That murder they're still wanted for.

After taking another look at the end of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," for some thoughts about Inspector Lestrade this week, that story just got weird.

Okay, my initial thought, mentioned on The Watsonian Weekly, was that this was the one time we know that Inspector Lestrade came to Holmes for help and Holmes completely refused.

"My sympathies are with the criminals rather than the victim, and I will not handle this case."

Watson doesn't tell us Lestrade's response to this, but it must be at a point in the relationship between the Scotland Yard man and his consultant where the former had to go, "Well, you're probably right, if we don't catch them, I guess we'll just have to live with that."

Did that sort of weird moment happen often?

What makes it even weird is that in 1904, when Lestrade and his fellow Scotland Yarders read the tale in The Strand Magazine, holy crap, would that suck!  "Hey, Lestrade! Going to visit any escaped suspects for help solving the case today?" "So, you're taking Watson's word that they didn't kill Milverton? Holmes said he was happy he was dead!" How could Watson do that to the poor guy? And wouldn't Gregson 2.0 be knocking on the door of a certain cottage in Sussex after that? (Hmm, good time for a spy mission in America, eh, brother Mycroft?)

Unless, like so many people in Watson's tales, the reason was the usual: The poor fellow is dead now, so I can tell the tale. Irene Adler dies, he tells "A Scandal in Bohemia." Helen Stoner dies, he tells "The Speckled Band." Sherlock Holmes dies, Watson tells the Adventures AND the Memoirs. Watson's stories are practically obituaries!

Lestrade dying or retiring to the country prior to 1904 are the only ways Watson publishing "Charles Augustus Milverton" starts to make sense, and even then is quite problematic.

But let's get to the really weird part of the end of that tale, shall we?

"We had breakfasted and were smoking our morning pipe . . ."

Maybe I'm being all "What's Watson on About by Paul Thomas Miller"* about this, but "our morning pipe?" Sherlock Holmes and John Watson shared their first pipe of the morning? Passing it back and forth, or some romantic two-stemmed pipe for the Baker Street version of Lady and the Tramp? There are a lot of lines people like to bring to the front as evidence of Johnlock, but "smoking our morning pipe" passes a lot of them up for just sounding like couple-speak.

And even for couple-speak, it's just a little weird. Have a wild night, but c'mon! Sharing a morning pipe is just a little too sugary sweet, boys!  Especially if Lestrade's coming in, then it's an over-the-top PDA --  "Sorry, G. We're occupied. *wink*" -- which is actually a marvelous diversion to keep the inspector's mind off realizing that you're his prime suspects.

Hmmm. Maybe it's not all so weird, after all.

But they're still wanted for that murder, as far as Scotland Yard is concerned, to this day.

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*A regular feature on The Watsonian Weekly. Listen in, amiga!

"Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst."

As the years have passed, the BBC TV series Sherlock seems to have taken on the role of "ex-lover" to some Sherlockians. When the name comes up, the break-up overshadows the original love. And those who never thought it was good enough for you love to jump in and validate their original thoughts. Seeing such trends makes one wonder if someone ever really loved that former lover, and so I had to ask, "Hey, Twitter, how many episodes of that show did you really like?"

And here was the response.

One hundred and two responses isn't huge by any other measure, but when one considers that a lot of Sherlockian publications got by with a hundred or so readers, it fits the hobby. The thing that BBC Sherlock had that most Sherlocks don't was a direct, contemporary rival. Another potential lover who came on the scene and went, "Hey, I can do what he does . . . but American."

So I ran a second survey, on CBS's Elementary.

Only twenty Sherlockians responded, and the results were dramatically different, much more polarized. Probably because one can actually tick off the Sherlock episodes in your head, remembering all thirteen (yes, thirteen, you apocrypha lovers) and actually counting the good and the bad. With Elementary's massive episode count, individual ones are hard to remember and either you liked the show or you didn't. What interests me more is that only twenty people felt enough energy about it to even click the survey, as opposed to five times that number for Sherlock.

More Sherlockians seem to hate BBC Sherlock with a passion at this point than seem to love CBS's Elementary -- there's definitely an energy there. Elementary was a steady, reliable show that was what it was. If you didn't like it in the first season, you probably wouldn't have liked it in the last season if you stuck around -- which you probably didn't. Sherlock was a roller coaster ride -- personally I remember how much I loved A Study in Pink, then never felt the urge to re-watch The Blind Banker, but was greatly enthused about The Great Game.

As time passes, will this be our history with the TV Sherlocks of the 2010s? The passionate, great-sex-but-troubled-and-maybe-abusive lover versus the boyfriend who was so steady some thought he was dull? And to play out that metaphor, will there be those who had their sexy-time with Sherlock,  settled in for a long-term with Elementary, then run off to have a blazing affair if Sherlock makes a sweet face and returns for a season five, while the old folks go "Don't do it, he's a bum and still not good enough for you!"?

Movies, however, must have an entirely different metaphor, as I tried to squeeze Downey into this and it just doesn't work. You don't form a relationship with a movie the way you do a TV show, even if you do carry on a love of that film forever. (Had The Great Mouse Detective and Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-Second. Century been competing cartoon series, I'm now curious how similar polls would result. Or if the coming Enola Holmes and The Irregulars on Netflix were both series, rather than a movie and a series. But for one shining moment, we did have Sherlock and Elementary, both knocking at your Sherlockian door ready to take you out.

"Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst," old Trevor told young Sherlock Holmes in "The Gloria Scott." How was Sherlock to know that he'd one day be that ghost?

Severed ears and sisters

Our local Sherlock Holmes discussion group met online this evening to discuss "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" for a second time, the tale notoriously appearing in two separate collections and thus tricking its way into our rotation twice, as different folk set the order for different years. And yet, even with a repeat session, some very new things were there to be learned.

Melissa Anderson was back with us tonight, and brought along a historical tidbit I don't remember hearing of. While we all know "Cardboard Box" has Watson thinking of Henry Ward Beecher, a fiery speaker against slavery who came to England to drum up support for the Union during the Civil War, we don't often think about Henry Ward Beecher's famous sister.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin, was active in the anti-slavery movement, even helping with the underground railroad. And when her book was published, she got death threats, as well as a package in the mail with a severed human ear. The ear was that of a slave, which makes it all the worse, as it wasn't just a victim of the moment, but a lifelong victim.

In "Cardboard Box," we have the severed ear of what may have been an abuse victim coming to someone's sister as well, and given that Harriet Beecher Stowe's brother figures prominently in the story's opening, one can see where Doyle might have had the Beecher family on his mind.

Domestic abuse and alcoholism may be the featured social issues of that story and not slavery or racism, but that severed ear and specifically named Beecher  . . . there can be no coincidence here. Conan Doyle read much of the Americas and wove our problems into his tales, and this, though all the characters are British, still seems to be one of those times.

Our conversations went deep into the relationships and mindsets of the characters of "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box," as they are deep waters indeed. Did Conan Doyle portray sailors as anything but murderous? (Yes, there was that good one in "Abbey Grange," but he still killed a guy.) How much different was Jim Browner's version of events from what really might have happened, and what Sarah Cushing might have told us, had she gotten to speak in the story? Were Sarah and Mary "oops" babies of a marriage, being twenty years younger than their sister Susan, or might this been a case of daughters passed off as siblings to keep the good name of the family?

Deep waters indeed, maybe even deeper than the English Channel where the earless bodies of Mary Cushing Browner and Alec Fairbairn were dumped, never to be found. "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" may not have started as a favorite when we began our discussion, but by the time we hit the end, we all had to admit there was a lot here to discuss, and well worth consideration.

No matter who your sister is.

The first time ever we saw their faces . . .

I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but outside of Watson's agent, his editor, and the production folks at Beeton's Christmas Annual, everyone else in 1887 got a look at Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson before they ever read a word of the stories. They looked at the very faces of Sherlock and John, and, if they focused on them at all, had to go "Who's that?"

No matter how quickly you got past the ads in Beeton's Christmas Annual in late 1887, the first thing you came to was an illustration on the left hand page, and the start of A Study in Scarlet on the left hand page.

Most of us would surely look over that illustration before reading a word of the text, of course.

And there, even if we wouldn't have realized it yet, was our first encounter with Mr. Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson, M.D.

YEOW! Get a look at those goons, will ya? What's your first impression of the two most beloved heroes of detective literature? Not exactly Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. (There's an artist's challenge: Johnlock porn with those two, in that Beeton's ink style.)

I mean, Watson is "as thin as a lath," but that moustache! It's almost like my theory about Doc Holliday faking his death, coming to London, and changing his name to Watson could be proven with that big old moustache alone. What is going on with his necktie? And his Sherlock Holmes! What kind of hat IS that? The weak chin, the sad eyes, the wispy sideburns . . . not exactly a leading man. That coat does seem to get it, though, so points for that. And he's got his lens out on moment one, at least that stereotype has deep roots.

You just look at those two boys and think of what babies of Sherlockian art they are, fresh out of the printer's womb and about to slap their readers on the bottom rather than vice versa. The artist who created that image, David Henry Friston, had been drawing for magazines for twenty-four years at that point, and surely didn't consider this assignment up to the level of his art for H.M.S. Pinafore of Pilgrim's Progress.  Who was Sherlock Holmes, or even this Dr. Doyle, anyways?

It makes sense that a fellow like Sherlock Holmes would not make a great first impression. Some people you just have to get to know to appreciate the walking wonder you've encountered. And, hopefully, that was Watson's invalid moustache, and he gave it a solid trim once he realized he was going to be going out in public again.

Personality will just get you so far.

Who do you write for?

Reading an old letter from my late friend Gordon Speck last night, as we were just starting up a new Sherlockian society back in the 1980s that involved a bit of writing. Gordon was considering all of the writers involved and had an interesting thought: What if we all banded together, coordinated who was going to write for what, and keep the big four journals of that era well-stocked with manuscripts.

The impulse came, I'm sure, from a crisis The Baker Street Journal was having at the time with getting issues out. Three of the "big four" journals he cited at that time are still with us: the BSJ, Canadian Holmes, and The Sherlock Holmes Journal, each the unofficial standard-bearer for Sherlockians of an entire nation. But that look back made me stop and consider who we're writing for now. Where in the 1980s, there were "the big four" and dozens of local sion journals and newsletters of varying formats and qualities, along with a few fanzines that contained Sherlock Holmes material, the landscape is almost bafflingly large now, and more of it involving Sherlock Holmes fiction than ever before.

There's probably more of everything than ever before. Conan Doyle is certainly getting his due, with his own academic journal, The Conan Doyle Review, on the horizon, but John H. Watson is, too, with The Watsonian. (Not that the latter is academic.) While The Serpentine Muse is not strictly focused on Irene Adler, Adventuresses are behind it, and still going after forty-five years. Sherlockian publishers range from MX Publishing to Gasogene Books to . . . wait a minute . . . Doyle's Rotary Coffin just put out its third book, sneaky little devil. One would think we'd run out of things to write about with just those, and I know for a fact I'm missing many a journal and publisher in this brief look.

There came a point in the lives of Sherlockians, maybe in the 2000s, when we finally realized we couldn't collect it all and had to specialize, buying only along certain themes or subjects. Now it seems that the writers among us have to make choices as well. Do you want to reach the largest audience or the knowledgeable few that will enjoy your work the most? Do you want to make yourself known to a certain club or join a community by contributing to their body of work? Do you want to do it for fun or . . . oh, to be so ambitious . . . money/

The day when a group of writers could band together and support a small group of journals are not gone from us, but even as when Gordon Speck first suggested it to me, it's a bit like herding cats. The right person can still marshal a team of writers for a given project, usually be simply asking them -- it's always a joy to be asked. And it takes a special person to be a good editor, as we writers tend to be too driven to fire our own words into the void more strongly than gather, perfect, and publish.

Which brings me to my twice-a-year dilemma: As editor-in-chief of The Watsonian, it's time once again for me to start reminding folks that we love to print stuff about John H. Watson. You know the guy, right? You have thoughts on the man, surely. And if you have stories, poetry, articles, artwork, or anything else about John Watson that you'd like to see printed in a high quality journal for other folks who love John H. Watson, you might want to send it to publisher@johnhwatsonsociety.com -- our August 1 deadline is coming up, so the wait to see your work in The Watsonian is at its shortest time of the year. (It's for the fall issue, of course, so don't expect an Amazon Prime two-day turnaround!)

But no matter who you're writing for, even if it's just for yourself at this point, keep at it. There's no better way to order your thoughts, calm your soul, and even enter a certain kind of meditative state if you practice letting the words fall out without judgment or fear long enough.

Because somebody out there wants to read your stuff. It may take a bit to find them, but in this big ol' world -- they're there.

Thank you, gentlechaps, I have been entertained!

"What do we love about Sherlock Holmes?" the classic question goes. The answers are as numerous as Sherlockians, and even a multiple of that. But if you wanted to round a good chunk of them into one simple statement, it would just be this: "He entertains us."

Sherlock Holmes entertains us. Whether in the original stories, the imitations, the adaptations, or spin-offs, or even in the study, the research, the collecting, and the archiving -- it all is entertaining to someone. Sherlock Holmes himself is of marginal importance to our culture if you remove his entertainment value, as much as we'd like to claim more due to his importance in our Sherlockian lives.

What entertains varies from Sherlockian to Sherlockian, and even the arguing over what entertains us is entertaining to us. (And is practically a genre within a genre in itself.) And this week, we got a treat that will surely cause a little bit of fodder for that genre, the third book from Doyle's Rotary Coffin, the society for the acceptance of even the most out-there of Sherlocks. The book's title is "Sherlock Holmes" is and Anagram of "Snarky Clock" and 327 Other Holmesian Facts, and that title should tell you everything you need to know about the contents: This book is not for the obsessive-compulsive literalist with no sense of whimsy.

"Sherlock Holmes" is and Anagram of "Snarky Clock" and 327 Other Holmesian Facts is, to put it plainly, a hundred and twenty pages of delightful and entertaining lies about Sherlock Holmes and his contributions to our culture. In a hobby that is often too slavishly devoted to documenting minute details, the sheer freedom from sense that explodes from this book is a lovely refreshment in a time when pandemics and societal stresses are wearing us down. When I picked this book up, I smiled, I chuckle, and I suddenly found myself busting out laughing despite all the concerns of the day. Boy, was the timing of its publishing just perfect.

Comedy is hard, as humor is a very personal and often individual thing. (My love of the movie Holmes and Watson has demonstrated that time and again.) Is there humor in the sentence "Contrary to popular belief, the word 'detective' never appears in the Sherlock Holmes stories"? Well, it helps to be familiar with the old trope "The words 'Elementary, my dear Watson' never appear in the original Sherlock Holmes stories." If that trope is well imbedded in your head, the parody in that line comes through loud and clear. If not . . . well, it might be a little baffling as to why someone would write such a ridiculous and plainly false statement. So be warned: "Sherlock Holmes" is and Anagram of "Snarky Clock" and 327 Other Holmesian Facts is chock-full of in-jokes targeting those with a mind deeply imbedded in our hobby. It's also got a few "dad jokes."

But here's the thing: This was the most impressive thing I've seen in the Sherlockian world this year. The sheer onslaught of completely ridiculous statements, page after page, from so many angles and so many corners of Sherlock Holmes culture, could at the same time feed the analysis engines of some future Sherlockian AI, become the chosen holy book of a Sherlockian society based around marijuana edibles, or just be one of those things that makes some of us laugh hysterically while others go "I don't get it."  Dare I use the over-used word "genius" in reference to this book, or would that not be high praise enough?

"Sherlock Holmes" is and Anagram of "Snarky Clock" and 327 Other Holmesian Facts should be approached with as open a mind as possible, so don't let my review give any expectations or reason for you to buy it. The fact that it is only $3.80 on Amazon or absolutely free in PDF form on the Doyle's Rotary Coffin website is enough reason to pick up the book. Past that, you're on your own.

Sherlock Holmes still entertains us, after a hundred and thirty years, but at this point he's being powered by some wonderful human batteries. May that Energizer bunny in a deerstalker go on and on and on.

Afterword note: I have been informed there are 497 "facts" in this book. Even the title is a base canard! Be thou forewarned!

A good day, an inspiring day.

Well, we're definitely in a new place now.

Today's "Scintillation of Scions: At Home" event, replacing the annual Maryland weekend that usually happens around this time, was something we really hadn't seen yet, gathering hundreds of people to listen to a handful of speakers on Sherlockian topics. Unlike a typical Zoom meeting, we weren't looking at all those hundreds of people as they listened, just looking at the speaker and their Powerpoint if they had one. Seems pretty simple? Like watching YouTube or something, right?

Well, not quite. Running it in windowed mode, it was easily possible  to have the speaker in a corner of the screen, the rolling chat from the other attendees in a little window under that, two windows for Twitter (one for normal feed, one for hashtag #SOSatHome), one window for podcast notes, one window for the searchable Canon, and then whatever else needed a window along the way.

You would have a very had time pulling that off at a live, in-person symposium, as well as the part where you get up and go make a sandwich. While I've sat for five hours straight, the single feed of one speaker at a time, looking attentive as your only second activity, can be a bit wearing. Usually I need a break to go up to the room and chill. Oddly, adding more input to the equation was the perfect recipe for the perfect Saturday.

The talks were just the right length, between fifteen and twenty minutes, and the side chat added a layer that was there if you needed it, not if you didn't. A little Twitter side drama between a prominent Watsonian and a former member of the Shingle of Southsea just to add spice? Icing on the cake. And then after a nice balance of eight completely different topics, we got to watch an actually decent Sherlock Holmes movie that no one had seen lately, using the chat feed as a close-caption riff-track. (I mean, it's nice to watch some of those old black and white things for perspective, but they can often be sleep-inducing.)

I mean, I may be a little ADHD, a little old and jaded and looking for that new thing far too often, but you know what? Today was just a whole lot of fun, and what more could a Sherlockian want?

The really great part was the possibilities today's grand experiment opens up for our Sherlockian community. We have "proof of concept" for a larger scale remote gathering, and when you consider we've only been experimenting with Zoom gatherings for three months, the future has some real potential for Sherlockian activity. Who knew these options were available?

Well, we know now.

Every Sherlock Holmes weekend has the potential to leave you excited about the hobby, and inspired for your next projects or future events. This one? Adding a new level to that.

Onward and upward!