The Events Occurred Which I am Now About To Summarise [ENGR]

Last weekend was the annual Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend in New York.  If you were anywhere on the Sherlockian internet, I'm sure you saw tons of pictures and posts from people who were there.  

It's always a pleasure to get to see so many friends in one place, and there are many people I honestly spent less than ten seconds with in the hubbub of everything, despite wanting to talk more with them.  This year's weekend had more events than previous ones, with the Gaslight Gala coming back from its Covid hiatus and things starting on Wednesday (or maybe Tuesday, I'm not really sure), so there's always something going on!

My time in New York was split between Sherlockian events, touristy stuff, and carving out time with friends.  I'll try to keep my rundown of the weekend as brief as a synopsis of four packed days can be.

I booked the earliest possible flight out of St. Louis on Thursday and landed in New York around 9am.  Even getting there that early, I was missing things!  As I arrived at the Westin hotel and 10:30, people were leaving for the Doylean honors horse race at The Mysterious Bookshop and The Christopher Morley Memorial Walk had already been going on for half an hour by then.  

I texted Rusty Mason when I hit town and he and his dad, Steve, were waiting for me to get settled in and we headed for lunch at McSorley's Old Ale House.  Jim Hawkins and Rich Krisciunas were with us as we got there and beat the crowd.  That back room really fills up when Sherlockians are in town!  

Once we realized it was time to give our seats up to folks who needed a place to sit, the five of us went to a dessert bar, The Spot.  Fantastic desserts, and even five midwestern and southern guys could appreciate New York takes on classic desserts (even if all of us were too old to recognize the TikTok celebrities that were photographed on the wall).

If you've never been to the weekend, one thing you need to know is that there is a ton of food.  My next stop was another meal, this one at an Italian restaurant with Rusty, Jim, and Cynthia and Bill Mason.  After that, Rusty and I were off to see Back to the Future: The Musical on Broadway.  Not Sherlockian, but definitely fun.

Every night of the weekend ends at Rosie Dunn's, with a revolving cast of people to spend time with.  One thing that hit me differently this year was how tired I was all of the time.  I had fun conversations with lots of folks on many different topics (The Simpsons, Dolly Parton, etc.), but it would be a lost cause for me to try to tell you which night things went down at the pub.  But trust me, if you're in New York for the Birthday Weekend, Rosie Dunn's should be on your itinerary.

A newer tradition at this weekend is folks who have been invested into the BSI getting together for breakfast with their classmates on Friday morning.  This was my class's second year gathering, and it's great to have a dedicated time to spend with people around a meal.

One great thing about the Westin's location is its relative closeness to the New York Public Library.  Even if you don't get to go inside every year, walking by those beautiful lions out front and knowing you're close to so many books is wonderful.  But this year, Crystal Noll, Heather Holloway, Rusty Mason and I went to visit their Treasures from the Archives exhibit.  It had everything from Civil Rights flyers to Charles Dickens's writing desk to the Bill of Rights.

After that, it was time for the William Gillette Luncheon.  I somehow signed up early enough to get a table right up front.  In fact, I was sitting with some of the afternoon's performers!  Two skits were performed to laughs, a nice meal was had, and everyone got to see each other in one of big events of weekend.

And that night was the event that the whole weekend revolved around: The BSI Dinner.  This is the event that the rest of the weekend has grown up around, but I think it's important to point out that this is the only invite-only event of the weekend.  Everything else is open to everyone and everywhere you go, people are happy to welcome friends old, new, and ones they haven't yet met.

This is the event that probably gets recapped the most, so I will keep mine brief.  There were some great toasts and talks, which will be in the Spring issue of the Baker Street Journal, and of course everyone is always clamoring to learn who will be included in this years investiture class.  It's been shared elsewhere, but I will post the picture of my notes from that night.  

The list of investitures always makes me happy.  It's a combination of recognition of those folks I have known to be doing great work in Sherlockiana and names of people I haven't met yet but look forward to getting to know in the future.

After the dinner, everyone goes downstairs to enjoy an hour or so at the Yale Club, and then people make their way to Rosie Dunn's to meet up with everyone from the Gaslight Gala.  Two things stood out to me from this part of the night.  

1. While everyone from the BSI Dinner flooded into the Yale Club's lounge, one other patron was determined to sit in his armchair and read a newspaper amid the clamor of all of us.  I wish I had that kind of focus!  

2. By the time we were kicked out of Rosie Dunn's, it was POURING rain outside.  It took my suit a day and a half to dry from that onslaught of rain.

Saturday kicks off with the Dealer's Room with Sherlockians selling all kinds of things.  Wessex Press and BSI Press debut their new titles here, and Belanger Books and MX Publishing have tables with their latest books as well.  If those four aren't enough to drain your wallet, there are plenty of individuals selling enough old books and ephemera to fill your suitcase.

One of Wessex Press's new books this year is one I'm very proud of, Canonical Cornerstones: Foundational Books of a Sherlockian Library.  This is an anthology that Peter Eckrich and I oversaw and will be the subject of its own blog post at a later date.  It was great to get to sign copies for everyone who picked one up, but unfortunately not everyone could get one because it sold out in less than 90 minutes!  Every time I think of how excited people were to check this book out, it just makes me smile.

After that, it was back to the Yale Club for the BSI Luncheon.  Even though, this has BSI in the title, this event is open to everyone and in the past few years it has been selling out very quickly.  It's a nice time for everyone to mingle and talk with everyone from across the country.  It's always fun to see who ends up at your table.  As usual, I had a good group this year: Rudy Altergott, Peter and Joe Eckrich, Brian and Derrick Belanger, Max Magee, Ed Petit, and Ray and Becky Riethmeier.

That night, I had dinner with Ray Betzner, Ashley Polasek, and Tim Greer.  You couldn't ask for more pleasant company!  It's interesting that with this being a Sherlockian weekend, so many of my conversations with folks were about other topics.  That night's conversation wandered from heist movies to theater performances to college commencements.  I've found that Sherlockiana is a great jumping-off point for meeting folks and we then build our friendships from there.  (Well, maybe it wasn't all non-Sherlockian... we may have tried out our Nigel Bruce impressions)

Sunday always brings one of my favorite events of the weekend, the ASH Brunch.  It's the wind-down event where people can move around and visit with one another without any kind of program (and there's as much bacon as you want).  I've equated this event to the last day of summer camp.  People are comparing notes of what they saw and did over the past few days and making plans for the upcoming year.  As its time for folks to catch their flights, they drift off one by one until the locals have their city back.

I'm not standing on anything, there's just that much of a height difference.

I had one more stop on my weekend, though.  I'm a big Muppets fan, so I made a trip over to Queens to the Museum of the Moving Image where they had a Jim Henson exhibit that included all kinds of original Muppets and the sign that was used in the Muppet Show.

By this time, winter weather was hitting the Midwest and causing delays with flights across the country.  Luckily, I was only delayed by an hour and a half (which allowed me to get last week's Interesting Interview posted) but I know others had a much longer wait.  It sounds like everyone eventually made it home safely, with suitcases of new books and brain attics full of good memories.  I'm already looking forward to next year's weekend.

Interesting Interview: Brad Keefauver

Long ago, in the far-off year of 2018, I interviewed my friend Brad Keefauver.  He was the second Interesting Though Elementary participant and he has told me for years that he would like to redo his interview, now knowing how long this project would go on.  I always told him he could redo his piece after my 100th interview.  And since last month was interview number 100, it was time for me to make good on my promise.

How can I sum this guy up in a paragraph?  I can't, but here are some highlights.  Brad has been a Sherlockian since the 80s, and documented his early years in the delightful memoir, The Rise and Fall of an Eighties Sherlockian.  He is the co-founder of The Sherlockian Chronologist Guild, slowly but surely bringing respectability to that branch of our hobby.  He was the co-editor of The Monstrum Opus of Sherlock Holmes, and has written enough titles of his own that would make any author proud.  But his highest achievement in my mind is that he is so forward thinking and open armed when it comes to Sherlockiana.  Brad rarely shies away from trying new things or welcoming new people.  For a hobby that has been around for a century or so, both of those aspects are vitally important to keep things fresh.  So it's time to get some fresh answers from everyone's favorite Sherlockian, Brad Keefauver!

How do you define the word “Sherlockian”?

1. A sentient being who has made Sherlock Holmes an ongoing part of their existence. 2. A Holmesian being described by an American. 3. Something described as being like Sherlock Holmes or done in a fashion reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes. 

How did you become a Sherlockian?

That evolution had so many steps that it’s hard to document. Reading “The Speckled Band” in junior high lit class didn’t spark it as much as the preview to The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes the next year. Having to write a high school term paper took me to the Canon for the first time, as Holmes seemed more interesting than other characters of classic fiction. And then in college, Sherlock Holmes’s War of the Worlds by Manly W. Wellman and Wade Wellman started me on a binge of all the pastiches in that publishing wave that came after The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. A French class field trip to Chicago put Michael Harrison’s anthology Beyond Baker Street in my hands for the whole bus trip home, which showed me that Sherlockians existed. And my longtime partner and spouse, the good Carter found a Sherlock Holmes society called the Double-Barrelled Tiger Cubs of Champaign-Urbana which became my entry point into the Sherlockian social world, at which point I finally acknowledged that, yes, I was that thing called a Sherlockian.

What is your profession and does that affect how you enjoy being a Sherlockian?

I’m a software analyst, which doesn’t affect how I enjoy being a Sherlockian as much as being a Sherlockian has helped me be a software analyst. I can honestly claim Sherlockian chronology helped get me a job, as part of the interview process was to do a presentation on the subject of your choice. Somehow that worked.

What is your favorite canonical story?

I don’t want to say “Illustrious Client.” But I think it’s “Illustrious Client.” So sensational!

Who is a specific Sherlockian that you think others would find interesting?

The genius Paul Thomas Miller. Such a clever boy.

What subset of Sherlockiana really interests you?

Sherlockians that are fun to go to breakfast, lunch, or non-banquet-dinner with. (Eight people at a table is just too many, though there have been exceptions!)

As one of the founding members of the Sherlockian Chronologist Guild, why should people pay more attention to the chronology of the Canon?

Pushing to put the stories into your own personal sequence reveals so much of what you think of Holmes and Watson’s lives. It’s not just about dates, it’s about their relationship and the influences other people had on it.

The Watsonian Weekly podcast has been around for more than 4 1/2 years, why do you think people find Dr. Watson so interesting after all of these years?

Well, that he’s Sherlock Holmes’s buddy, mainly. But we’re seeing more and more Watson-centered Sherlockian productions, especially in 2024 with Sherlock & Co. and the upcoming CBS Watson series because there’s so much uncharted territory to explore there. Watson is like bigfoot, an intriguing crypto-character whom we do not know nearly as much about as we’d like to.

What book would you recommend to other Sherlockians?

Okay, I hate to say it, but Angels of Darkness in the BSI Manuscript Series. It’s so terribly awful and a counterpoint to the genius Conan Doyle displayed in the Canon. But it gives us a pre-Canon Dr. Watson and a version of A Study in Scarlet that raises all sorts of questions. Sir Montague Brown could have been Sherlock Holmes in disguise for all we know!

Where do you see Sherlockiana in 5 or 10 years from now?

More widespread and multi-channel than anyone can keep up with. A steadfast core of Sherlockian bees will still be buzzing around the classic hives, but new ideas and ways of celebrating Holmes and Watson will come from places we can’t yet imagine, even if we’re in a post-apocalyptic bunker community dependent upon Rusty Mason waving hand-drawn puppets on sticks around to adapt the Canon for feral children.

An Interview with the Creator of Sherlock & Co. - Joel Emery

I'm not a huge fan of Sherlockian adaptations.  I'm not opposed to adaptations, though.  I am happy to check something out and see what creators are doing with Holmes and Watson, even if that means sitting through Holmes and Watson.  Most adaptations have some kind of spin to add to the Canon, and quite frankly, it's usually too much spin for me.  I prefer to stick to the source material most of the time and read scholarship around that.  

So when I heard people buzzing after the first episode of the podcast Sherlock & Co., I knew I would check it out, but wasn't in a big hurry.  John Watson returns to London after an injury and tries his hand at true crime podcasting, because everyone has a podcast now.  The premise sounded clever.  I figured I would think the show was fine, but something that ultimately wasn't for me.  Man, was I wrong.

Anytime I try a new show, I give it three episodes to find its groove before passing judgement.  Sherlock & Co. is one of the rare shows that had me sold by the end of the first episode.  The sound quality and acting is impeccable.  The plan is to modernize the entire Canon, and each case takes two to three episodes to complete, so the creators are playing a long game here.  There is a lot to enjoy in this show that I could go on and on about: John's abilities as a podcaster, "Mrs. Hudson," Archie, Mrs. Watson, etc. 

I'm a stickler for canonical fidelity, and Sherlock & Co. nails it.  But what I enjoy the most are all of the updates that keep these cases fresh.  How does "Thor Bridge" tie in to Instagram and and video games?  I won't spill the beans, but will tell you that it was done brilliantly.  And Baron Gruner?  Oh man, Sherlock & Co.'s version of him is unnervingly true to life and bothersome.

Now, when you hear, "modernize," comparisons to Sherlock and Elementary are inevitable.  I'm going to stake my claim right here and now and say that Sherlock & Co. is hands down better than either of them.  I strongly recommend anyone who enjoys Sherlock Holmes to check out Sherlock & Co.  Give it a few episodes and see what you think.  

So my mini-review here has all been a way to pave the road for an interview with the show's creator, Joel Emery.  Joel was happy to talk about his new project via email, and I think anyone who is already enjoying the show or is interested in it will enjoy what he has to say about his process:

How did you get into audio production?

I suppose, at this risk of sounding cynical about the media industry - we had no money or connections! So we needed a field of the industry that required neither of those things to get our work out there. Podcasting was and remains free for the most part and overheads are very manageable, so we put together a show that we had always wanted to do called The Offensive. It followed a fictional Premier League football team in a documentary style. It was very sweary, very coarse, a satire of the modern game and it ran every week for five years. It was obviously rushed together in our spare time, we cast hundreds of actors over that time and by the end of it we had acquired a bunch of skills that we threw into the next project and the next and the next. And now, thank god, we don't do it in our spare time - we do it for a living.

Americans don't naturally gravitate to audio dramas.  How would you sell this form of storytelling to those of us across the pond?

Neither do Brits I can tell you! Audio drama remains an acquired taste (I find anyway). We're often looking at ways into presenting stories that are audio dramas but ultimately don't feel like them. It often requires deconstructing the form a little and latching the shows onto a more recognised form. For example, John Watson is a true-crime podcaster, he constantly speaks to the listener and I will deliberately put together dialogue that reads as real as possible. He makes mistakes, he has technical issues, things crop up that he wasn't expecting, we're limited by his editing, his microphone coverage and so on. This, believe it or not, is familiar ground for the average podcast listener - and this vehicle is what we try and use as a gateway drug to audio drama. Yes it's an audio drama - but be assured we're doing everything we can behind the scenes to make it not feel like one. 

I would sell audio drama like this - it's great for improving focus. Lots of exercises out there to improve focus are boring and difficult, so if you want to work on how you consume media and flex your imagination muscles - do it with something that has a story, do it with something fun and interesting. Audio drama is right up there as a fun workout for your brain. I believe also colouring books are as well, but you're going to look like an idiot in public if you're doing that. Unless you're aged 7 and under of course.

With all of the characters out there, what drew you to Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?

Goalhanger Podcasts (the production company that owns the show) told us to! It was not something that occurred to us. I think for Sherlock outsiders it can often look like a very saturated market, we couldn't really understand why Goalhanger saw this gap to exploit. That was until Tony Pastor at Goalhanger showed me the full Sherlock catalogue, all those short stories that had basically been neglected by mainstream broadcasters and movie studios for an entire generation. After reading "The Red Headed League" we were completely on board. I think if you don't know the stories you always start with the characters. And what great characters. Watson is perfect for this form, a realist, an everyman story-teller, and Sherlock is the perfect counterweight to that.

What is the typical process of adapting a story for the podcast?

Read it about 4 times, listen to Stephen Fry narrate it a couple of times. I actually listened to I Hear Of Sherlock Everywhere with Raymond G. Farney and I ended up buying his book A Study In Sherlock and it's really handy as a writer as it works as Watson's casebook. It compiles each adventure into details, evidence, perpetrators, timeframes, locations, dates - everything just brought down to key points. All the while, even from the first reading, I'll be noting down how it would work in modern day, how it would work in audio and how we can add something refreshing as well. Also comedy, our show is a light comedy most of the time so I'm also looking for those moments. We're only a few weeks ahead of the latest uploaded episodes so we'll make sure the cast get the scripts at the earliest window possible. Once it's all edited together we'll talk about pickups, how clear is the mystery, how formed are the new characters for this story, what lines need to be tweaked etc.

(Joel appeared on episode 275 of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, and is definitely worth a listen.)

How do you decide the chronology of your stories?

It's a great question with a boring answer I'm afraid. Sherlock Holmes has a number of different types of story, and it was important for us that we presented that variation of form right from the off. If we had started with 4 murder cases in a row, we would have cultivated an audience that was expecting blood and guts. But a lot of the time Sherlock Holmes stories are characters needing something looked into, needing a problem solved. Sometimes Sherlock is just re-collecting a story. And that's the reason we started with "Illustrious Client" - there's a hint of a murder, but mostly it's something that needs to be solved. Then we did "Noble Bachelor," no murder, just intrigue. By the time we came to "The Problem of Thor Bridge" and for our first murder investigation, our Watson is terrified at the idea of being involved with something so unusual to his modern sensibilities, army surgeon or otherwise - so it gives us a little growth in that sense. And from this point onwards we're trying to show people who aren't familiar with the original stories just how varied Conan Doyle made these adventures. How they bounced around from all sorts of places, to all sorts of problems, from all sorts of villains and victims. It's not just about Moriarty vs Sherlock, there's so much out there so we just want to really keep them on their feet. It was a big decision at the time, to break the original order and actually ignore the chronology of Watson's accounts and to find our own route through the canon. We don't regret our decision at all, it is a lot of fun deciding the next place to go.

Which character is the most fun to write for?

Watson. 100% Watson. Sherlock Holmes is intellectually intimidating! Watson is brilliant too but Sherlock Holmes uses efficient, accurate language, his deductions are lengthy but precise and it can take me a while to put them together... yes I may be prouder of Sherlock's lines but Watson is definitely more fun. 

What is your favorite of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories?

Baskervilles I find really, really cool. The scale of it, branching out from something so small captivates me... But it's a different trip to Dartmoor that I prefer; "Silver Blaze" is the one I have enjoyed the most. I expect this to change, I'm constantly reading the stories, over and over. And I'm constantly reading analysis on the stories so I can absolutely picture myself falling in love with another adventure but that one is currently the leader of the pack for me. It's intrigue wrapped in fun and that's exactly what we like to get our hands on.

Can you give a hint of what's in store for Sherlock & Co. in 2024?

Well we're closing in on our first million downloads, so it looks like the show will grow from strength to strength. Maybe there will be some well-known voices, that's something we're looking into. For our super-fans we're putting together our fan club and subscriber-only content and getting merch designs off the ground. But as for the stories - I can definitely promise the novels, which one we'll start with.. we're not sure. But that's taking some of our focus now, how do we package them, how many parts do we release in order to tell those stories.. the list goes on! We're so fortunate to be working with this material and to be the biggest audio drama in the UK right now is reflective of our hard work, our amazing cast and Conan Doyle's flamboyant, brilliant, gripping adventures.