Sherlockian Camelot

When I was a kid, there was this musical about King Arthur. You may have heard of it . . . Camelot?

Yeah. There was a movie of it, I think, where an actor named Sir Richard Burton would sing this very mopey song at the end about how there was once this great place called "Camelot," and even though it didn't exist any more at the end of the movie, people would remember it and go, "Yeah, that place existed once and it was great."

As a kid, with my whole life ahead of me, that just did not resonate with me at all.

And when I got into Sherlock Holmes and started moving into the greater Sherlockian world, there were those who really wanted to go on about a similar sort of place that existed before any of us. In the 1930s or 1940s, something like that. These guys named Morley, Starrett, and something, having a grand moment in the past that we would never know anything like, that we could never rise to the standard of, that was gone forever and yet would be with us always.

Sherlockian Camelot.

Echoes of that old actor singing that old song from that old musical.

Standing at the start of another year, it's natural to look back, think of the really great moments in life. Live long enough, get a little lucky, and you get some of those moments. You get a Camelot, when things seem like they were as good as they could ever be. And they're yours, not some people you didn't know at some time you didn't know, doing things you don't really know. But even at that, the past isn't a place where people live. Memories of food aren't food.

Not sure why I thought of Camelot this morning, as our most recent memories are probably not a place we're going to want to hang in the years ahead. The hopes for 2021 are a little bigger than for a normal new year. It's got a real phoenix-from-the-ashes feeling. Definitely no time to be singing about the glories of a fallen Round Table.

And maybe that was the point of that memory. Time to look ahead.

The work of our avocation goes on

 The first day of a new year always seems like a good starting point, but the thing is . . . it isn't really.

Everything we begin comes from what was before, whether we're changing, enhancing, attempting. It all springs from something, some past choices or influences. The interesting part is what we choose to focus on for this holiday of rebirth, recharge, and restart.

Chosen any Sherlock Holmes yet?

Not shaming you if you have not. Some of us, I have to admit, spend far too much time here in "cloud Sherlocko land," letting some other things slide. I've had an interesting balance of Sherlocking this morning, organizing some work by a Sherlockian I respect, and also collecting some materials on a Sherlockian of ill repute. In the process, I accidentally had a chance to review the works of a third Sherlockian who has put an impressive amount of time and effort into this hobby, and even ponder how the last decade went in a Sherlockian sense.

While one might be tempted to focus upon the miseries of the last year, to look back upon the last full ten years is to see a glorious rise of Sherlockiana across a spectrum and range few would have even dared hope for in 2009.  The opportunities that lay before us now are incredible. We can go so far beyond the same-old, same old should we so desire.

That said, we don't have to do everything, go everywhere, own everything, or accomplish anything just to prove our love of Sherlock Holmes. He doesn't feed our families or fix our plumbing. But he does make the load lighter by his presence by our side. Sherlock Holmes is very rarely anyone's vocation, normally our avocation. Holmes gives us connections, anticipations, and opportunities, but he isn't going to fire us if we don't hit our quota for the year.

Sherlockiana isn't a job, it's a path of discovery. Chances are, you're already on the path you'll take for this year, whether it's the familiar part of the trail with all the signs and maps established, or some unknown area you have to wander into to see if anyone has been there yet. If they have, you can enjoy finding what they left behind, if they haven't, you can tell others and leave your own trail markers. The key to it all is thinking of those who will come after you. Those who came before are fine at this point. We can hold literary seances so new folk can see their shades, but they're not who we're doing it for now.

When I come right down to it, thinking about the year ahead, I think my main resolution has to be just trying to be a little more considerate and a little less selfish with this thing that I love called Sherlockiana. We all have to know our limits, as well as when to just say "no," but if we're really having a good time with our friends Holmes and Watson . . . and I mean a really good time, as why else are we here . . . then there's probably enough fun to pass some along.

So welcome to 2021. Take "nothing" out of that number and it's "221." That should tell you something about the kind of year we're heading into. Good luck!

Yeah, we like Conan Doyle well enough now . . .

 Looking back at anything from the future, where timelines compact, there is no waiting between specific events, and we all know how things came out, it's always hard to imagine how it was for the folks who had to live through those events at the time. One of my personal experiences of that was that one really depressing season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was a nightmare to deal with one-episode-per-week, yet binge-watchers plow through relatively unscathed. "You weren't there, you don't know the misery we went through!" I tell them, but they can't begin to know. Such fan experiences are very personal.

As I perused another round of "this TV series didn't end how it should have" complaints on a more recent finale, my mind drifted back to that series innovator, Arthur Conan Doyle, and his fans.

Whether it's Star Wars or BBC Sherlock, the creators and the fans come to some pretty stark disagreements upon character arcs, but none can nearly be so bad as what Doyle pulled in 1893.

"Enjoying Sherlock Holmes every month? Had a great two year run, you've been enjoying, right?"

"Yes! It's great!"

"Too bad. He's dead. Series over."

Had there been an internet in 1893, Conan Doyle would have taken such heat that come 1901, even his mama probably couldn't have talked him into bringing back Sherlock Holmes. 

Seen through the lens of hazy history, Conan Doyle is the kindly old grandpa-looking guy with that walrus moustache with "Steel true, blade straight" on his tombstone. (Why it was so important we know he was straight, I'm not sure. Also . . . kidding! Don't "@" me!) But if you were a Sherlock Holmes fan in 1893?

Not enough swear words to toss at the man. 

The by-line distance of published stories and no over-familiarity with a creator as the internet gives us now, Sherlock Holmes fans of 1893 might not have had an image of Conan Doyle strong enough in their minds to poke verbal voodoo pins into. And monthly short stories might not have developed the tight bonds that a binged series does in the modern day. Victorians were mostly just concerned with surviving and working their long-day jobs, with no expectation that a good thing might last -- life was hard in 1893.

A hundred and thirty-five miners got blown up in Yorkshire. Lizzie Borden was worried about her trial. Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii was getting overthrown by U.S. Marines. Thomas Edison was building a movie studio. Grover Cleveland had mouth cancer. And if you thought Ford's Theater treated Abraham Lincoln badly, talk to the ghosts of twenty-two war department clerks that the theater caved in on and killed.

We may have been through a tough year in old 2020, but not so tough that we still don't have the time and energy to gripe about what creators are doing to our favorite characters. Conan Doyle didn't know how lucky he had it. Nor do we, really, with our sixty story Canon all neatly wrapped in a bow with no surprises left at this point. 

And I think we're all okay with that, as much as we'd love a new tale.

How mean was Mycroft?

 Yesterday, one of our legion finally got around to watching Enola Holmes and was struck by the portrayal of Mycroft therein.

"I feel like a different character, like a solicitor, could have been used instead of assassinating Mycroft's character," Robert Perret tweeted. 

Putting Enola Holmes on mental trial for this accusation, my mind palace's defense lawyers surprised me with their line of attack on the charge: "What do we really know about Mycroft Holmes?"

What DO we really know about Mycroft Holmes?

He has better powers of observation than Sherlock. He is seven years older than Sherlock. He has no ambition or energy. Good at figures, only goes to work or his club, flipper-like hands . . .

Nowhere does it say "unselfish and kind."

"Well, you take the case up by all means, and let me know if you do any good." There's a classic Mycroft quote, and I can hear that in a few different tones. Let's try something from his second appearance.

"A most annoying business, Sherlock. I dislike altering my habits, but the powers that be would take no denial. In the present state of Siam it is most awkward that I should be away from the office. But it is a real crisis. I have never seen the Prime Minister so upset."

Interesting that Mycroft's first words on the Cadogan West business are very self-interested and annoyed. And, getting back to that "flipper-like hands" line, I've always had a feeling that Watson didn't exactly have a lot of respect for Mycroft for using such a line. And if Watson doesn't like you . . .

There's definitely a very large space of blank canvas surrounding Mycroft Holmes, and the different portrayals we have of him, like rattling around his old manor house naked in a certain movie, get a definite license to play due to that space.

My mental jurors had to declare Enola Holmes innocent of Robert's charges of character assassination, as Mycroft Holmes could well have been a jerk, given our limited experience of him. We actually have more Canonical evidence for Mystrade shipping than we have for Mycroft being a lovely guy who treated his sister and mother well. ("Mycroft Holmes and Lestrade had come round by appointment after breakfast next day . . ." and later "Lestrade and Mycroft were fidgeting in their seats . . .")

And since Enola Holmes does team up the inspector and the brother, suddenly it gets more Canonical as well. Perhaps we'll just say that the Mycroft of Enola Holmes was going through something off-screen that was making him a bit more unpleasant than we might have liked. Everybody gets a bad day now and then.

'Tis a shame that Millie Bobby Brown seems to be getting so busy with other projects that she might not get back to the character, so we could see a little more of her Mycroft to find out.

Virtual Sherlockian 2021

 Well, it's not a surprise any more now, is it?

Here we are on the cusp of a new year, and Zoom gatherings of Sherlockiana lie in front of us, as far as the eye can see. Yes, things will change eventually, but right now this is our world. So as one starts to think about the year ahead, resolutions, all that, it's had not to have some questions and plans revolving around that.

First among these for me has to be getting my Zoom calendar under control. Right now, I'm never sure what Sherlock Holmes meetings I'm attending, which ones I prefer and should give priority to, and what is going to happen at the ones I'm involved in the planning of. And beyond that, what virtual functions that haven't existed in the Sherlockian world need to be tried while we're still in this space.

This year is the first time there's been a virtual "New York" birthday weekend as well, and the big question there is now, "What do we wear?" The bow tie fanatics are going to do bow ties no matter what, of course, and a few tuxedo owners will surely don their fancy threads. But the bar hasn't been set for "dress up" level Zoom meetings yet. We've done hats, but full cosplay? With set dressing? As we've gotten more comfortable with virtual gatherings, more folks have been using digital backgrounds, but our visual potential has yet to be reached.

There are a lot of side effects of all the challenges we've faced in the past year. We've met a lot of new folks we might not have met without being forced into virtual gatherings. We've got some new Sherlockian-world "celebrities" in our world as well. Paradigms are shifting. And while the strong traditional side of our hobby remains, the new energies brought to us in the last decade from the major Sherlocks hitting the mainstream have helped us get through this in ways we might not even realize. Had the quarantines hit us about 2005, Sherlockiana as a whole would have taken a much harder hit.

But here we are, on the verge of 2021, with some brand new toys in our Sherlockian toy box, yet again. It's definitely a moment to step back and think about just how we're going to play with them.

We have a listener!

 One of the things about podcast life that I was well aware of going into it has been the "shouting into the void" aspect of it. Podcasters often talk about podcasting on their podcasts, and podcaster panels at 221B Con were very good at both encouraging and laying out some of the realities of the hobby, and one of those realities was the fact that you don't often get much feedback. Or any. People listen to podcasts as a part of their regular routines, and how often do you thank your mailman or the TV shows you watch every week?

Sure, one usually gets download counts and knows how many people are listening. And the numbers for The Watsonian Weekly and Sherlock Holmes is Real have listener counts in line with any Sherlockian activity I've ever done. The one with "Sherlock Holmes" in the title gets more listens than the one with "Watson" in the title, as one might expect. But what one rarely gets is reviews, which, early on, is a very good thing. If amateur podcasters (which everybody is when they start) got compared and critique at the level of Hollywood films, only the truly driven or narcissistic would probably endure.

So this week, The Watsonian Weekly got its best Christmas present ever -- a listener who went through all the episodes without trying to escape, and actually gave us a complimentary thread on Twitter. Even Rob Nunn, our drop-in book reviewer who read so many Sherlockian books this year he couldn't even attempt to review them all without impacting his reading goals.

So this week, Madeline Quiñones gets a shout-out in this blog, a special Christmas episode coming Christmas eve that will bring back "Slow Train to Little Purlington," a feature that's been missing lately, and my learning how to put a tilde over an "n" using a Mac keyboard.

We have a listener! As we start the third year of The Watsonian Weekly, that's a little boost of energy to keep us rolling on with our little podcast. Many thanks to Paul Thomas Miller, Margie Deck, Robert Perret, and even Rob Nunn, along with all those other voices we've dragged on to the show over the past year. Their week-in, week-out work has made the show possible, and the fact that they have supplied bits through some busy, challenging, pandemic-problem weeks of this particular year is especially worth noting. I really appreciate all of their efforts.

But our podcast cast and crew is not a closed-door  group. Have an iPhone or some other app that records voice memos? You, too, could actually be a podcast content creator for The Watsonian Weekly. Get in touch, even if you hate the sound of your own voice. (You know what the best way to get over hating the sound of your own voice is? Keep hearing it over and over again! You get numb to it, and just trust that anyone who keeps listening must not find it too offensive.)

So many thanks to Madeline this week for being one of those rare folk who pulled up our little podcast out of the great sea of podcasts out there. It's great to have a listener!

Doyle writes a pastiche

I don't think I have to explain the long history of disrespect for pastiche in the Sherlockian world.

It's natural, of course. You come to something as a fan, hope to repeat your original enjoyment of that thing, and your attempt to feel that same joy fails. It's as much your fault as the author's, for even having that expectation. The Sherlock Holmes novels I got into during my first summer as a Holmes fan weren't Conan Doyle. In fact, they're works generally thought of as crap, even in one or two cases, by their own authors. But at the time, I loved them and enjoyed them at a level that even the Canon itself doesn't bring me any more.

Pastiche, an honest attempt by any writer to capture the magic that a fellow writer once worked, has the great tragic nobility of the charge of the Light Brigade -- attempting a glorious thing that is probably doomed to failure. Sometimes it's even a spectacular failure. But any writer that loves the written word has to try pastiche at some point, to see if one can use another writer's tricks.

Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

You might have had the thought that his later Sherlock Holmes works are actually pastiches of his original Sherlock Holmes stories from the early nineties, containing the same elements, but not quite measuring up. Did Doyle slip in one written by his wife or secretary? Improbable, but a few of them are just off enough to make one wonder.

This evening, however, was the first time I realized that Conan Doyle borrowed very much from another author within the Canon itself. And I'm not talking about Poe, who gets referenced right off the bat when we are practically told straight on: This detective is not a Poe detective. He's better.

No, what I realized tonight was that Conan Doyle gave us a Baroness Orczy story, shuffled in the middle of a bunch of Sherlock Holmes stories.

The Baroness Orczy created a popular historical stage play -- two genres that Doyle always wanted to be successful in that had a long London run after opening in 1903. She wrote a novel of the same title after her play, called The Scarlet Pimpernel. Many other novels featuring the character followed, in 1906, 1908, 1913, and 1917 . . . yes, 1917, the same year Conan Doyle published the short story "His Last Bow."

The general premise of the Scarlet Pimpernel stories is that we're introduced to a set of characters amid a dangerous historical time, villainy is afoot, and at a key moment -- voila! -- one of the characters was the Scarlet Pimpernel in disguise all along! It's a grand moment in every Pimpernel tale, and the moment the reader waits for, like the M. Night Shyamalan of her day, readers new her story mechanic and it made her very popular. So popular, in fact, that Conan Doyle had to be aware of it.

While I haven't seen any mention of Doyle reading The Scarlet Pimpernel or seeing the play that started its popularity amidst all the documenting of his life that has gone on, the very timing of "His Last Bow," which is basically a Scarlet Pimpernel story with Sherlock Holmes in place of the Pimpernel seems to show that Conan Doyle surely borrowed the scheme from the Baroness.

And, in that respect, wrote a pastiche. Right there in our Sherlockian Canon.