In the many decades of Sherlockian life, our writers have often referred to this hobby and the world its stories conjure as a sweet place to escape the grim realities of everyday life. But this morning, after listening to my favorite Sherlockian podcast inserting commercials and a clip from another podcast on their network -- in which British folks comment on an American political event -- I don't know that the escape hatch is completely closing. Friday night, during our long, long Dangling Prussian zoom of Sherlockian rambles, I even had to shut down what quickly was turning into a deba ..read more

 The big Friday night is nearly here. A whole lot of folks are either in New York City as we speak, or headed there. A longer distance for some than others, more costly than many would like, but when they get to that city, at this time of year, the Sherlocking comes easy. It doesn't matter if you make the guest list of this private party or that. There are Sherlockians there looking to Sherlock, and you can pull up a chair in their midst make friends, see old friends . . . really, just easy once you get there.  But we can't all get there. Simple fact. Now, having a Friday night open ..read more

 So this popped up on the socials today . . . It didn't specify which hobby, but I know at least one person out there associated it with our very own Sherlockiana. As an older hobbyist who has occasionally been an asshole myself, I have to say, yes, there is some truth in that. Probably moreso in fandoms with more consistent content flows -- I mean nobody hates Star Wars so much as a Star Wars fan. And the thing about Sherlockiana as well, is that I have always theorized we have more baby fans in their sixties than any other fandom. People come here after retirement, when they're return ..read more

 Since the new year is always a moment to contemplate change, sometimes it's easier to look at how we have changed over the years instead of how we hope to change in the future. So let's step back to January of 1991. Instead of this blog, I was writing a monthly column for our local Sherlockian society's newsletter, Plugs & Dottles. (The Hansoms of John Clayton version -- it's a newsletter name others have used too.) And what did I write that January? "Out, Damned Watson!" -- an essay that proposed eliminating Dr. Watson from future Sherlock Holmes adaptations. I know, right? What the ..read more

 As a fan of Sherlock Holmes who interacts with other fans of Sherlock Holmes over decades, I've alway felt that unnecessary urge to somehow find order and patterns in our legion of co-enthusiasts. The human mind likes to categorize things, and Sherlockiana is an ever-changing mass of humanity that sure looks like it can be categorized -- much like the Sherlockian canon looks like it can be put in date order. So one occasionally tries. The very first set of categories that I ever considered breaking Sherlockiana into was local and national, back when international mingling was more rare ..read more

 January is fast upon us, and that particular Friday evening in January when Sherlockians celebrate the great detective's birth -- January 17th this year! -- is nigh upon us as well. And for those who aren't attending one dinner of another in New York City 'pon that night, there is always a Zoom option: The Dangling Prussian virtual pub night. Over the last few years we've see a lot of odds and ends to get us through the six hours of remote Sherlockian fellowship. We've had toasts, we've had short films, some new Holmes-inspired music, and even a live murder mystery featuring Holmes and W ..read more

 People do enjoy joking about how dull Sherlockian chronology must be. Sooooo boring! But what nobody realizes is the wild, often scandalous revelations that chronology's second layer brings to the fore. For example, here's a bit from "The Literary Agent's Ten Percent" segment from last week's Watsonian Weekly. Holmes and Watson's last recorded case from the Baker Street days is "The Creeping Man," which a chronologist can date as starting on Sunday, September 6, 1903. Sometime after that, Sherlock Holmes must have retired to Sussex and left London. In October of 1903, The Strand Magazine ..read more

 If there is one field of endeavor that I don't worry about AI poking its stupid robot head into, I think it's the world of Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Well, let me correct that . . . I do worry that someone is going to waste valuable electricity, processing time, server usage, all that stuff to make an AI do something that we already have a cheaper resource creating a constant supply of.  Remember celebrating the freeing of Sherlock Holmes into the public domain? Remember going "Now ANYONE can write a Sherlock Holmes story!"? What we didn't consider then was that not just anyone, but ..read more

One thing that has delighted me about the fabulous Sherlock & Co. podcast is that one of my totally non-Sherlockian friends is listening to it and loving it. Today he texted me that he'd finished Sherlock & Co.'s "Gloria Scott" adaptation and how intense parts of it were. He then asked if these were based on the original stories . . . and I had to do a "Yes, but . . ." "The Gloria Scott" is not really a favorite among Sherlock Holmes stories. I would not recommend it to anyone who was not already a fan of Holmes and the better tales. Because it's not really a highlight, sad to say. Yet ..read more

While the classic tent joke premise is non-Canonical, there is a place where a tent joke actually does fit in. Before Sherlock Holmes, there was Watson's other friend . . . Dr. Watson and Murray the orderly went camping, somewhere between Mumbai (then Bombay) and Kandahar.  "Why do they call this a 'dome' when the canvas is draped from that single center pole?" Murray asked as he stared at the roof of their two man tent. "Aren't domes round?" "Who called it a dome?" Watson inquired, as he hadn't heard it described in that way. "Captain Moran -- you know, the one with that grand mousta ..read more