One of the things that modern story-tellers have really tried to push on Sherlock Holmes is that he's a real jerk. No social skills, just the rude pushing of facts on people they don't want to hear. It coincides with the trend in saying that there's something not quite right in Holmes to make him as smart as he is. And both trends really seem to come from the same place.
Because Sherlock Holmes of the original Canon is not that guy.
So let's start with a horribly sexist statement from Sherlock, factor in the Victorian mentality that spawned it, and take the sexism out.
"You remember the old Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a [person]. These is as much sense in Hafiz as Horace, and as much knowledge of the world."
It's really a brilliant statement, acknowledging that Western culture doesn't have the monopoly on smarts. Holmes liked to gather his wisdom from everywhere. But let's get back to the first half, that part about delusion being as dangerous as stealing a tiger cub.
What we've found, as our networks connect us with more of the human race than ever before, is that delusion can be a very powerful force. We will cherry-pick information to feed a cherished delusion, and we see many a delusion that only exists because our egos won't allow that we might be . . . just possibly . . . wrong. The less wrong anyone claims to be across the board, the more delusional they definitely are.
And Sherlock Holmes is a guy who is actually paid to undo delusions. Got a demon hound killing people in your family? Probably a delusion, call Sherlock Holmes. Got a special club that pays you money to copy encyclopedia entries? Might be someone deluding you, call Sherlock Holmes. Got a fiancee who disappeared on the way to the church? If you don't recognize that you're dating your own step-father, there might be some pretty big delusions going on.
In that last case, Canonical Sherlock actually goes out of his way not to upset somebody by telling them the truth. "A Case of Identity" is perfect evidence against the whole concept of Holmes being a truth-forcing jerk. He's actually trying to be kind.
Delusion has become more dangerous than ever, and we really need the truth-seekers, the investigators, and the Sherlock Holmeses of our world right now. And as Watson found out when one stuck its head inside his tent, sometimes you have to figure out how to deal with a tiger cub. (The one true tent joke of the Canon!) And that can be a real challenge.
Sherlock Holmes's reputation for being a guy who snatches away delusions has cost him some esteem these days that he didn't have to deal with, back when Basil Rathbone played him and most people seemed to accept that a person smarter than them could exist without harming their own self-esteem. Which is ironic, as we need his sort now more than ever . . . hmmm.
John Watson saw a man once, and questioned himself hard over the possibility that he was deluded. As he wrote in The Hound of the Baskervilles, "I saw the figure of a man upon the tor. Do not think it was a delusion, Holmes. I assure you that I have never in my life seen anything more clearly."
At a time when demon hounds were supposedly running rampant on Dartmoor, Watson held to what he knew was true, and he held fast to it. There was a man on that tor. That man was no delusion. That man, and everything he would bring to Dartmoor.
That man was Sherlock Holmes. Are we deluded that humanity is capable of producing such a person, at a time when delusion is everywhere? I think I'll stick with Watson's view on that.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
Friday, October 4, 2019
Thursday, October 3, 2019
The long-term Sherlockian
What is it that keeps a Sherlockian in our little fandom for the long term?
I mean, to the very end, from that moment you first declare until the day you die ... what makes that? Sheer stubbornness? The self-regenerating brilliance of Conan Doyle's literary skills? One life-changing moment of Sherlockian revelation that alters your brain's firing patterns?
With new of a favorite club losing its spark, the return of a long unseen name to a discussion, and the ongoing eclipse in some channels by a certain ineffable couple, the question came to mind this morning. And while many a study and survey have been done of Sherlockians en masse, I don't recall seeing one done on Sherlockians who managed to keep to this one subject for . . . hmm, what's a good number . . . say, over twenty years?
There are those who find themselves passing such a milestone simply because a local club is there for them, I'm sure. Those who never venture outside their local area for Sherlock, don't go out of their way to pick up new books or collectables, and just enjoy the company of a group of friends who continue to be there for them. No slight on them at all, just an observation that their longevity's cause is pretty easy to see. And when that social group goes, often their books wind up in a local book sale, and someone else has a "Yay!" moment of finding.
There are those who hit Sherlockiana hard, get to be pretty well known, then disappear, for whatever reason -- a spouse that isn't as kind to Sherlock as one of Watson's, a job that's all-consuming, etc. -- and eventually come back to the fold, as if Sherlocking was a thing that was in them all along, they just had one very big thing in the way. This bunch would be a very interesting study, I'm sure.
And then there are those of us who swing from branch to branch of the Sherlockian tree like monkeys, seeing if each one will support the weight of our attention needs, then monkey-swinging to the next one, even if the previous one was pretty solid and one we might come back to eventually. Monkey business Sherlockians might not have the longevity of some other types, because branches can break on us and we can take a tumble and decide not to climb back into the tree. Yet some do.
Finally, there are the builders, those Sherlockians whose avocation has been all about laying Sherlockian brick upon Sherlockian brick and built a home around themselves that's pretty comfy. And why leave such a fine dwelling-place? Do a little upkeep, and it will keep you warm and cozy for the rest of your days.
The longest-term Sherlockians may have passed through all of those phases, and there are probably more than a few who fit none. I'm just spitballing here, of course, trying to delay going to work for a few more minutes. And new Sherlockians will surely find new ways to carry the torch on into the future.
One just never knows about some things, which is why they're interesting to puzzle over some mornings.
I mean, to the very end, from that moment you first declare until the day you die ... what makes that? Sheer stubbornness? The self-regenerating brilliance of Conan Doyle's literary skills? One life-changing moment of Sherlockian revelation that alters your brain's firing patterns?
With new of a favorite club losing its spark, the return of a long unseen name to a discussion, and the ongoing eclipse in some channels by a certain ineffable couple, the question came to mind this morning. And while many a study and survey have been done of Sherlockians en masse, I don't recall seeing one done on Sherlockians who managed to keep to this one subject for . . . hmm, what's a good number . . . say, over twenty years?
There are those who find themselves passing such a milestone simply because a local club is there for them, I'm sure. Those who never venture outside their local area for Sherlock, don't go out of their way to pick up new books or collectables, and just enjoy the company of a group of friends who continue to be there for them. No slight on them at all, just an observation that their longevity's cause is pretty easy to see. And when that social group goes, often their books wind up in a local book sale, and someone else has a "Yay!" moment of finding.
There are those who hit Sherlockiana hard, get to be pretty well known, then disappear, for whatever reason -- a spouse that isn't as kind to Sherlock as one of Watson's, a job that's all-consuming, etc. -- and eventually come back to the fold, as if Sherlocking was a thing that was in them all along, they just had one very big thing in the way. This bunch would be a very interesting study, I'm sure.
And then there are those of us who swing from branch to branch of the Sherlockian tree like monkeys, seeing if each one will support the weight of our attention needs, then monkey-swinging to the next one, even if the previous one was pretty solid and one we might come back to eventually. Monkey business Sherlockians might not have the longevity of some other types, because branches can break on us and we can take a tumble and decide not to climb back into the tree. Yet some do.
Finally, there are the builders, those Sherlockians whose avocation has been all about laying Sherlockian brick upon Sherlockian brick and built a home around themselves that's pretty comfy. And why leave such a fine dwelling-place? Do a little upkeep, and it will keep you warm and cozy for the rest of your days.
The longest-term Sherlockians may have passed through all of those phases, and there are probably more than a few who fit none. I'm just spitballing here, of course, trying to delay going to work for a few more minutes. And new Sherlockians will surely find new ways to carry the torch on into the future.
One just never knows about some things, which is why they're interesting to puzzle over some mornings.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
"Unfortunately, the passion is gone . . ."
Sad news today, as a small note came along from Bill Cochran with the October issue of The Camden House Journal. After forty-three years of monthly dinner meetings, the Occupants of the Empty House will be considering its dissolution at the end of this year. The Occupants were hard hit with the loss of one of their dual sparking plugs not so long ago, and as the last paragraph of their meeting notes for September read, "Unfortunately, the passion is gone, and we appear to just be going through a routine."
Forty-three years in a part of Southern Illinois that you can only get to on two-lane highways. No major metropolis to fuel it, but like a big city scion, the Occupants even had a society or two spin off from the enthusiasm it produced in its members. I'm not trying to write an "in memoriam" here. The point I want to make is that even the strongest among us eventually must face the rigors of age, be it a person or a society. And if this year, is indeed, their swan song, the Occupants held to their traditions for a lot long than most. Peoria's Hansoms of John Clayton did what it did for a little over twenty-five years before the passion went out of it and the membership faded away. Peoria got new Sherlock Holmes group a few years ago, doing things differently, but not holding to those same traditions, not calling itself that name.
Sherlock Holmes goes on, but those who celebrate him and how they celebrate him inevitably shifts. As proud as some of our big-city brethren might be of their longevity, while a club name might remain the same, the group behind it eventually becomes something new, something not quite what it was before. People change, and while a tradition or two might make it as a through-line, nothing from the 1950s was exactly the same as it is in the 2010s. Even Sherlock Holmes himself.
Watson's words remain the same, but the readers forming their own impressions from those words get a different Sherlock Holmes in their heads. Even if a person avoids all movies and television, the cultural lens through which they read those words changes. Sherlock Holmes becomes like a family home passed through generations -- the same place, yet changed.
Change is gonna come.
One of the best endings to a weekly TV show in the 1960s was Carol Burnett's little song, "I'm so glad we had this time together, just to have a laugh and sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say, 'so long.'" It was a bittersweet little tune, but it always led with those words, "I'm so glad we had this time together." And no matter what happens with the Occupants, I'm glad for the time they gave me. That's time that's in the Sherlockian record, printed on the pages of their newsletter and in books, and there's no shame in letting it go for a time.
Just up the road from the Occupants of the Empty House was a Sherlock Holmes society called "the Pondicherry Lodge of Springfield" that disappeared back in the 1940s. We don't know why. But eventually, someone in Springfield read of its existence and began that group again. Other folks came and found joy in what some earlier residents had created, despite never meeting those original members face-to-face or knowing their ways. Because Sherlock Holmes endures, and with him, Sherlockian society.
So if Southern Illinois's "Empty House is," indeed, unoccupied for a time, I doubt it will stay that way forever. Good houses eventually get new occupants, and the Occupants of the Empty House has been a very good house. And as we know well, with Sherlock Holmes, there is always the hope of an "Empty House" after a hiatus. Always.
Forty-three years in a part of Southern Illinois that you can only get to on two-lane highways. No major metropolis to fuel it, but like a big city scion, the Occupants even had a society or two spin off from the enthusiasm it produced in its members. I'm not trying to write an "in memoriam" here. The point I want to make is that even the strongest among us eventually must face the rigors of age, be it a person or a society. And if this year, is indeed, their swan song, the Occupants held to their traditions for a lot long than most. Peoria's Hansoms of John Clayton did what it did for a little over twenty-five years before the passion went out of it and the membership faded away. Peoria got new Sherlock Holmes group a few years ago, doing things differently, but not holding to those same traditions, not calling itself that name.
Sherlock Holmes goes on, but those who celebrate him and how they celebrate him inevitably shifts. As proud as some of our big-city brethren might be of their longevity, while a club name might remain the same, the group behind it eventually becomes something new, something not quite what it was before. People change, and while a tradition or two might make it as a through-line, nothing from the 1950s was exactly the same as it is in the 2010s. Even Sherlock Holmes himself.
Watson's words remain the same, but the readers forming their own impressions from those words get a different Sherlock Holmes in their heads. Even if a person avoids all movies and television, the cultural lens through which they read those words changes. Sherlock Holmes becomes like a family home passed through generations -- the same place, yet changed.
Change is gonna come.
One of the best endings to a weekly TV show in the 1960s was Carol Burnett's little song, "I'm so glad we had this time together, just to have a laugh and sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say, 'so long.'" It was a bittersweet little tune, but it always led with those words, "I'm so glad we had this time together." And no matter what happens with the Occupants, I'm glad for the time they gave me. That's time that's in the Sherlockian record, printed on the pages of their newsletter and in books, and there's no shame in letting it go for a time.
Just up the road from the Occupants of the Empty House was a Sherlock Holmes society called "the Pondicherry Lodge of Springfield" that disappeared back in the 1940s. We don't know why. But eventually, someone in Springfield read of its existence and began that group again. Other folks came and found joy in what some earlier residents had created, despite never meeting those original members face-to-face or knowing their ways. Because Sherlock Holmes endures, and with him, Sherlockian society.
So if Southern Illinois's "Empty House is," indeed, unoccupied for a time, I doubt it will stay that way forever. Good houses eventually get new occupants, and the Occupants of the Empty House has been a very good house. And as we know well, with Sherlock Holmes, there is always the hope of an "Empty House" after a hiatus. Always.
Sunday, September 29, 2019
The Mystery of the Scarecrow Corpse . . . and Derek!
In 1976, Peter Pan Industries was printing comic books the size of record albums . . . because they were record albums. Star Trek, Captain America, Superman, the Hulk, Planet of the Apes, Justice League, Space 1999, even Gemini Man (probably not the same plot as this fall's Will Smith movie). And among those was one featuring a guy who looked like Sherlock Holmes.
The cover of the album has Batman facing off against Sherlock Holmes and a gorilla in a crossing-guard belt, which one might be tempted to theorize is John Watson after some serum of langur, but it actually represents to two stories found on either side of the record, "The Mystery of the Scarecrow Corpse" and "Gorilla City." Both are by comics pros Elliot S. Maggin and Cary Bates, and eight pages long, eleven minutes long on the record, which you can listen to on YouTube.
It was back in the days when Batman ran around in public, lectures at "the Sussex campus of Oxford University," and takes phone calls backstage. Batman goes to Cadbury's local pub dressed as the British version of his "Matches Malone" persona and plays darts against a middle-aged guy named Billy, whom we have to wonder if he once worked at 221B Baker Street. But leaving the bar, he runs into . . . well, almost Sherlock Holmes. Inspector Derek Holmes. No relation, but takes "a lot of ribbing" because he dresses just like Sherlock Holmes and says things like "my dear Batman." (Don't worry, the "elementary" is coming!)
Once he finds out all he needs to know, he lights his pipe to signal Batman, and since it's the 1970s, it's time for roundhouse kicks! Both Batman and Derek Holmes get roundhouse kicks in worthy of Walker, Texas Ranger.
The cover of the album has Batman facing off against Sherlock Holmes and a gorilla in a crossing-guard belt, which one might be tempted to theorize is John Watson after some serum of langur, but it actually represents to two stories found on either side of the record, "The Mystery of the Scarecrow Corpse" and "Gorilla City." Both are by comics pros Elliot S. Maggin and Cary Bates, and eight pages long, eleven minutes long on the record, which you can listen to on YouTube.
It was back in the days when Batman ran around in public, lectures at "the Sussex campus of Oxford University," and takes phone calls backstage. Batman goes to Cadbury's local pub dressed as the British version of his "Matches Malone" persona and plays darts against a middle-aged guy named Billy, whom we have to wonder if he once worked at 221B Baker Street. But leaving the bar, he runs into . . . well, almost Sherlock Holmes. Inspector Derek Holmes. No relation, but takes "a lot of ribbing" because he dresses just like Sherlock Holmes and says things like "my dear Batman." (Don't worry, the "elementary" is coming!)
Without Watson or Robin, the pair form their own "dynamic duo" and they head into the swamps of Devon. (The village of Cadbury, it turns out, is about a 35 minute drive from Dartmoor National Park.) There, they find a the villains who Inspector Derek lets capture him, probably just so he can utter the words, "Elementary, my dear abductors."
Batman delivers the bad guys to Scotland Yard single-handedly, only to find out from Inspector Oswald, the man who called him in on the case, that Scotland Yard's guy had a car accident and didn't make it to Devon. Batman was actually working with the real ghost of Sherlock Holmes! Does that mean Sherlock Holmes was dead?
Well, maybe not. That same year, The Brave and the Bold Special for 1978 featured "THE STRANGEST B&B TEAM-UP EVER! WITH A FOURTH FABULOUS CO-STAR TOO!" The first three co-stars were Batman, Deadman, and Sgt. Rock . . . the fourth?
Well, he's not a ghost. He's a spirit . . . "the stuff of which myths are made!" So, given that The Brave and the Bold Special was put out by DC Comics in their main continuity in the same year we see "Derek Holmes" showing up, I'm thinking he's another appearance of that same spirit, whatever you consider that spirit to be.
I just hope his Watson doesn't turn out to be a gorilla, after all.
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Actual facts versus the "truthy" ones we hold dear
Well, there are still a few Sherlockians out there who will bother to try to correct me when I'm wrong these days, though most will just let me prattle on and just ignore my silliness. I got a "well, actually" sort of note tonight from a Sherlockian of note, and it really filled my head full of curious little ponderings. So, to quote our friend Sherlock, "Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you."
It gets back to a blog I wrote last Saturday about Ronald Knox being "the most important man in Sherlockiana." Is he? Is he really? Well, the historical record can definitely shower one with indicators that such is not really the case. And Jon Lellenberg has actually provided a lengthy article along that line, entitled "The Ronald Knox Myth." He's correct, of course. Knox probably didn't have as much influence upon Christopher Morley and the American founding fathers of Sherlockiana in the 1930s as we tend to imagine he might have.
But then I remembered May Lamberton Becker, whose review of that great 1944 Sherlockian trinity of books, I wrote about in a post last month. I'm not sure just what paper the review clipping I have came from, but I'm pretty sure Mrs. Becker was living in England at the time she wrote that review. And in the second paragraph of that review, she starts talking about "Young Ronald Knox" and how "One might say theology set in motion the great Sherlock Holmes myth."
As Jon points out in his essay, Knox's classic "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes" did not appear in any Sherlockian collection until 1958, and before that had just been collected in Knox's own Essays in Satire around 1930. But that fact that May Lamberton Becker was familiar with it enough, and found it key enough, to include in a book review circa 1944?
Things might have been a little different among the Holmesians of England, regarding Knox, than they were with the Sherlockians of America. But I really didn't start this particular essay to build any sort of case using May Lamberton Becker. What I originally intended this piece to be about was that thing Stephen Colbert coined as "truthiness."
Defined as "the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true," Colbert parodied that approach to life hard in his show The Colbert Report. A whole lot of people are leaning hard into truthiness these days. And when it comes to Ronald Knox, even though as I originally was lauding him as the Great Founder of All Sherlockiana, a part of me knew that was pretty much hyperbole, and that the nuts and bolts of the thought didn't necessarily all fall into place. But, even now, I find myself really resisting the idea that Knox and his brilliant little bit of parody wasn't the All-Father of Sherlockiana. As you can see, even now I'm elevating the Great Source of 221Beams to higher and higher status in my mind palace.
And why not? Before Colbert came up with truthiness, Vincent Starrett came up with his poem "221B" and that line "Only those things the heart believes are true." Starrett's poem was like the Sherlockian Pledge of Allegiance when I was coming up, and as he wrote it in 1942, it wasn't inspiring Morley and the boys either. And yet, I can't seem to shake it as part of the package like it sprang into being with A Study in Scarlet in 1887.
There's a reason we've been called "the cult of Sherlock Holmes" on occasion over the years. Like many a religious denomination, we do like to cherry pick our own versions of our Sherlockian belief systems, even though our "cult" has only been around a hundred years of so and we do actually have some historical records on it, if we care to look. There are actual religions in the same youthful state.
Looking at our own beliefs-versus-facts is a good exercise in these days when a certain cult of personality or two seems to be trying to cling to power, just to see what must be going on in the heads of those folks who seem to be believing in charlatans. We all have our weak spots, our easy-access points, and those things we love just too much to let go of, even when faced with a fact or two that indicates otherwise. But, in the end, we all need to be able to tell the difference between a harmless and acceptable fantasy like Santa Claus and a dangerous-to-deny force of nature like gravity or fire.
Sherlockiana, luckily, is still a field harmless enough that a mistaken belief or two might just be okay for a while.
It gets back to a blog I wrote last Saturday about Ronald Knox being "the most important man in Sherlockiana." Is he? Is he really? Well, the historical record can definitely shower one with indicators that such is not really the case. And Jon Lellenberg has actually provided a lengthy article along that line, entitled "The Ronald Knox Myth." He's correct, of course. Knox probably didn't have as much influence upon Christopher Morley and the American founding fathers of Sherlockiana in the 1930s as we tend to imagine he might have.
But then I remembered May Lamberton Becker, whose review of that great 1944 Sherlockian trinity of books, I wrote about in a post last month. I'm not sure just what paper the review clipping I have came from, but I'm pretty sure Mrs. Becker was living in England at the time she wrote that review. And in the second paragraph of that review, she starts talking about "Young Ronald Knox" and how "One might say theology set in motion the great Sherlock Holmes myth."
As Jon points out in his essay, Knox's classic "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes" did not appear in any Sherlockian collection until 1958, and before that had just been collected in Knox's own Essays in Satire around 1930. But that fact that May Lamberton Becker was familiar with it enough, and found it key enough, to include in a book review circa 1944?
Things might have been a little different among the Holmesians of England, regarding Knox, than they were with the Sherlockians of America. But I really didn't start this particular essay to build any sort of case using May Lamberton Becker. What I originally intended this piece to be about was that thing Stephen Colbert coined as "truthiness."
Defined as "the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true," Colbert parodied that approach to life hard in his show The Colbert Report. A whole lot of people are leaning hard into truthiness these days. And when it comes to Ronald Knox, even though as I originally was lauding him as the Great Founder of All Sherlockiana, a part of me knew that was pretty much hyperbole, and that the nuts and bolts of the thought didn't necessarily all fall into place. But, even now, I find myself really resisting the idea that Knox and his brilliant little bit of parody wasn't the All-Father of Sherlockiana. As you can see, even now I'm elevating the Great Source of 221Beams to higher and higher status in my mind palace.
And why not? Before Colbert came up with truthiness, Vincent Starrett came up with his poem "221B" and that line "Only those things the heart believes are true." Starrett's poem was like the Sherlockian Pledge of Allegiance when I was coming up, and as he wrote it in 1942, it wasn't inspiring Morley and the boys either. And yet, I can't seem to shake it as part of the package like it sprang into being with A Study in Scarlet in 1887.
There's a reason we've been called "the cult of Sherlock Holmes" on occasion over the years. Like many a religious denomination, we do like to cherry pick our own versions of our Sherlockian belief systems, even though our "cult" has only been around a hundred years of so and we do actually have some historical records on it, if we care to look. There are actual religions in the same youthful state.
Looking at our own beliefs-versus-facts is a good exercise in these days when a certain cult of personality or two seems to be trying to cling to power, just to see what must be going on in the heads of those folks who seem to be believing in charlatans. We all have our weak spots, our easy-access points, and those things we love just too much to let go of, even when faced with a fact or two that indicates otherwise. But, in the end, we all need to be able to tell the difference between a harmless and acceptable fantasy like Santa Claus and a dangerous-to-deny force of nature like gravity or fire.
Sherlockiana, luckily, is still a field harmless enough that a mistaken belief or two might just be okay for a while.
Another day closer to the Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium
Woke up this morning, after a night of fierce midwestern storms, and immediately thought, "I get to work on my Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium talk today!"
Over the last few decades, I've been lucky enough to speak in front of Sherlockian event audiences all over the place, usually once every year or so, which is an easy pace. It allows for a talk on something new each time, and keeps the fear of public speaking in check. This time is a little different, though. This time, I've been podcasting.
My podcast experimentation started with Sherlock Holmes is Real, a scripted bout of conspiracy insanity that seems to be leaning toward horror these days, then headed into The Watsonian Weekly, a sort-of audio magazine that's still figuring itself out. I don't promote either of these ventures nearly as much as I might, because a.) not in it for the money, and b.) like I said, still working things out.
And I may never be done working things out with the podcasts, which is half the fun, and which brings me back to my upcoming symposium talk. One very big part of podcasting is getting used to the sound of your own voice. Some big-time podcasters never do this, having the luxury of not having to edit their own stuff and listen to themselves. But for the little home-based operation, listening to yourself talk, while not ever really a pleasure, eventually becomes a positive thing. You start to become friends with your own voice, that strange thing that you might never have been on cozy terms with, when heard coming from a source other than your own head.
This will be the first talk I've ever done where I've recorded practices runs and listened to how I was saying what I was saying. This will be the first time I've gotten to hear my problem areas and focus on them, pound them into shape like a blacksmith pounding a blade, and see how much smoother I can make them. Not saying I'm going to be as slick as some speakers I've heard over the years. I heard Michael Dirda speak once and almost decided never to speak again. But, for me, the Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium should get a pretty decent me, I hope.
Not too worried about it. As the last speaker on the bill for the weekend, I know that the audience is going to be a pretty familiar crowd after a couple of days together. A few folks will have to get on the road or to the airport early and miss it, as happens with Sunday schedules. My biggest worry is that either the audience or I might start to get "hangry" by my start time of 12:15. To paraphrase Bill Bixby or Mark Ruffalo in a certain role, "You wouldn't like me when I'm hangry." Probably going to have to see if I can get some donuts in there that morning.
Thirteen days, twenty hours, and sixteen minutes until the symposium starts, the website's countdown clock is telling me. Time to get happily back to work, hammering out some Sherlockiana.
Over the last few decades, I've been lucky enough to speak in front of Sherlockian event audiences all over the place, usually once every year or so, which is an easy pace. It allows for a talk on something new each time, and keeps the fear of public speaking in check. This time is a little different, though. This time, I've been podcasting.
My podcast experimentation started with Sherlock Holmes is Real, a scripted bout of conspiracy insanity that seems to be leaning toward horror these days, then headed into The Watsonian Weekly, a sort-of audio magazine that's still figuring itself out. I don't promote either of these ventures nearly as much as I might, because a.) not in it for the money, and b.) like I said, still working things out.
And I may never be done working things out with the podcasts, which is half the fun, and which brings me back to my upcoming symposium talk. One very big part of podcasting is getting used to the sound of your own voice. Some big-time podcasters never do this, having the luxury of not having to edit their own stuff and listen to themselves. But for the little home-based operation, listening to yourself talk, while not ever really a pleasure, eventually becomes a positive thing. You start to become friends with your own voice, that strange thing that you might never have been on cozy terms with, when heard coming from a source other than your own head.
This will be the first talk I've ever done where I've recorded practices runs and listened to how I was saying what I was saying. This will be the first time I've gotten to hear my problem areas and focus on them, pound them into shape like a blacksmith pounding a blade, and see how much smoother I can make them. Not saying I'm going to be as slick as some speakers I've heard over the years. I heard Michael Dirda speak once and almost decided never to speak again. But, for me, the Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium should get a pretty decent me, I hope.
Not too worried about it. As the last speaker on the bill for the weekend, I know that the audience is going to be a pretty familiar crowd after a couple of days together. A few folks will have to get on the road or to the airport early and miss it, as happens with Sunday schedules. My biggest worry is that either the audience or I might start to get "hangry" by my start time of 12:15. To paraphrase Bill Bixby or Mark Ruffalo in a certain role, "You wouldn't like me when I'm hangry." Probably going to have to see if I can get some donuts in there that morning.
Thirteen days, twenty hours, and sixteen minutes until the symposium starts, the website's countdown clock is telling me. Time to get happily back to work, hammering out some Sherlockiana.
Friday, September 27, 2019
Grandma, Morley, and me
Our house has many a bookshelf in it, some that don't get visited as often as others. In search of a particular non-Sherlockian classic this evening, I was going through a shelf when I found a book that seemed out of place. The name on the spine said "Christopher Morley," and I thought, "Why isn't this with my Sherlockian and Sherlockian-related books?"
And then I opened it, saw the autograph inside and went, "Oh!"
It wasn't Morley's autograph. It was my grandmother's.
Next to her name was "English 8." A school book. That thesis was supported by Morley's own words in his introduction: "I have, to be frank, a secret ambition that a book of this sort may even be used as a small, but useful weapon in the classroom." The book, Modern Essays, contains many a modern example of the essay chosen by Morley just prior to the book's 1921 publication, from both England and America. Marquis, Milne, Beerbohm, Leacock, Belloc, Conrad . . . lots of familiar names, none of them Doyle, unfortunately, but this is essay-land, not short story world.
Stuart P. Sherman's essay on the "Diogenes of the Victorians" might cause a Sherlockian's ears to perk up, but alas, Samuel Butler is the one to whom Sherman assigns that title, and, like Sherlock Holmes, Samuel Butler has his own cult following, called, of course, "Butlerians." (Seriously.) Niagara Falls gets an essay, Boswell and Johnson come up. "Sherlock's style too is very elegant ..." but I fear that mention is about Thomas Sherlock, as the subject at hand is sermons. One sees an essay titled "Some Nonsense About A Dog," and fears a bad review for The Hound of the Baskervilles, but no.
There is so much in this book that comes so close to our Sherlockian Canon but never quite connects. Still, as a point in time, it hits so many topics of the day so marvelously, as well as some that are eternal, like being awake through the night.
My grandmother made some little notes in the book, like an arrow from the word "Cockney" to her tiny notation in the margin "one who lives in London." She also put a little "x" next to essays in the index that I'm guessing were her favorites? Hard to say.
But it was fascinating to find a spot where old Chris Morley had touched my grandmother's life, long before I came into being and ran into his literary tendrils myself.
And then I opened it, saw the autograph inside and went, "Oh!"
It wasn't Morley's autograph. It was my grandmother's.
Next to her name was "English 8." A school book. That thesis was supported by Morley's own words in his introduction: "I have, to be frank, a secret ambition that a book of this sort may even be used as a small, but useful weapon in the classroom." The book, Modern Essays, contains many a modern example of the essay chosen by Morley just prior to the book's 1921 publication, from both England and America. Marquis, Milne, Beerbohm, Leacock, Belloc, Conrad . . . lots of familiar names, none of them Doyle, unfortunately, but this is essay-land, not short story world.
Stuart P. Sherman's essay on the "Diogenes of the Victorians" might cause a Sherlockian's ears to perk up, but alas, Samuel Butler is the one to whom Sherman assigns that title, and, like Sherlock Holmes, Samuel Butler has his own cult following, called, of course, "Butlerians." (Seriously.) Niagara Falls gets an essay, Boswell and Johnson come up. "Sherlock's style too is very elegant ..." but I fear that mention is about Thomas Sherlock, as the subject at hand is sermons. One sees an essay titled "Some Nonsense About A Dog," and fears a bad review for The Hound of the Baskervilles, but no.
There is so much in this book that comes so close to our Sherlockian Canon but never quite connects. Still, as a point in time, it hits so many topics of the day so marvelously, as well as some that are eternal, like being awake through the night.
My grandmother made some little notes in the book, like an arrow from the word "Cockney" to her tiny notation in the margin "one who lives in London." She also put a little "x" next to essays in the index that I'm guessing were her favorites? Hard to say.
But it was fascinating to find a spot where old Chris Morley had touched my grandmother's life, long before I came into being and ran into his literary tendrils myself.
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