob that ever had the title "Dr." affixed to his name. Why would they be friends? How could Sherlock Holmes tolerate a John Watson that's such a goof?
Well, maybe of all the Holmes/Watson pairings, this is the one that is actually our guiding light for our future. A "Nigel Bruture" of a future.
If mankind is going to continue to advance and fall backwards at the same time, the geniuses and the idiots are going to need to be friends. It's the only way this is going to work. I mean, I could pretend to do the false equivalency thing, and say, "Because we're all stupid sometimes, and we're all smart sometimes." Which is true. But on average, some have an overall average more like Basil's Holmes, and some have an average that's more like Nigel's Watson. Which one are you? Does it matter?
Bruce-Watson was clear-headed enough to recognize when Rathbone-Holmes was right about something. Rathbone-Holmes was empathic enough to see that Bruce-Watson had worth. The two incarnations of our favorite pair were friends, and worked well together as friends, enough for fourteen movies.
Even in the movies, one would occasionally get irritated with the other. (And if we consider those two characters non-movie everyday lives, it had to be much worse.) But somehow they made it work. They didn't wind up repeatedly punching the other one or otherwise abusing each other, the way some of our more recent, closer-to-equal Holmes/Watson pairs. And maybe there's something in that.
I don't know. Maybe one of these days I'll stroll back through that series of movies with such a thought in mind, so see if there is inspiration there. But for now, the thought that there was such a Holmes paired with such a Watson and they prospered . . . well, it's a little ray of hope for our future.
Just as Sherlock Holmes should always be.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Warhorses
What makes a long-term fan of something?
What brings a person to a particular table of myth that they then never leave?
And, in this particular context, what makes a warhorse?
It's easy to take joy in that thing everybody's talking about. The Super Bowl, the last season of Game of Thrones, the music of a band that's coming to town next week . . . when a thing is currently present in your life, everybody's loving it, and you're feeding off each other's excitement . . . it's the easiest time to be a fan, and a level of fandom that almost everybody hits about something at sometime. It's the fandom of the moment. Years pass, you might even forget that one.
And then there's the fandom of the phase . . . the thing you really got into for a year or five, and then drifted away from (or grew out of, if one can write that without insulting whatever that fandom is). You always have a certain nostalgia for that time, still think of yourself as a fan but maybe not quite as much a fan as some others. The books may stay on the shelf as trophies of that time, but you don't pull them down anymore.
But there are also those books you never stop touching. They don't gather dust. You refer to them again and again, not for the simple pleasure of entertainment, but to recharge your mental stores of what they hold. Because what they hold are things that are always with you. Blocks you need for building your next inspiration, your next game, or your next simulation. At which point, you enter the realm of the warhorse.
Warhorses were determined creatures, responding without the reins needed to guide most of their kind. They were so familiar with the being they carried into sheer chaos that they almost merged into one creature in the heat of their charge. And they kept on until they finally fell, which makes this metaphor all sad when you think about horses, so let's get back to people.
The warhorses of a fandom. Those people who keep pushing ahead with a thing, even when those next to them fall away. What bonds a person that closely to something that might be a temporary diversion to most?
One would think a person would know the answer to that question after four decades of being around just that sort. At this point, I'm still wondering, though. There are more than a few warhorses out there though, still charging after all these years, so whatever it is, it works.
Opportunity and the stray Sherlockian
I don't know if you ever saw one of those 1950s short films about the future, and all the labor-saving devices headed our way. "Life will be so easy as technology handles all our cares!" seemed to be a running theme. Well, as the clock runs down to the year 2020, the future is here, and what has all of our future technology done for us? Is life the carefree paradise that was predicted by ye olde promoters of machine convenience?
Well, to be honest, lately I kind of miss typewriters, snail mail, and all those impediments.
Why would anyone think such a thing, you might ask. Why favor a machine that printed letters on a single piece of paper, require physically obscuring mistakes with tape or white paint, and used pressure-sensitive ink-paper as your only way of creating a back-up copy, if you weren't just going to risk sending off your ONE COPY in the U.S. Mail . . . that sounds insane, at this point, to miss all that.
But here's the thing: Because it was so hard to write and get published, you really had to want it. You had to want it badly enough to get past every one of those obstacles, and many more. And that, my friends, meant you had to make some choices. You most likely had to focus on the one thing. You were working at a slower pace, and so was everyone else. Opportunity was a very limited thing.
And then, eventually, comes 2019. Creative opportunity is everywhere. Anything you write can go somewhere, reach an audience somehow. Publishing a physical book can literally be done in under a week with under five hundred dollars, if you don't need that many copies, but you don't even really need print any more. If you've got an internet connection and a device of whatever sort to use that connection, the primary limiter of your opportunities to create is probably just going to be you, be it your own fears or your own abilities, or fears of your abilities or possible lack of same.
For someone who came up in a time when opportunities were limited, 2019 is an all-you-can-eat buffet in front of a stray that grew up hungry. And if you've ever owned a stray pet that grew up hungry, you know what they tend to do: Eat anything and everything, even to the point of making themselves sick. But "sick" from a binge of goal-setting, content-creation, or just taking on too many roles is a little different from simple indigestion. Stress on any system is apt to bring out the familiar weak spots, and on a human system, insecurities, fears, self-doubt, you name it!
Tech upgrades always bring new challenges, and Sherlockiana has, like the rest of the world, had one helluva tech upgrade since the 1980s. We've had a few folks in our midst who tried to remain Amish-like as long as possible, and newer folks who grew up app-friendly. The challenge is there for everyone, though, and how we accept it, deny it, or just plain bathe in it is all up to us.
Not sure where I'm going with this, but at this point, just need to stop typing . . .
Well, to be honest, lately I kind of miss typewriters, snail mail, and all those impediments.
Why would anyone think such a thing, you might ask. Why favor a machine that printed letters on a single piece of paper, require physically obscuring mistakes with tape or white paint, and used pressure-sensitive ink-paper as your only way of creating a back-up copy, if you weren't just going to risk sending off your ONE COPY in the U.S. Mail . . . that sounds insane, at this point, to miss all that.
But here's the thing: Because it was so hard to write and get published, you really had to want it. You had to want it badly enough to get past every one of those obstacles, and many more. And that, my friends, meant you had to make some choices. You most likely had to focus on the one thing. You were working at a slower pace, and so was everyone else. Opportunity was a very limited thing.
And then, eventually, comes 2019. Creative opportunity is everywhere. Anything you write can go somewhere, reach an audience somehow. Publishing a physical book can literally be done in under a week with under five hundred dollars, if you don't need that many copies, but you don't even really need print any more. If you've got an internet connection and a device of whatever sort to use that connection, the primary limiter of your opportunities to create is probably just going to be you, be it your own fears or your own abilities, or fears of your abilities or possible lack of same.
For someone who came up in a time when opportunities were limited, 2019 is an all-you-can-eat buffet in front of a stray that grew up hungry. And if you've ever owned a stray pet that grew up hungry, you know what they tend to do: Eat anything and everything, even to the point of making themselves sick. But "sick" from a binge of goal-setting, content-creation, or just taking on too many roles is a little different from simple indigestion. Stress on any system is apt to bring out the familiar weak spots, and on a human system, insecurities, fears, self-doubt, you name it!
Tech upgrades always bring new challenges, and Sherlockiana has, like the rest of the world, had one helluva tech upgrade since the 1980s. We've had a few folks in our midst who tried to remain Amish-like as long as possible, and newer folks who grew up app-friendly. The challenge is there for everyone, though, and how we accept it, deny it, or just plain bathe in it is all up to us.
Not sure where I'm going with this, but at this point, just need to stop typing . . .
Sunday, August 25, 2019
And on the podcast cutting room floor . . .
There are those who might say that The Watsonian Weekly podcast gets a bit silly at times, as I get to playing around with voices and audio. Of course, even I have limits, especially when it comes to audio engineering. And this week, with a bit of a cowboy theme as the John H. Watson Society's August "Treasure Hunt" has inspired themes each week . . . and excuses for a bit more silliness . . . one might have noticed the episode starting out with a parody of the Rawhide theme that doesn't go on for very long. Sometimes the loyal listeners just have to be spared.
And so, for those who are just curious as to how the rest of that song went, here are the lyrics to the full song:
And so, for those who are just curious as to how the rest of that song went, here are the lyrics to the full song:
Watson, Watson, Watson,
Watson, Watson, Watson,
Watson, Watson, Watson,
Low tide!
St. Claire has gone missin’
His wife ain’t got no kissin’
They found his clothes, now listen . . .
Low tide!
Among those opium addicts,
Not there for just kicks
Soon you’ll be sleepin’ Surrey side!
Your wife might be a lighthouse,
But she’ll be missing her spouse
Cuz Sherlock Holmes calls you to abide.
Go to jail
(Find Hugh Boone)
Wash his face
(Find St. Claire)
Solve the case
(Clear the air)
Low tide!
Sure it’s a minor detail,
It’s low tide not a narwhale,
But it rhymes with Rawhide
Low tide!
It’s how they found St. Clair’s coat,
Like Birlstone’s old moat
But there Holmes used an umbrella.
Because moats aren’t tidal,
I guess that isn’t vital,
This song should be coming to an end.
Stop it now!
(Sing some more!)
Stop it now!
(Sing some more!)
Stop it now!
I want more . . . . Low tiiiiiidddde! LOW TIDE!
LOW TIDE!
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Meeting May Lamberton Becker
Sometimes another whose life has been touched by Sherlock Holmes just falls into your lap.
That happened to me tonight, as I picked up a copy of Profile By Gaslight to take to the Sherlock Holmes Story Society after work for our closing reading of Starrett's "221B." Out fell a newspaper clipping, folded in quarters, with a book review from May Lamberton Becker entitled "The Immortal Sherlock Holmes."
The browning newsprint's acid had actually stained pages 124 and 125 of the book it had been buried inside, the last page of "The Coat of Arms of Sherlock Holmes" and the first of "Genealogical Notes on Holmes," but I didn't care a whit. This was not pristine copy and a find is a find.
The review was not just any review, but May Lamberton Becker's review of the Sherlockian triple event of 1944: The publication of Christopher Morley's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Edgar Smith's Profile by Gaslight, and Ellery Queen's The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, all collections edited by the men in question, and a set sure to set any occupant of 1944 on a course to red-blooded Sherlockian in just three books. The first, with Doyle originals. The second, full of articles by studious Sherlockian experts. The third, all pastiche and parody by the best of authors. And May Lamberton Becker was here writing wonderfully of all three.
In the course of her review, one learns that Mrs. Becker hasn't just read those three books either. "What 'Baker Street Studies' began and Vincent Starret's masterpiece of pseudo biography brought to full flower, this 'irregular reader' enriches." May Lamberton Becker has read at least five core Sherlockian classics at the time of writing this review. It is not at all surprising that six years later she would write the introduction to another Holmes collection, The Book of Sherlock Holmes. (Did I immediately order a copy from a bookshop? Yes, I did.)
Her references to Stanley Baldwin, Sairey Gamp, and the Stork club might require a wee bit of reminding, but that's half the fun of finding a beautiful little time capsule of a review like Mary Lamberton Becker's work. With our magic lamp of Google at hand, enlightenment is but seconds away on any of these mysteries, and another era starts to emerge.
Born in New York and dying in Surrey, Mary Lamberton Becker was a pro-Britain American at a time when England needed a friend, and the end of her review gives you a real idea why; ". . . if properly spaced in reading, this book of 'pastiches' should see you through the war." In 1960, T.S. Eliot dedicated London's National Book League reading room to her, for inspiring and guiding readers with her reviews and anthologies. And given her review, "The Immortal Sherlock Holmes," from some unknown 1944 newspaper, tonight I learned that she surely inspired more than a few people in Sherlock's general direction.
That happened to me tonight, as I picked up a copy of Profile By Gaslight to take to the Sherlock Holmes Story Society after work for our closing reading of Starrett's "221B." Out fell a newspaper clipping, folded in quarters, with a book review from May Lamberton Becker entitled "The Immortal Sherlock Holmes."
The browning newsprint's acid had actually stained pages 124 and 125 of the book it had been buried inside, the last page of "The Coat of Arms of Sherlock Holmes" and the first of "Genealogical Notes on Holmes," but I didn't care a whit. This was not pristine copy and a find is a find.
The review was not just any review, but May Lamberton Becker's review of the Sherlockian triple event of 1944: The publication of Christopher Morley's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Edgar Smith's Profile by Gaslight, and Ellery Queen's The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, all collections edited by the men in question, and a set sure to set any occupant of 1944 on a course to red-blooded Sherlockian in just three books. The first, with Doyle originals. The second, full of articles by studious Sherlockian experts. The third, all pastiche and parody by the best of authors. And May Lamberton Becker was here writing wonderfully of all three.
In the course of her review, one learns that Mrs. Becker hasn't just read those three books either. "What 'Baker Street Studies' began and Vincent Starret's masterpiece of pseudo biography brought to full flower, this 'irregular reader' enriches." May Lamberton Becker has read at least five core Sherlockian classics at the time of writing this review. It is not at all surprising that six years later she would write the introduction to another Holmes collection, The Book of Sherlock Holmes. (Did I immediately order a copy from a bookshop? Yes, I did.)
Her references to Stanley Baldwin, Sairey Gamp, and the Stork club might require a wee bit of reminding, but that's half the fun of finding a beautiful little time capsule of a review like Mary Lamberton Becker's work. With our magic lamp of Google at hand, enlightenment is but seconds away on any of these mysteries, and another era starts to emerge.
Born in New York and dying in Surrey, Mary Lamberton Becker was a pro-Britain American at a time when England needed a friend, and the end of her review gives you a real idea why; ". . . if properly spaced in reading, this book of 'pastiches' should see you through the war." In 1960, T.S. Eliot dedicated London's National Book League reading room to her, for inspiring and guiding readers with her reviews and anthologies. And given her review, "The Immortal Sherlock Holmes," from some unknown 1944 newspaper, tonight I learned that she surely inspired more than a few people in Sherlock's general direction.
Mary Lamberton Becker
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
When Baker Street was silent but for the puff of a cigar
There is something very dull at the start of "The Six Napoleons." Interesting to such a fan of Holmes that the minutiae matters, but quite mundane when fully played out in one's head.
"It was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to look in upon us of an evening," Watson writes. Okay, no Netflix, America's Got Talent, AO3, Facebook . . . name your poison . . . looking in on someone was probably a major form of entertainment. So let's get to the details of what the residents of 221B got on "Lestrade Tonight."
"On this particular evening Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar."
Like I said, they couldn't exactly discuss this week's Game of Thrones. Politics probably went nowhere as a topic of discussion, since Mycroft Holmes was not someone easily spoken of. Lestrade is sitting with two of the most interesting people he knows (and he knows cops), and is doing most of the talking, about the June climate in London, and what he read earlier in the day. Holmes and Watson aren't talking, which is interesting.
Once silence falls, Holmes asks Lestrade about what he always wants to hear about from Lestrade: Crime. The one thing Lestrade has to tell, curiously enough, is described with "But in my opinion, it comes more in Dr. Watson's line than ours."
Lestrade seems to be paying special attention to Watson, like he feels the doctor has been especially silent during the preceding parts of the visit. Holmes has spoken, we know that at least. But Lestrade seems to be drawing Watson out.
Have Holmes and Watson been fighting, with Watson the aggrieved partner in the dispute?
When one considers the usual way Watson starts a case, writing about Sherlock Holmes, and the way he begins this one by writing about Lestrade, one starts to suspect that even the memory of that evening that "Six Napoleons" began is still pushing his buttons. Is this our usually patient Watson on the verge of what Holmes called deserting him for a wife?
Sometimes the spaces where silence lives speaks as much as a whole conversation, and I can't help wonder about that opening to "Six Napoleons," the story we'll be discussing Thursday night at the Sherlock Holmes Story Society at Peoria's North Branch Library, starting at 6:30. And if past discussions are any measure, we'll be wondering about a few other points as well.
"It was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to look in upon us of an evening," Watson writes. Okay, no Netflix, America's Got Talent, AO3, Facebook . . . name your poison . . . looking in on someone was probably a major form of entertainment. So let's get to the details of what the residents of 221B got on "Lestrade Tonight."
"On this particular evening Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar."
Like I said, they couldn't exactly discuss this week's Game of Thrones. Politics probably went nowhere as a topic of discussion, since Mycroft Holmes was not someone easily spoken of. Lestrade is sitting with two of the most interesting people he knows (and he knows cops), and is doing most of the talking, about the June climate in London, and what he read earlier in the day. Holmes and Watson aren't talking, which is interesting.
Once silence falls, Holmes asks Lestrade about what he always wants to hear about from Lestrade: Crime. The one thing Lestrade has to tell, curiously enough, is described with "But in my opinion, it comes more in Dr. Watson's line than ours."
Lestrade seems to be paying special attention to Watson, like he feels the doctor has been especially silent during the preceding parts of the visit. Holmes has spoken, we know that at least. But Lestrade seems to be drawing Watson out.
Have Holmes and Watson been fighting, with Watson the aggrieved partner in the dispute?
When one considers the usual way Watson starts a case, writing about Sherlock Holmes, and the way he begins this one by writing about Lestrade, one starts to suspect that even the memory of that evening that "Six Napoleons" began is still pushing his buttons. Is this our usually patient Watson on the verge of what Holmes called deserting him for a wife?
Sometimes the spaces where silence lives speaks as much as a whole conversation, and I can't help wonder about that opening to "Six Napoleons," the story we'll be discussing Thursday night at the Sherlock Holmes Story Society at Peoria's North Branch Library, starting at 6:30. And if past discussions are any measure, we'll be wondering about a few other points as well.
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