Sherlock & Co. -- A Textbook in Friendship

 "You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces the same effect as if you worked a love story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid."

-- Sherlock Holmes on Watson's fanfic

Following a Sherlock & Co. meetup for those lucky enough to be close to London or have travel time and funds available, the podcast's writer, Joel Emery put out a very thoughtful Twitter thread. It became obvious that the question we all knew was out there got asked: Are Sherlock Holmes and John Watson going to be a full-on couple? It may have been seven years and our bodies might have possibly regenerated all of their cells, according to some, but you can't stop the Johnlock. Someone plainly asked, and seems to have asked in the manner of "Why aren't you doing this thing you plainly should be doing?"

"We want listeners to feel like they're best friends with Sherlock, Watson, & Mariana," Joel Emery wrote. "The way we do that is by having them build a loving, powerful friendship between all three of them. A physical relationship between any of them changes that dynamic. (imo)"

I kinda loved that. It's what the podcast was actually giving us, the feelings that I was getting from the show's primary trio. Their Mrs. Hudson brings so much to the Holmes/Watson dynamic that we were already comparing them to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy from Star Trek. And it's a big part of what makes this new adaptation great.

It's interestingly ironic that adding a woman to the traditional male partnership formula makes it more friendship-oriented, almost like she's a talisman against Johnlock or a chaperone. But Marianna has grown into such a fully formed part of the 221 Baker Street team in this adaptation and so much more than any previous "Mrs. Hudson" that trying to define her as anything so small is impossible. (And for those of you who still haven't gotten into the show -- since Marianna was representing a realty firm called "Hudson's" when Holmes and Watson first met her, Sherlock started their whole relationship by constantly calling her "Mrs. Hudson" instead of her full name, Marianna Ametxazurra.)

Marianna has become such a key part of the team that a recent episode actually included the fact she wouldn't be in the episode as a trigger warning. And suddenly it was interesting to see how Sherlock and John were without her. John, for example, suddenly feels comfortable making allusions to an old girlfriends' bra size in that sort of "guy talk" that is a foreign language to Sherlock Holmes. But it isn't what Marianna keeps from coming out in their Baker Street agency that makes her great, it's what she brings to the table.

With Marianna serving as the practical, common sense part of the team, we get to see much more personality from John Watson. At the same time, she mediates the rough edges of the John/Sherlock contrast we saw in BBC Sherlock, and allows Sherlock to be a bit more Sherlock without John getting quite so peeved at him. But there's more to it than that, and will be still more as the podcast goes on -- this is a story of evolving characters, not static cut-outs who reset each week.

Sherlock & Co. is wonderful about bringing other characters along for the ride without hurting the stories. Stamford showing up every now and again as he did in "Dancing Men." Wiggins proving useful when things get a little more criminal-oriented. Relationships continue on, as they do in life. And Mariana "Mrs. Hudson" Ametxazurra being a regular part of the boys' lives and friendship brings so much to these new adaptations of the original sixty stories in ways that shipping any two of them (or all three, as happens in fic) would undoubtedly spoil.

And it all keeps its listeners coming back for more each week, even though some of us have these stories printed on our souls at this point. The show seems to have found its groove and gone from really good to REALLY really good. as we approach the end of the Canonical sixty's first quarter.

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End Note: I based the title of this post on Christopher Morley's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: A Textbook of Friendship, which really didn't give lessons in friendship either, just told you how good the stories were and then reprinted the stories.

Was He A Greek Interpreter or a Greek Interpreter?

 Sometimes I am vexing to more people than just the good Carter, my partner of so many years.

Take tonight at our local library Sherlockian discussion group, discussing "The Greek Interpreter," for example. A lot of questions where posed and discussed. Was Mycroft involved with MI-6? When did Holmes learn about the obliquity of the ecliptic when he had earlier professed ignorance of Copernican theory? What rights did Sophy Kratides have in the Victorian age? And why is it only non-British girls seem capable of violence in these stories?

All fine questions. And then there's the question I wonder about.

Does the title of the story "The Greek Interpreter" refer to Mr. Melas being from Greece or interpreting Greek?

Everyone seemed to agree that it could mean both, but I still had to ask: Which way did Conan Doyle intend it to mean when he wrote it?

"BOTH!" came the answer from the rest of our jury-sized group.

"But when I say something, I usually mean it one way, not two ways at once," I protested.

"That might just be you." This is probably not an exact quote. It's been an hour.

"I am Greek by birth and with a Grecian name, it is with that particular tongue that I am principally associated," Mr. Melas says in the story.

But in the title, is it saying that he's Greek or that he interprets Greek language? Conan Doyle had to mean one, didn't he? Or was he consciously and purposefully letting it stand for both?

What I did not say at the meeting, as we'd already discussed the xenophobic tendencies of the stories, with the Greek girl getting her stabby revenge in the postscript, was that I was kind of wondering because if Doyle felt the need to specify that the interpreter was Greek in the title, it has a whole different feeling than if he was just a guy who spoke Greek.

Since our friend Mary had mentioned the 1955 Ronald Howard adaptation, titled "The French Interpreter" (which curiously includes the Diogenes Club while leaving out Mycroft), I thought I would check it out to see how they treated Melas's French version. In the 1955 edition, filmed in France, they made Melas into a Claude Dubec. But he, like Melas, says he is French by birth and translates his native language in Britain, even though, like Melas, he knows other languages as well. So both Dubec and Melas are interpreters even when not conversing in their native tongue, but are both placed in situations when their home language is the interpreting need.

So now I have to also wonder: Was Claude Debuc a French interpreter or a French interpreter, just like I wondered if Melas was a Greek interpreter or a Greek Interpreter?

So I shall toss this question to the internet: What does the title "The Greek Interpreter" really mean? Greek or Greek? (I shall accept that the same answer applies to the 1955 "French" adaptation, as well.)

The Ghost in the Pastiche Machine

 You have to think there's an AI-generated Sherlock Holmes book on Amazon, even now.

I don't know how many of us shop for random Sherlock Holmes books by names we don't know, so perhaps nobody has stumbled on it yet, but I have to think that somewhere out there one of those non-writers with big ideas and big desires has used the digital beastie to put together something that looks vaguely like the writings of Watson and put it on the web to sell.

We know folks have dabbled with the demon for toasts and art "just to see what it will do." We're also being sold on how it can improve your writing, not write things for you. But there's the slippery slope. At what point does the composition become the work of the AI and not your own, if you're using it to rework your words into something more palatable?

And here's the other thing we have yet to learn: Will a writer who leans on AI early on get better at writing? Will the old "thousand hours" proposed by goofy Malcom Gladwell result in expertise? Or will that writer be just as bad -- or worse -- at writing without the AI's help? Will they ever develop their own style?

Or will they simply annoy us by flooding the market with AI work that's pretty much like the AI work of other folks who decide to press the big AI "Easy" button?

The Sherlockian communities can be smaller, where people know each other and their work, so we might be buffered against the beastie somewhat. But with generational change, and the prevalence of the thing coming along, Sherlockiana may not be proof against it. It's gonna be a sneaky bastard.

In decades past, hardcore Sherlockians really crapped on pastiches in their love of the original Canon. As markets opened up, and opportunities for us to have our own pastiches published, whether online or in a collection, all except the worst of us have developed at least a surface tolerance for the pastiche. What will AI bring to that mix? Hard to say.

But it's coming, if it's not here already. So we shall see.

I Like This Watson Better.

 Okay, it's heresy time. Or blasphemy. At least to a few of you (who are probably not the ones reading this), as there has long been a section of our traditional Sherlockian world that finds new ideas abhorent. So let's get it out of the way.

I like Sherlock & Co. John Watson better than Canon John Watson.

It's not just that Paul Waggott is a terrific voice actor who takes all the good things Martin Freeman brought to a modern Watson to the next level, hits the goofiness of a Nigel Bruce without the rampant idiocy, and still manages to be completely charming -- of course the scripts by Joel Emery are a large part of that. Teamwork makes the dream work, as they say.

No, it's the one thing that Canon Watson never gave us, that Sherlock & Co. is giving us in spades.

This week began their adaptation of "Shoscombe Old Place." (They're adapting all sixty stories, if you haven't been paying attention.) And how did they get to Shoscombe in this version of the tale?

They are taking a little vacation in Watson's home town. At the house he was born in. The town where he lost his virginity. The town where he had that one relationship that he'd rather not talk about. And we get the details, even if it takes Sherlock to drag them out of him at points.

This Watson is forthcoming, written by a writer who knows we want to know these things and seems to actually love his characters. We get to learn things we want to know.

True, this won't result in a hundred years of speculative writings trying to fill in the gaps, as kept Sherlockiana running all these decades, but, good lord, is it refreshing and enjoyable!

So, yeah, I'm really liking this Watson. Could be my favorite Watson ever. Is that heresy, blasphemy, or the statement of the sort of fool who loves the movie Holmes & Watson far more than is prudent in polite society? Could be. I'm not going to put on the airs of anyone who claims to be a Sherlock Holmes authority as we occasionally see on the web these days. But if you've not listened to Sherlock & Co., give it a shot. Figure out how to listen to podcasts if you haven't already. It'll be worth it.

And if it's not, well, shout "Heretic!" at me when next we meet. I'll enjoy the attention, I'm sure, and have one more thing to blog about.

Following Superbaby to see Sherlock Holmes

 In addition to May 4th being Reichenbach Day, Star Wars Day, Cinco De Mayo Eve, and whatever else this year, it was Free Comic Book Day at many a local comic store. I stopped in for a look and wound up picking up a few well-worn issues of Superboy on the cheap just because they had Superbaby on the cover and he makes me laugh.

Just look at that kid! Since nobody knew who Superman was yet, nobody was going, "Hey, that baby is dressed just like Superman!" so Ma and Pa Kent could kinda keep his Kryptonian origins secret. But one particular issue from April 1964 had a little surprise inside that wasn't a baby flying out of a serving platter as the cover showed.

The letters page of that issue had a certain name that popped the minute my eyes scanned the page.

"But in one sequence Lana Lang was able to summon Sherlock Holmes from the past. How was this possible? As everyone knows, the great sleuth Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character," wrote Richard Walls of West Des Moines, Iowa.

WHAT? There was an issue of Superboy that had Sherlock Holmes in it? To the internet!

Yep, "The Surrender of Superboy" from issue 110 in January of that year. And copies were to be had a reasonable prices on eBay, if one wasn't too concerned about condition (and I was not). They weren't slabbed and graded in plastic, either, as is the current trend on collectable comics, so I could get in and have a look at Sherlock's appearance.

And not only was it a Sherlock Holmes appearance, it was a Sherlock Holmes team-up with Edgar Allen Poe! Oddly enough, even though summoned from the past, Sherlock Holmes seems to know all about Superboy and how Lana shouldn't mess with him. 

It's only one page, as Lana sends Holmes back to the past after he barely does anything, but still -- a really neat treat for the Sherlockian comic collection. All thanks to that wacky Superbaby!

The Diary of a 221st Southumberland Waffleer

 "In the year 2023 I took my menu at the Waffle House of Peachtree City, Georgia, and proceed to order the courses prescribed by the waitress at the counter. Having completed my breakfast there, I was duly attached to the Two Hundred and Twenty-First Southumberland Waffleers as an assistant transporter."

-- From The Reminiscences of Brad A. Keefauver, EmDee (like a lower level of emcee)

That first Waffle House breakfast, April 14, 2023.

I shall never first my first Waffle House breakfast. At the tender age of sixty-five years old, it was like I had waited my whole life to finally cross that threshold, at a time when my body wanted to retire from all work and just eat breakfasts. (I still haven't allowed my body that comfort.) Still, the inspiring words of the leader of the 221st Southumberland Waffleers, that modern day Horace Greeley of breakfast, Steve Mason pushed many of us to the waffle front that year. We were not the first. We would not be the last.

The 2023 British Invasion

With Paul Thomas Miller commanding the first table of Waffleers that campaign, I was relegated to the counter, where a kindly waitress explained to me all of the workings of the Waffle House menu. I ordered the "All-Star Special," which is said to have a calorie count that only an orderly and a pack-horse can bring you safely away from. I landed back at the hotel with my waistline irretrievably ruined, but permission from my marital government to spend the next eleven months in attempting to improve it.

Eleven months later, it had not much improved, but the call went out, and I answered. This time, the location was Englewood, Ohio, which some call "Dayton."

March 23, 2024

This time, I found myself in the company of the officers of our company and a local commander. There are not many encounters where you can relive past glories like you can at a Waffle House, and again the All-Star Special came at me, and again it was summarily dealt with. 

A successful endeavor done!

I returned with one of our junior lieutenants the very next morning to find the site had been completely occupied by our forces after the success of our scouting party the previous morning.

Waffleers Ho!

But such successes on the battlefield of breakfast inevitably cause one to go too far, to attempt to take on more challenges than one's forces might be capable of holding and not gaining another ten pounds. Not a full month later, the Waffleers encamped in Atlanta, at yet another airport hotel, this one in the actual city its airport was named for.

The 8AM Campaign, Friday, Peachtree City 2024

It was April 12, 2024, a Friday I will not soon forget. As the change from Central to Eastern time caused our commander to delay our sortie until 8 AM, I was awake and ready when time came to assemble at our departure point. I plotted our route and got us back to the site of my previous year's first encounter with the WH waffle. I held back in my efforts and went with the "Two Egg Breakfast & Bacon," foregoing the waffle to preserve my energies. Little did I know what fate had in store for me.

Upon returning to our encampment at the Atlanta Airport Marriott, I found Waffleers who had missed the first call to forks, just as I had missed ordering a waffle during that early mission. There was only one answer to solve all our problems.

A waffle.

Back we went, shocking the waitress as two of our number were back at the same table we'd sat less than two hours before.

The 10 AM Campaign, Friday, Peachtree City 2024

At this point, waffle madness had begun to set in. Saturday morning, 8 AM, another Waffle House, this time in Fairburn, Georgia because our leader was tired of driving past six Waffle Houses to get to the one where my past glories had occurred. My ability to take photos was decreasing with my growing girth. And again we went, Sunday morning, 8 AM, taking up two troop carriers with the sheer mass of our forces.

Taken after stumbling out of my fourth WH visit in three days.

Was it all over? Was it all done? The call came for one last photo by the Waffle House sign to mark our last campaign of spring 2024. We gathered. We surrounded the sign. And just as the picture was about to be taken, the manager of the Waffle House and our waitress ran out. The manager offered to take the picture, the waitress handed me a handful of Waffle House hats to adorn our heads. We had not just invaded this Waffle House. We had emerged victorious. 

The final Waffleer shot of our spring 2024 campaigns.

Returning to our base camp at 221B Con, it would be some time before I took that Waffle House hat off. One of the vendors who sold Waffle House earrings converted some of them to necklaces, and I wore that the rest of the weekend when the hat did finally come off. What does any of this have to do with Sherlock Holmes? 

I do not know. But it's too late to even ask.

A Waffleer.

The Hallmark of a Scandal in Bohemia Romance

 During our recent discussion of "A Scandal in Bohemia" at our local library, we came upon a realization that couldn't be unrealized: "A Scandal in Bohemia" has all the makings of a Hallmark movie.

There is the prince, of course. Hallmark movies love their princes. The fairy tale come true.

And our Hallmark adaptation of "A Scandal in Bohemia" starts in what is typically the last act of of a "girl meets prince" story. Irene Adler in finishing her final performance with the Imperial Opera of Warsaw, her vocals providing the soundtrack for the opening credits as Wilhelm Gottsrich Sigismond von Ormstein watches adoringly from his box, fiddling excitedly with a small box, that we eventually see has a ring in it.

Irene's performance finishes and she rushes backstage, immediately asking her best friend/costumer if the bags are packed. Her pal replies that of course they are, and already en route to the station. Irene is returning to America and her roots after finding Europe just too traditional and trapped in its history. They leave the theater and start to get into a waiting four-wheeler only to find the handsome and charming King Willie inside. Irene is angry at first, but he wins her over, convincing her that her American ideas are just what Bohemia needs and if she agrees to marry him, they will show Europe that new ideas are possible.

Cut to three weeks later, with title card saying "Three weeks later . . ."

Willie, sitting cowed with his mother and his ministers, telling Irene that his royal duties must take precedence over his personal desires and that he cannot be with her. His mother states that travel arrangements have been made and that she has passage booked to America, and that the Bohemian royal guards will now escort her to a waiting ship. As they leave the palace, however, Irene eludes her escorts and leads them on a merry chase, finally taking refuge in the British Embassy.

Here we meet the slightly awkward but endearing Godfrey Norton, who at first tries to talk her into going to the American embassy, but eventually sees the menacing-looking Bohemian guards outside the embassy searching for her and agrees to help her escape.

Norton has some emergency documents they keep at the embassy allowing Godfrey and Irene to pose as a Canadian couple and leave Bohemia by train. A lot of cute stuff goes on here, and at one point in the journey Irene accidentally sees this awkward Brit with his shirt off and realizes what a hunk o' man he is, as Hallmark movies tend to go with. She is recognized by a fan at some point, and the King of Bohemia's agents start making trouble, stealing her luggage (which makes her wear charming local garb so Godfrey can see that she's just a normal American girl and not a fancy opera star), and attacking twice with Irene and Godfrey working so naturally together in fending them off that it brings them closer together. A mystery man is watching them as well, but they don't notice.

News of the King's impending marriage comes to them, and Irene sends the King a telegram telling him to call off his agents or she will send the photo of him and her to his fiancee's family. Godfrey and Irene were getting pretty close, but Godfrey is put off by the fact Irene still has a photo of her and the King, thinking feelings still exist.

At this point, the Watson-written part of "A Scandal in Bohemia" kicks in. Irene has settled temporarily in London, and Godfrey is preparing to return to embassy duty in Europe, when he is summoned to Whitehall by one Mycroft Holmes, who wants to know why he's helping this American woman screw up an important alliance-cementing European royal wedding. Godfrey tries to tell Mycroft that Irene is a good person who has authentic feelings for the King and a broken heart, but Mycroft then tells Godfrey that his best agent had been watching Godfrey and Irene since Bohemia (the mystery man mentioned earlier) who steps in to report that Irene Adler is plainly in love with Godfrey, not the King. Mycroft points out that if Godfrey were to marry Irene, she would pose no threat the the King, and Godfrey awkwardly wraps up the conversation and rushes out.

Godfrey and Irene have their big moment, ending all confusion and admitting their love for each other, and we soon get all the rush to get married part with Sherlock Holmes as their witness that we know so well.

The story concludes with Godfrey and Irene happy and headed for America, Willie and Clothilde happily at their Scandinavian royal wedding, and Irene's costumer friend having a meet cute with Dr. Watson.

The final mid-credit scene of the movie is Sherlock Holmes visiting his brother Mycroft and comparing notes, with Mycroft alluding that he actually solved the problem and that Sherlock wasn't needed. And that maybe Sherlock should see about finding a wife of Irene's caliber, which Sherlock nopes in some funny fashion that may or may not involve Watson.

The End.

It's the spaces in between what we know of the King, Irene, and Godfrey that make "A Scandal in Bohemia" true Hallmark movie fodder. Watson's different, distant POV only gives us the most scant outline of the romance that lies beneath the King and Sherlock story, and neither of them is the true lead character of "A Scandal in Bohemia."

I really hope Hallmark does adapt the tale one day and bring it to its true potential. And let Godfrey Norton finally have his due and his Irene.