A Recap of the Sherlock Holmes @ 50 Conference

What a weekend!  The center of the Sherlockian universe was in Minneapolis, Minnesota last weekend as they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the University of Minnesota's Sherlock Holmes Collections.  Over 170 people attended the conference that ran from Thursday evening to Sunday morning.  The full schedule can be seen on the conference's website, so I won't retype it all here, because even without the itinerary, there is going to be a lot in this post!

I drove up with Joe and Peter Eckrich on Wednesday and we were able to visit with Dick Sveum at his house for a bit when we hit town.  Dick personifies "Minnesota Nice" and getting to see his personal library was definitely worth getting to town early for.  

The next morning, Joe, Peter, and I met Tim Johnson at the University Library for a personal tour of their Sherlock Holmes collection and then took in the exhibit that the library had set up for the conference that weekend and then a quick visit to the Baker Street sitting room recreation they have on the second floor.  Seeing the underground storage facility that the University of Minnesota has for all of their collections was mind-boggling and trust me, these pictures don't do it justice.

Arriving back at the hotel, people were starting to hit town, so we met up with some others and grabbed a quick dinner at the pub next door and then headed back to campus for the welcome reception.  It should be noted that for this conference, the Norwegian Explorers had everyone set up in an off-campus hotel, but it was only a 10 minute walk to the library and there were plenty of restaurants within walking distance and a great lobby for us to fill up throughout the weekend.  Whomever chose the hotel location should be commended!

After the welcome reception, 20 or so Sherlockians headed to a speakeasy across town.  It had a cool vibe.  So cool, that even though I knew the password, there was a moment where our group thought we weren't going to be let in.  I clearly should not have been the one to try and gain entry.  As you can see, there were much cooler people with me that would've been admitted immediately.

Friday's program didn't start until 12:45, so that allowed for groups to have breakfasts and lunches with one another before organized activities started.  

Friday's speakers were a great mix of scholarly and energetic takes on their respective topics.  Rebecca Romney proved that young people are still reading and collecting Sherlock Holmes books, even though some fuddy duddies don't want to recognize that things may look different than it did in their time.  (Fuddy duddies is my term, not Rebecca's.)  Jim Hawkins shared his passion for spreading the gospel of John Bennett Shaw and Emily Miranker built on Shaw's spirit with her talk about the friendships she's built over her years as a Sherlockian.  

Up next was the annual meeting of the Friends of the Sherlock Holmes collection, in which Tim Johnson announced his phased retirement.  He is going to take 2 years to retire, because he will be shepherding the University in obtaining Denny Dobry's sitting room as well as Jerry Margolin's Sherlockian art collection.  You can see why he's going to need some time!  Ira Matetsky spoke next about the importance of investigating in your local library.  I hear many people talk about how they were motivated to see what their libraries had in their collections after his talk.

We were then released into the wild for the evening and I fell in with a rough crowd.  I may be scarred for life:

Saturday was the big day, packed to the gills with programming for a room packed to the gills with Sherlockians.  Eric Scace intertwined Victorian technology with the chronology of The Valley of Fear in his talk, Matt Hall got all sciencey with proving that phosphorus could have been used on Stapleton's hound on the moor, and Stephen Lee laid out a case for what we think of as Watson's blunders in his write ups were actually a clever conspiracy to help take down Moriarty.

A nice lunch and time to spend money with the vendors followed.  And I showed Greg Ruby how good I would look in a beryl coronet.

The afternoon sessions continued the high standard of interesting topics with Burt Wolder taking us through the life of Frederic Dorr Steele (and showing us the original color version of an illustration I'd never known had color), Will Walsh showing everyone how smart he is and how bad of an idea treason is, and Mark and JoAnn Alberstat making a strong argument that we can blame Canada for Professor Moriarty.

With some down time before dinner, I was able to lay out just how much new stuff I was taking home.  The first picture is of my new stuff.  The second one is a real selling point for the Minnesota conference: all of that stuff was included with our registrations!

A cocktail hour followed the break and then it was time for a lovely dinner filled with toasts and camaraderie.  The toasts were really impressive.  Whether they were from seasoned hands or someone attending their first Sherlockian event, each one delivered in its own special way.

I had known just how many St. Louisans were heading up to Minnesota, but at some point on Saturday it dawned on me that outside of The Norwegian Explorers themselves, I think St. Louis had the largest representation of Sherlockians at the conference!

For the final night's socialization, over 50 of us descended on the bar next door's patio.  This really sums up the allure of Sherlockian events for me.  Everyone was hanging out and enjoying the company of others.  Matt Hall convinced me what book I should read next, Eric Scace and I got in deep on the state of broadcast radio, and Erica Fair got recruited to help with the next 221B Con.  And that was just at my end of the table!  Just thinking about all of the people who were having great conversations out there makes my head spin.

After the bar closed at (an unreasonably early) 11pm, the party moved back to the hotel lobby.  No pictures exist from this and that's just as well as certain hotel chains may frown on the boxes of booze that somehow appeared in their main space.  But let me tell you, it was another party!

Sunday wrapped up the event with two more speakers and a radio play.  Max Magee infotained everyone with the history of Mrs. Beeton and her Christmas Annuals, Denny Dobry gave a tour of his sitting room and special consideration to how faithful adaptations have been to Dr. Mortimer's walking stick, and The Red-Throated League used talent both local and abroad to close the show.

Has this been a long blog post?  Yes.  But this just skims the surface of the great stuff I got to be a part of Minneapolis.  

Sherlockians time and time again prove what a wonderful group they are and I am beyond grateful to The Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota for provided and time and space for that to be proven once more.  The planning committee should all be very proud of themselves for the work that they put in to creating an event that brought so much joy to so many people.  From the heads of the event to the people working behind the scenes, thank you for an event that has shown us that Minnesota isn't just the center of the Sherlockian universe for one weekend every three years, but the standard for what we should all aspire to be.