What makes a Sherlockian?

Reading an interchange on Twitter this morning about some folks who "went on to read the Canon and become Sherlockians," followed by a comment on "the age-old question about whether reading the Canon is the measure of a Sherlockian," my early morning brain, that simplest and most honest of brains, reacted with three words: "No, it's not."

"Why did you say that, early morning brain?" I inquired.

"Don Izban," my brain replied.

Forgive me if I get a detail or two wrong here, as it's been a while since I've been up to Chicago or crossed paths with Don, but for those of you who have done neither, Don Izban is a genial and often hilarious Sherlockian who has put together more than a few Chicago Sherlockian traditions. And one thing I still remember him doing from my time up there was claiming to never have read the Canon.

We all took it as a gag, of course, but the funniest part was when you would stop and wonder, "What if he really never did?"

Sure, he did great tours of the cemetery where Vincent Starrett was buried. Sure, he started the STUD Sherlockian Society and co-founded a Sherlockian jazz appreciaton event, among other things. But none of those things really required reading the Canon.

Which made me realize that you don't even have to like Sherlock Holmes to be a Sherlockian. Here's the two-part actual baseline that I've seen proven out, time and again, over the last forty years for being a Sherlockian.

a.) Know there's something called "a Sherlockian."

b.) Find some people calling themselves "Sherlockians" to hang out with, either in person or online.

That's it. If you just hang out with Sherlockians, it pretty quickly becomes assumed that you are a Sherlockian. You don't have to read Doyle. You don't have to watch BBC Sherlock. You really don't have to do anything else but connect with at least one other Sherlockian and listen to them and nod.

That's what makes a Sherlockian.

Show up at this weekend's Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium, and guess what? You're a Sherlockian! Find your way to one gathering of Sherlockians, and guess what? You've got Sherlockian street cred. 

Any bar set above those two conditions that I've laid out above is just someone trying to put themselves above or below someone else in that perverse desire we have to rank people, be it to compliment them or ourselves. Being a Sherlockian? Not really so hard.

Finding out Sherlockians exist, in a world where we are a real tiny fraction of the population, is the highest hurdle you have to jump, and that's usually just chance.

So if you're reading this, and you don't actively resist the tag, hello, fellow Sherlockian!

Priest Frightenin'

You might know her as Hatty Doran from "The Noble Bachelor." Me, I call her "Priest Frightenin'!" Let me explain it to you in song.

This bride is . . . sigh . . . volcanic.
She disappeared  . . . in . . . a panic.
Don't be so . . . Pur . . . itanic!
Why, she's Priest Frightenin'!
(Priest Frightenin'!)

You get a California girl, and make sure she's rich, oh yeah!
(St. Simon, go, St. Simon!)
Bring her back to England, and get her to church, oh yeah!
(She'll get you the money! You really need the money!)
She'll walk down the aisle on cue, but who's that in the pew?
I won't say it's revoltin',
But, Hay, Frances Moulton! Priest Frightenin'!

Oh, oh, oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

Oh, Priest Frightenin', you're gonna get this thing anulled!
(Priest Frightenin', oh, Priest Frightenin!)
Oh, oh, Priest Frightenin', you're ruining these wedding vows!
(Priest Frightenin', oh, Priest Frightenin'!)
Your bigamy! Makes you run free!
You're Priest Frightenin'!

Oh, oh, oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

This is what happens when you're days away from a Sherlockian event on the other side of the country, and there's madness in the air on a rather large scale. Stress relief takes some odd forms.

A critically acclaimed Moriarty movie?

I find my movie-going self rather vexed this weekend, since my comic-loving inner thirteen year old would love to go see a comic book movie, but the big studio option for this weekend (and maybe the fall) is an attempt to humanize and give a meaningful backstory to a classic Batman villain . . . without bringing Batman into it.

Like the previous movie incarnation of the same character, a very talented, very serious actor is taking the comic book villain to new levels, and the last time that happened, what I saw on screen transcended the source material so much that it was, for all intents and purposes, a brand new character.

Which brings me to Professor Moriarty, the barely-seen master criminal whom Sherlock Holmes saw as his career's greatest challenge. Moriarty was the best criminal mind there was, and since we know next to nothing of what criminal plots he actually concocted, we can't dispute that fact. If Sherlock Holmes said he was that much of a genius, he must have been. Other than one, brief, second-hand interview at Baker Street, we never read of Moriarty actually doing anything. We get his non-crime resume. We get a description of what he looks like. But outside of a bit of back-and-forth dialogue with a man he just met that one time, we have no idea of what his life was like.

If one were to film Mortiarty, a motion picture devoted to showing us all of Moriarty up until that time Sherlock Holmes noticed and came after him, would that actually be a good thing?

Since Moriarty's life is such a void, wouldn't an attempt to give him two hours of backstory just be the same as creating a new character?

That's basically what happened with Joker, the Batman villain movie out this weekend, for better or worse. The movie's success may cause the comics to retrofit some of its details into the comic book's mythos, but at this moment, the movie seems to have definitely spun its own Earth into the DC comics multiverse.

We've had Moriarty novels before, from John Gardner and Michael Kurland, but Sherlock Holmes always has to show up at some point. Moriarty has yet to separate himself completely from Holmes in a major adaptation. And the idea of a Joker-like film that takes Moriarty out to stand completely on his own in a critically-acclaimed display of his humanity . . . well, that seems as far-fetched as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where Richard Roxburgh got to give him a go without Sherlock around.

But I think I'd go see it. After Sherlock Gnomes, I know I can definitely take one for the team, so how bad could Moriarty be? (Well, a bakery mascot baby, like he was in Sherlock Gnomes. All Holmes might be good Holmes, but all Moriarty should just be bad Moriarty in one way or another, shouldn't it?

Mrs. John H. Watson, shipped in 1904

Found something odd tonight . . .

You see, I have this very silly collecting tic. And another find wandered my way as a book sale was being set up by someone who new my avocation.

Three finds actually. Those first three. Conan Doyle's Best Books. A three volume set of very common American editions published by P.F. Collier in 1904. The first two have Sherlock Holmes stories, but the third doesn't, despite the spines of all three stating "Stories of Sherlock Holmes."

Even the one with The White Company and Beyond the City. They're a curious set, collecting some curious things. All sorts of Conan Doyle stories, illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele, an essay by Conan Doyle class-mate Dr. Harold Emery Jones called "The Original of Sherlock Holmes." And P.F. Collier must have sold a lot of these suckers, because as they collected all sort of stuff, I've wound up collecting all sorts of them over the years.

Blame the rise and fall of the antique mall. They were everywhere and very cheap. The problem is, you start to take things for granted. "Oh, just more collections of Sherlock Holmes stories." And you don't look too close at what's inside. Until one night you do. Annnnndd, this . . .

That's Mrs. Watson from The Sign of the Four. Except for that little fact that we all know so well: Mrs. Watson was never in The Sign of the Four. Mary Morstan was in The Sign of the Four. Dr. Watson proposed to Mary Morstan in The Sign of the Four. But there was never a wedding in The Sign of the Four. If you look at the squiggle signature, you'll find Frederic Dorr Steele's initials and the number 1903: The year Steele first started drawing Sherlock Holmes . . . but for the stories of The Return of Sherlock Holmes. 

So I grab up a reprint of The Return of Sherlock Holmes featuring the American illustrations by Steele, and what do I find?

Violet Smith, the solitary cyclist. Now I had heard rumors of folk who identified her as a prospective Mrs. Watson, but I never really knew why until tonight. Someone in the book layout department at P.F. Collier's in 1903-1904 decided that Violet Smith made the perfect Mrs. Watson and shipped her right into the actual Canon's illustrations that way.

Both of these illustrations have been in my library for thirty years, but it took getting one more duplicate tonight for me to put the two together. Now Violet Smith will be a Mrs. Watson to me for the rest of my life . . . I mean, somebody in 1903 seemed to know it to be true, right at the time Watson deserted Holmes for a wife. Was someone at Collier's actually trying to tell us something that Watson's agent was keeping hushed up?

I've heard worse theories, when it comes to the good doctor!

Delusions and tiger cubs

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 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.

"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.