Formerly of the Canon, now of Twitter.

On of my favorite residents of the Twitterverse is a real character named Tween Hobo. I had always enjoyed the tweety frolics of such silly folk as "Drunk Hulk" and "KimJongNumberUn," but Tween Hobo always had a little more personality. So I was delighted to read Alena Smith's blog "It's Who You Don't Know: Fictional Characters on Twitter," and get a bit of the inside scoop on Tween. It's also a great article on how Twitter can serve as a new form of fiction, with characters living there and interacting like a giant roleplay that requires no costumes. What does this have to do with Sherlock Holmes, you ask?

Well, I don't follow Sherlock Holmes on Twitter, fictional or non. But if I wanted to, there are plenty of choices. Haven't really found the Sherlock Holmes to follow yet, but I wander through them every now and then, hoping that someday one will jump out and show himself as The One. (Yes, I'm the Morpheus of Twitter.)

But, interestingly enough, Irene Adler is an even more popular guise, and a veritable army of Irenes can be found living in the Twitterverse. Most of them seem quite charming, and you could fill up your entire feed with the women. Mycroft Holmes . . . no shortage. Professor Moriarty . . . tons.

We had rules about this, back in the day, when you used to pick a Canonical pseudonym after joining a Sherlock Holmes society. No Sherlocks. No Watsons. Some buffoon would always wander in and want to declare himself Sherlock Holmes . . . usually the last person you wanted to socialize with. And people went out of their way to pick fascinating characters in less-than-starring roles. Without the rules of those societies of old, everybody wants to be one of the big name characters -- for many folks, those are the only ones they know, having appeared in the popular films and television.

And that makes it very hard for any one of them to stand out from the pack.

So I started searching for lesser characters who have decided to take up residence upon Twitter.

There's just one Isadora Persano, who seems quite an interesting fellow even though he doesn't tweet much on dualism or what that remarkable worm was. The couple James Phillimores seem to like sports more than disappearing after going for their umbrellas. Looking up Violet Hunter gets me Dog the Bounty Hunter as my first listing (Curse you, Paid Tweets!), but none of the others seem to be the Violet Hunter we know as Holmes's client. Hugo Baskerville apparently likes to join Twitter over and over again and not tweet anything. And Jephro Rucastle isn't there at all.

It seems to me like the folk of the Sherlock Holmes stories are missing a bet by not taking up residence on Twitter like Tween Hobo has. Oh, wait . . . Dr. Grimesby Roylott seems to have made a . . . well, he had a heated run back in December for a few days, then cooled off. He should have paced himself a bit and patiently awaited his more than six followers.

Looking up Canonical characters on Twitter can get quite addicting. There's only one Garrideb (Bhupen Garrideb), sad to say for anyone looking to find a set of three. Mary Sutherland . . . well, apparently that's a popular name, but not the Mary we want in there. Hatty Doran . . . one, who signed up and never tweeted. On and on you can go. In fact, I just have to force myself to stop and actually finish this blog.

Like I said, the Twitterverse seems to have great potential for someone who wants to have fun exploring a Canonical characters thoughts and reactions to the world around us. It makes me even toy a bit with the possibilities for re-forming the Dark Lantern League, that hardy band of Canon escapees from the early 2000s, in a looser Twittery form. But that's down the road a bit. Moving from the Canon to Twitter is a journey that begins with a single tweet.

That said, it just might be that one more Canonical figure of note joined the Twitterverse last night, and has been trying out his or her Twitter-legs. If searching for Canonical characters on Twitter tempts you as much as it does me, I'll give you a few days to find him or her before identifying same. And let me know if you find anyone else from the sixty stories I need to be following, in any case.

There might be some fun to be had there.

Every . . . single . . . episode.

And in a shocking turn of events, I have been accused of not actually watching CBS's Elementary in a recent comment. Efforts have been made to discredit my bonafides for writing about Mr. Elementary and Joan Watson before, but to just start claiming that over half a year of pain and suffering did not actually take place? That's just going too far.

Oh, I have watched Elementary, my friends. I have watched every episode.

I may not have hung on every detail. I may have seen but not observed. I may have obscured my vision by wincing uncontrollably through many an early episode. But I have watched Elementary. 

My brain has tried not to dwell upon the experience, as I'd like to think kindly thoughts about those fans of the show in our little Sherlockian community. I have friends in that group, and I hope if I can just hold out until this thing is finally done, they'll free themselves of its influence and come back to the light. But, nooooooo, somebody has to go and accuse me of not watching Elementary, so I have to remember . . . .

But there are just four episodes left to go. CBS saved them up so they could run the entire month of May, the month Sherlock Holmes died . . . coincidence? Traditional Sherlockian wisdom is that Holmes is living as an ancient somewhere in Sussex now, barely kept alive by some exotic bee by-product. If that's true, is CBS trying to kill him a second time this May with its four-episode run climaxing in a rumored two-hour finale? Hopefully that poor old chap won't be watching this final five hours, but I will.

Yes, however grueling, this marathon must be finished.

And I may try to make the best of it. I may blog about the more positive aspects of the show. But to paraphrase the real modern Sherlock Holmes . . .

Oh, I may be on the side of the Elementary fans . . . every now and then . . . but don't think for one second that I am one of them.

The mind palace dumpster tilts forward, and . . .

Sometimes Twitter is too limited, Facebook is too busy, and you just need to dump some random thoughts on to the interwebs. So here goes:

• I keep thinking Canada's Todd and the Book of Pure Evil is a metaphor for the dark side of being a modern Sherlockian. Unfortunately, I keep coming up as the role of evil guidance counselor with wolf flashbacks in that metaphor, so I don't think I'll explore it further.

• Who has the world's largest collection of Baker Street Babes autographs? If you have more than five, it might be you. If not, it may be me. Time to get in on the ground floor, people, before their celebrity has any of them going all Amanda Bynes on us! Not that we would notice, among some of the truly wacky Sherlockians we've had in the past.

• Somebody please tell me which episode of Elementary was based on "Thor Bridge." They somehow slipped that one by my keen attention to the scenes of Lucy Liu waking up in the morning. Oh, Joan Watson, I would come and sit in a chair by your bed and ramble each morning, too. (Maybe just to get that other guy out of there, but hey . . . a job with perks!)

• Mowing my lawn on this beautiful spring day, I couldn't help but feel the absence of a certain Sherlockian over the fence who'd often be sitting on his patio with a highball glass of whiskey and make me stop my chore for a bit to catch up. He'd have a lot to chuckle about these days, and that does make me smile.

• I have an old book of Sherlockian scholarship or two that have my name on the cover and thus require the occasional autograph for a friend or collector. Because copies are rather limited, such things happen as the "double-autograph" copy, where one owner dies and the new owner wants their copy signed to them. Today marked a whole new experience in autographing books, however, as a Sherlockian who now goes by a completely different name than they did twenty-five years ago asked for the same inscription with their new name on a different page, so they could cut out the old page and still show the book to people without explaining their previous identity. The world is full of fun surprises.

• Last night at about 11:30 P.M., I stopped in our local Peoria Kroger for milk and cereal and was also able to buy a copy of The Gods of Gotham by author and ace Sherlockian Lyndsay Faye. In a supermarket, in Peoria. That was a very cool thing. If I myself was cooler, I might have Instagrammed the moment.

• And for those of you who actually read this blog without being pointed to it by your pissed-off friends, any more comments on a certain blog from this week were suspended on Friday. Some of the kiddies weren't playing nice, and a line in the sand had to be drawn. I apologize to anyone who got caught on the wrong side of that line. In a related note, our aged comment moderator has actually been know to hit the "Delete" link instead of the "Publish" link on comments when it's a particularly groggy morning. Don't take it personally. And don't mention this paragraph to him if you want to get a comment published.

And with that, the mind-palace dumpster finishes pouring it's contents into the moat and slams back into place. Moving along now.

How I've missed you, Mr. Elementary!

 Ah, it's Thursday night and a new Elementary is on the old TV. After a controversial week, it's a lovely thing to relax and sit back for something we can all agree upon.

An interesting take on a Canonical tale on Elementary tonight, which you may have heard about already: They're actually doing a sort-of "after Charles Augustus Milverton." Yes, after nineteen episodes, they're finally using the actual Canon to base a tale upon. Bravo! (Yes, Sebastian Moran didn't count, as his episode had nothing to do with "The Adventure of the Empty House.")

Mr. Elementary, hiding behind a curtain, watching Milverton being shot . . . at the start of the episode. Milverton's choice of blackmail material in this little scenario is especially repulsive -- threatening to release videos of rapes on the internet unless the victims' families pay. As with so many evil contrivances of modern television, one has to wonder if such an evil idea is something we should call "entertainment," but they did certainly find a way to create a Milverton who makes one's skin crawl.

As with the "Snow Angels" episode, Elementary is now keeping Mr. Elementary and Joan Watson working together on one case as partners, which was definitely missing from the earlier parts of the season, when he seemed to just want to ditch her. Outgrowing that "sober companion" nonsense was an important step in the show's development, to be sure, getting them closer to the ground of the original Holmes and Watson.

Mr. Elementary is reminding me more of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory than Sherlock Holmes, but the conversion of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" into an actual detective tale is just too smart to deny. It's probably the smartest thing this show has done. Well, they also brought Alfredo back for a substantial part that doesn't involve car theft, so that's not the only smart thing going on this episode.

The conversations in Joan's bedroom as she's waking up have become a standard of the show, and gives it a cozy-cute thing that somehow fills the absence-of-romance gap just a little bit. He's in her bedroom, she's all snuggled up with bed hair, but there's not the least bit of sexual tension.

Of course, because it's a major network crime drama, they have to follow that sweet little scene with a corpse scene as repulsive as something form the movie Seven. I truly could have spent a lovely evening without the sight of a week-old obese corpse in a bathtub. Of course, the network follows it soon after with one of those PSAs displaying the ravages of cigarette-induced cancer on a person, so the network seems determined to leave one's brain with some unpleasant visual or another. Given all of the smoking in the original Holmes tales, it's especially ironic paired with Elementary.

This episode also wanders heavily into the addiction storyline, humanizing Mr. Elementary, making for a better show, but somehow making him all the less Holmes-like, to my mind. My theory of Mr. Elementary as a fan of the London Sherlock Holmes who took that identity in New York is still serving me well for digesting this namesake of the master detective, tattoos and all.

Overall, I'm not sure if I liked this latest episode of Elementary. I like the idea of it, but the execution seemed somehow lacking just a bit of something. Maybe it was the yuck factor of Milverton's scheme and his obese corpse of a partner. Maybe it was the sobriety chip plot and scenes of Mr. Elementary tattooing himself. I'm not sure.

Next episode, however, they say we're getting strands of Moriarty's web as we head toward the season finale. The penultimate episode is also titled "The Woman," so Milverton's Canonical-based plot this week gives some small hope of something interesting for the Sherlockian viewer in weeks ahead.

And in one final note: I'm dedicating this week's kindler, gentler review of Elementary to the young lady who portrayed Joan Watson for the 221B Con costume contest. It's very hard to be mean to the show knowing she's out there somewhere.

Conan Doyle Estates.

I've got this crazy idea for a gated community within a gated community.

I buy up a bunch of land, develop it with some nice houses, and call it "Conan Doyle Estates." As a direct tie to the great man himself, I'd also buy some book or lesser manuscript from the original inheritance he left, frame individual pages, and put one in every house. Outside that gated community and completely surrounding it, I'd build a second housing development of houses adjacent to Conan Doyle Estates. These houses, I'd rent out by the hour to folks who wanted to come in read, experience, taste, or otherwise enjoy any book or product having to do with Sherlock Holmes. If anyone in the rented houses enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes product and gave it their stamp of approval, that product could then by advertised with the motto: "Approved by the Conan Doyle Estates."

Nothing fraudulent there, right? Conan Doyle Estates contains property owned by Doyle at the time of his death, part of his estate, so if there's a little confusion, a little mistaking the current business for the actual direct inheritance of Doyle's kids, well, technically the framed pages in the houses have filled the bill. And I'm just renting and selling houses, nothing at all skeezy in that. They're good houses, with nice framed Doyleiana inside. And as a result, we get a whole lot of books with "Approved by the Conan Doyle Estates" on the cover, which is apparently a very good thing in some circles.

Yes, it's a crazy idea, and I still like the thought of a Sherlock Holmes amusement park much better. But there are ideas just as crazy out there these days that seem to be working for some folks, so feel free to borrow it if you have the time and energy. I probably won't be renting one of your houses though.

Those "approved" labels just have never worked for me.

A bad taste in wine.

Seeing Sherlock Holmes used to promote some product or another is nothing new. And getting word of a Sherlockian creating a small batch of some product honoring the great detective always brings a smile. Of course, one small detail can sometimes turn something pleasant into . . . something maybe not so agreeable.

When 221B Cellars decided to put out A Study in Scarlet, their first limited "first edition" wine, and sent out some nice little cards to announce same, they covered all the bases. Picture of Beeton's Christmas Annual, check. Note from Sherlock Holmes with fake quotables ("I have always found that people confuse and wine clarifies."), check. Small card announcing that a portion of the proceeds go to the University of Minnesota Sherlock Holmes Collections and the Napa Valley Napoleons, check. (Though I never thought of a scion society as a place for donated proceeds before, but, hey, I suppose it's bringing Sherlock to the wine-drunk unSherlocked of Napa or something.)

But then, on the very back of the advertising card, I found "Licensed by The Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. All 221B Cellars TM wines are produced and sold under a license with the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. We extend grateful acknowledgement to Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. for permission to use the Sherlock Holmes characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."

Suddenly the nice little Sherlock Holmes wine turned political. I would guess that 221B Cellars set up their promo card before the "Free Sherlock" movement began and aren't rabid supporters of The Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. and their right to bully anyone using Sherlock Holmes in their own endeavors. The wine-makers apparently aren't too concerned with profits, after donating portions of their proceeds to the U of M, a scion, and The Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. They're just trying to do the right thing, but unfortunately, The Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. uses that right impulse as a means of money-making.

After delighting in Cara McGee's Sherlock Holmes blends of Adagio teas, I wasn't at all opposed to a little wine love for Sherlock from 221B Cellars. But that kissing up to The Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. on the back of their promo card really didn't do them any favors. As the lawsuit to free Sherlock Holmes moves forward, some entities may still want to pay the demands of The Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. just to stay in the clear. I can understand playing it safe. Being a rebel isn't for everyone, especially where it involves the legal system. But they may want to downplay their connection to that entity until it can prove its authority in court.

It sure doesn't make me feel all Sherlock-happy to associate it with anything, and I know I'm not alone.

Us and them, me and you.

As humans, we seem to have an instinctual need to be wary of "the other."

We can't help ourselves. It drives back to a time when the survival of your tribe was dependent upon not letting the others outside your group take away what you needed to live. A part of our brains still seems to be scanning for those whose differences make them someone to watch out for, even in situations that have little impact on our actual survival.

And in fandom, those lines are always clear cut from day one. You're either someone who likes Sherlock Holmes, who gets it, or one of those other people, who usually outnumber folk of your taste in great numbers. It's not like football or other sports, where the fans are so numerous they have to subdivide so they have groups of fellow football fans to be their enemy tribe. When you can have a national gathering of your fellow fans and only draw a couple of hundred people, you tend to let the differences fall aside, as you're a handful of like-minded in a vast sea of "muggles," as the Harry Potter fans like to say.

Whenever Sherlock Holmes's popularity gets a growth spurt, though, we get a little case of the "us and them." Those of us that get it versus those who don't. And I'm horrible about that. When Doylean scholarship was on the rise back in the eighties, and I was solidly in the "Watson wrote the stories" camp, watching what looked like a bulldozer headed for the playground, I actually had something printed up for the B.S.I. dinner packets heralding the formation of the "Doylebusters" with a cute Ghostbusters-type logo with a cartoon Doyle instead of a spook. The slogan underneath ran "We ain't afraid of no spiritualists." But since I'm not completely mad, as some might think at times, that entire print run got tucked away and eventually trashed. Sometimes you have to keep the things that amuse you to yourself. (Said the blogger.)

Whether it's men-only Sherlock Holmes clubs, lovers of Elementary, or those who still smoke pipes, there will always be folk in Holmes fandom whose brain-patterns I can't completely empathize with . . . or partially empathize with . . . or ever be one of those who gets it, whatever "it" is. I'm sure you have a few of them, too. Attitudes and tastes within the Sherlock Holmes community run the gamut as far and wide as they do with the general populace. We have our conservatives, our liberals, our reactionaries, and our radicals. As monolithic as the Sherlockian community might look to a newcomer, we're not even close to all the same.

But here's the thing: as much as one might snark at some crazy-lame idea about Holmes from a distance, where the idea is much separated from the person who thunk it, in person, 98% of us are congenial sweethearts who make excellent dinner company. From the stauchest old Irregular to the spiciest writer of Sherlock fanfic, up close and in person, you'd probably get along with each other.

Which is kind of the point I've been trying to make ever since 221B Con. Nearly 700 people, and 98% of them were cool. Yeah, I may have seemed to throw a lot of the old world Sherlockiana over in the process, but -- news flash -- I've sorta been doing that for the last twenty-five years. And there aren't too many bridges that have been burned up along the way. (A few still show serious charring, and I'm not proud of that, to be sure.) "Us and them" is a hard instinct to fight against, even within the bounds of your beloved hobby.

The only real cure is getting the chance for "you and me," when you actually get to meet some of the "others" face to face at a con, symposium, or other event. Sure, there's going to be that 2% you may run into that truly suck, but don't let them become the face of an entire faction of Sherlock fandom for you. The rest of us probably don't like them either . . . . Hey! One more thing we have in common.

See you around.