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.