I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

Remembering Alan Rickman

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"in his languid fashion" [NORW]</h4>
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Actor <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/14/alan-rickman-giant-of-british-film-and-theatre-dies-at-69" target="_blank">Alan Rickman has passed away</a> in London at the age of 69. 
 
The Shakespearean-trained actor was best known as Severus Snape from the Harry Potter film series, after having gotten his start in film villainy as Hans Gruber in the 1988 action movie <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000SZK41M" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="50f7bdde384bc4a17354048ac7cdf25f" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Die Hard" href="http://www.amazon.com/Die-Hard-Bruce-Willis/dp/B000SZK41M/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=50f7bdde384bc4a17354048ac7cdf25f&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_180716" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Die Hard</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_180716" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=50f7bdde384bc4a17354048ac7cdf25f&_cb=1452775515860" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />. He went on to play other baddies, such as the Sheriff of Nottingham in <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="630460291X" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="55de669b324d2323eb10440a238c0734" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="robin hood 1991" href="http://www.amazon.com/Robin-Hood-Prince-Thieves-Snap/dp/630460291X/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=55de669b324d2323eb10440a238c0734&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_9595530" rel="nofollow" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Robin Hood: Prince of Theieves</a>, with an under-accented Kevin Costner<span style="border-color: initial !important; border-image-outset: initial !important; border-image-repeat: initial !important; border-image-slice: initial !important; border-image-source: initial !important; border-image-width: initial !important; border-width: initial !important;"><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_9595530" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=55de669b324d2323eb10440a238c0734&_cb=1452775594733" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />. 
 
Another actor who had a part in the 1938 film version of Robin Hood was Basil Rathbone, who played Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Of course Rathbone had plenty of screen time playing villains in addition to his most famous role of Sherlock Holmes in the 1940s. 
 
A little-known connection is that Rickman <a href="http://www.tor.com/2015/01/30/alan-rickman-sherlock-holmes-photo/" target="_blank">once played Sherlock Holmes on stage</a>, in the 1976 revival of William Gillette's play. 
 
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan Rickman as Sherlock Holmes (credit: <a href="http://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Sherlock_Holmes_(play_1976_with_Alan_Rickman)" target="_blank">The Conan Doyle Encyclopedia</a>)</td></tr>
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We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that Sherlock's own Benedict Cumberbatch was a fairly talented Alan Rickman impersonator, most notably demonstrated with his Rickman-off with Jimmy Fallon: 
 
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Remembering Alan Rickman

"in his languid fashion" [NORW] Actor Alan Rickman has passed away in London at the age of 69. The Shakespearean-trained a...

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by Scott Monty

ABOMs Away! A Viewer's Guide to "The Abominable Bride"

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"my 'Handy Guide to the Turf'" [SHOS]</h4>
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[SERIOUS SPOILERS BELOW]

Now that we have that out of the way, let's postmortem "The Abominable Bride," the New Year's special episode of the BBC's <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B018WIEBWO" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="0a2e0486ba003bdc8fd71df8d33f2c59" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sherlock" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Abominable-Bride-Bonus-Features/dp/B018WIEBWO/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=0a2e0486ba003bdc8fd71df8d33f2c59&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6677253" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6677253" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=0a2e0486ba003bdc8fd71df8d33f2c59&_cb=1452769191992" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> that takes Bandersnatch and Baggins to the milieu of the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After a rapid-fire, greatest-hits reel of the series to date, the calendar rolls backward and it's off to the 19th century we go, to the first meeting of John H. Watson and Sherlock Holmes… 
 
…and to our first subtle indication, perhaps, that something is amiss. In a subterranean dissecting room, Watson meets Holmes, who is busily beating the dead with a stick and already wearing a gold sovereign as a watch fob. But of course, Irene Adler gives him that sovereign – he can't have it yet, not at the first meeting with Watson. The time is out of joint. (#Hamlet) 
 
We flash forward, presumably to 1895. Watson has a dapper mustache, and his stories are appearing in The Strand magazine. The flat at 221B is Canonically lovely, and there the duo are visited by John's wife, Mary, who is in search of her absentee adventurer of a husband. (We soon discover that Mary is an adventurer in her own right, working as an operative for Mycroft.) We get another hint of jiggery-pokery afoot from the following lines: 
 
HOLMES: Sometimes to solve a case one must first solve another. 
WATSON: Oh, you have a case then? 
HOLMES: An old one. Very old. I shall have to go deep. 
WATSON: Deep into what? 
HOLMES: Myself. 
 
But then the filmmakers blind us by throwing Lestrade's mutton-chops in our eyes. In light of later developments, surely it must have been Future Holmes who was speaking.  Soon comes another red flag, when the subject of Lestrade's visit, Emelia Ricoletti, says, "You or me," then seemingly shoots herself, a reflection of Jim Moriarty's, "You're me. You're me!" just before he shoots himself (or does he?) in "The Reichenbach Fall." Mrs. Ricoletti is a spry corpse, however, and, several hours later, she drops a double load of buckshot on her husband. 
 
Off we then go to the morgue, where Anderson is as big a dolt as ever and Molly Hooper is passing for male to get a fair chance at available opportunities. Comparisons to Charley Parkhurst aside, we learn that this ruse has failed to deceive Watson, who is maintaining a most egalitarian silence about it, a silence sharply contrasted by the manner in which he vents his spleen at his house maid in the next scene, another indication that something is amiss. Though she is dead, the Abominable Bride's crimes continue; Holmes chalks the depradations up to copycats, and we move to Act Two. 
 
Our heroes visit the Diogenes Club, where a flurry of meta-clues awaits. First, the letters on the brass plaque – "THE DIOGENES CLUB" – rearrange themselves into an anagram – "ABSOLUTE SILENCE." The anagram is balderdash – one cannot derive ABSOLUTE SILENCE from THE DIOGENES CLUB. (One can, however, get SILENCE BE THOU G-D or BEN CLUE GHOST DIE.) Then, inside the club, the boys do a bit of sign lingo with Wilder, a liveried footman played by Tim Barlow (the Russian count from the Granada/Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episode "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0506455/reviews" target="_blank">The Resident Patient</a>"), something happens about a potato and a fishmonger (#Hamlet), and, finally, we meet Mycroft Holmes in perhaps twice his Canonical glory. So much bizarrerie in so short a time must be meant to set our alarm bells jangling. Mycroft announces that he is sending a client to Baker Street, one Lady Carmichael, whose case involves "enemies who threaten our way of life" but who are right, and who must, therefore, win; more than this, he cagily refuses to say. 
 
At 221B, Lady Carmichael describes the plight of her husband, whose life is threatened by the delivery of orange pips at their Wellesian formal breakfast and the appearance of a spectral bride in their creepy backyard maze. Her patronizing, belittling husband, Sir Eustace, is played by the always-terrific Tim McInnerny, another Granada veteran (he was Vincent Spaulding/John Clay in "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0506454/" target="_blank">The Red-Headed League</a>"). 
 
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Carefully reconstructing Sidney Paget, Holmes and Watson are soon on the train bound for stately Carmichael Manor. After a stakeout, and the obligatory (for BBC Sherlock) Watsonian attempt to draw Holmes into a conversation about his sexuality, a la Billy Wilder's <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B001EYSCF6" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="1b7e9bafc788a1958a13d7d6093aef11" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Private-Life-Sherlock-Holmes/dp/B001EYSCF6/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=1b7e9bafc788a1958a13d7d6093aef11&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_2400371" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_2400371" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=1b7e9bafc788a1958a13d7d6093aef11&_cb=1452769946766" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />, a phantom veiled woman rises from the grounds and moves toward the house. The image is reminiscent of the opening scene of Hammer's <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00AWWX8YG" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="b12ddeec973c8023e11fa6ff7172b4de" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Vampire Lovers" href="http://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Lovers-Blu-ray-Ingrid-Pitt/dp/B00AWWX8YG/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=b12ddeec973c8023e11fa6ff7172b4de&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_329875" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Vampire Lovers</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_329875" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=b12ddeec973c8023e11fa6ff7172b4de&_cb=1452769957397" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />, wherein a shrouded female vampire rises in spectral form amid the tombstones, under the watchful eye of slayer <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/02/celebrating-50-years-of-douglas-wilmer.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Douglas Wilmer</a>, himself a great Sherlock Holmes. 
 
After a bit of the old smoke-and-mirrors, the ghost escapes and the blackguard husband is no more, an ornate dagger buried in his heart. Tied to its hilt is an especially telling clue – a note reading, "Miss me?" –  that has appeared in the brief few moments when Holmes was away from the corpse.  Curiouser and curiouser becomes the plot, and suddenly the note appears in the flipper-like hand of Mycroft back at the Diogenes Club, where another peculiar conversation transpires, this time capped by Mycroft's anachronistic reference to Moriarty as "the virus in the data." By now, we are surely aware that all is not as it seems. 
 
In Baker Street, Holmes awaits the arrival of Moriarty by mentally picking floating bits of paper out of the air while physically sitting on the floor in Jeremy Brett's meditating Buddha pose. ("If you're going to steal…", runs the old stage adage.) Never one to disappoint for long, Moriarty soon arrives, but the center cannot hold. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the suicide of Mrs. Ricoletti becomes that other puzzle it so closely resembled: the death and stubborn persistence of Jim Moriarty in the 21st century. Right there in 221B, Moriarty blows his own brains out but goes on talking. (A metaphor for Andrew Scott's performance?) As Holmes grills Moriarty about his ability to survive, Moriarty says it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing. 
 
<h3>
SPOILER ALERT DEFCON ONE</h3>
A jet airplane lands and we're back at the end of series three, where it appears that the entire episode up to now has been a drug-extended sojourn in Sherlock's mind palace as he continues to puzzle over the Moriarty Question. 
 
Slender Mycroft, Clean-Shaven John, and Liberated Mary come jouncing onto the plane, giving Curly Sherlock a rude awakening in their eagerness to discuss Moriarty's posthumous invasion of British television. As Sherlock explains the parallels between the Ricoletti case and that of Moriarty,  he is upbraided for his "controlled" drug use by Mycroft and John. Modern John's rebukes morph into those of Victorian John as Sherlock conks out again and returns to 221B.  Whooosh! Back to the past we go… 
 
Vintage Watson berates Classic Holmes for using a seven-per-cent solution of cocaine and crashing on the sitting room floor, and the spat evolves into meta-commentary on Watson's "idiot stories" and people's need for Sherlock Holmes as a hero. The repartee is cut short by a telegram indicating Mary is in danger, and the duo rush off in answer to her summons. 
 
Having "made inquiries" of her own (we are never shown what sort or why they were so quickly effective), Mary has tracked the conspirators responsible for the Bride's crimes to the vaults beneath a defunct church. There, a meeting is convening for a group of robed and hooded figures, a secret gathering of pseudo-cardinals, as women symbolically usurp the garb of yet another enclave whose doors are closed against them: the priesthood. Some fans were irate upon viewing this scene, as they felt the story's radical suffragettes were being depicted as the Ku Klux Klan – not a group known to hang out openly in churches (except when fire-bombing them), much less to chant Latin masses; furthermore, the color scheme was all wrong. In any event, surely this interpretation misses the theme of cross-dressing-as-power-grab that runs throughout the episode: Dr. Hooper as male morgue chief; women as claven of priests; Mary as trousered action hero; Moriarty as unstoppable female ghost. 
 
Holmes interrupts the meeting with a sharp rap on a convenient gong, then gives the obligatory explanation of the who-how-and-why behind the Abominable Bride conspiracy: a group of radical feminists, a "League of Furies," has formed, one which will stick at nothing to avenge itself on the men who have ignored, patronized, disregarded, deceived, betrayed, and disparaged them, not even allowing them so much as the right to vote. Mary, herself a suffragette, seems quite put out by the tactics of this particular group, but – alas! – she is allowed no lines on the subject (score one more for male power). Just as Holmes prepares to unmask the brains behind the Bride – Lady Carmichael herself – we experience another fracture of the continuum: under the Bride's veil is Jim Moriarty, just in time to remind Sherlock (and us) that this whole business is not real; Sherlock is imagining it all while in the depths of a drug-induced hallucination. "Be serious," Moriarty admonishes the detective. "Costumes? The gong? Speaking as a criminal mastermind, we don't really have gongs… or special outfits." And we go back to the future… 
 
Once returned to the present day, we find Future Sherlock had passed out on the plane again, but is now awake and keen to disinter Emelia Ricoletti. Before one can say, "That seems pointless," we're off to the boneyard for a barrage of dialogue at Mach 1: 
 
JOHN: How is this relevant? 
SHERLOCK: I need to know I was right, then I'll be sure. 
MARY: You mean how Moriarty did it? 
SHERLOCK: Yes. 
JOHN: But none of that really happened; it was in your head. 
SHERLOCK: My investigation was the fantasy. The crime happened exactly as I explained. 
MARY: The stone was erected by a group of her friends. 
JOHN: I don't know what you think you'll find here. 
SHERLOCK: I need to try! 
STONE: EMELIA  RICOLETTI 
 BELOVED SISTER 
 FAITHFUL BEYOND DEATH 
 DIED DECEMBER 18      89 
 AGED 26   
 
No one can convince Obsessed Future Sherlock that discovering a second body in Mrs. Ricoletti's grave doesn't prove or disprove his theory of how she (briefly) survived her own suicide. So it's dig, dig, dig, and – sure enough – only one moldering carcass is unearthed. When Sherlock leaps, #Hamlet-like, into the open grave and claws around for a second body (not in the coffin, but under it), the aforementioned icky corpse starts talking, then tumbles on top of him. 
 
Surprise! Modern Sherlock hasn't really been awake this time; he's in the same unconscious fantasy he entered since he conked out on the plane and found himself lying on the floor at 221B, with Watson reading him the sobriety act. "The graveyard visit of our team/ Was but a dream within a dream." (Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe.) 
 
Now we jump back to the 1800s, where Inverness Holmes is on the ledge above the Reichenbach Falls, an exceptional set, seamlessly combining foreground practical elements with background digiscapes; bravo, Arwel Wyn Jones and team! The traditional Rumble at the Reichenbach ensues, but this time Moriarty is winning, until he is interrupted by the not-so-traditional arrival of Dr. Watson and his trusty service revolver. "That's not fair; there's two of you!" Moriarty grouses, an odd utterance from one never previously concerned with fair play. Moriarty, it seems, dishes out a gang-up ("Three bullets, three riflemen") much better than he takes one. The good doctor boots the bad professor over the brink with the implication that this scene plays out over and over. ("It was my turn," he says.) Waxy Watson asks Brilliantine Holmes how he will wake up from this story, to which the other replies by preparing to dive off the falls. 
 
WATSON: Are you sure? 
HOLMES: Between you and me, John, I always survive a fall. 
WATSON: But how? 
HOLMES: Elementary, my dear Watson. 
 
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And we plunge back to the present day, where, after a touching brotherly exchange on the airplane, Mycroft puts the list of drugs Sherlock has taken into his pocket notebook, wherein we glimpse some Cryptic Notes. The next moment, we are on the tarmac, and Sherlock informs us: 
 
SHERLOCK: Moriarty is dead, no question. But more importantly, I know exactly what he's going to do next. 
 
The familiar theme music swells and surely this is the e—ooops, no, here we go back to 1895 again… 
 
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Watson and Holmes discuss the case in the sitting room in Baker Street, noodling over titles and the public treatment of the story. Watson expresses skepticism at the future world Holmes imagined while under the influence of his seven-per-cent solution ("I think you may have increased the dosage"). This final scene is a treat, despite one or two flubs (the Persian slipper is never properly affixed to the mantelpiece, and Waistcoat Watson demurs at the idea of "these… 'telephones'…", despite their appearing in the Canon as early as The Sign of Four), but these are quibbles. The scene fulfills the classic outline of the typical Sherlock Holmes story: we return to Baker Street for the post-investigation wrap-up over pipes and glasses, and this time the discussion is one of whether the famous pair could fit into a world of the 21st century. 
 
HOLMES: I know I would be very much at home in such a world. 
WATSON: Ha! Don't think I would be. 
HOLMES: I beg to differ. 
 
As Holmes looks down upon Baker Street, the camera pulls back through the window, revealing contemporary London, double-decker buses and an armada of automobiles passing the window of the Victorian sitting room, leaving us to wonder if it was, in fact, Heritage Holmes who was doing the imagining all along, and if Future Sherlock was the fantasy, one final bit of flummery for the audience to chew on. 
 
But perhaps something more, for not only has BBC Sherlock demonstrated to global acclaim that our heroes would indeed be very much at home in such a world, re-making them as Holmes and Watson 2.0, but it has now recognized a long-evident fact as well: Holmes and Watson 1.0 are also very much at home in the 21st century world, whose electric cars and wireless communications can hurtle past the well-remembered door without ever rendering the famous pair one iota the less entertaining, compelling, or thrilling. They belong in our world in either form and in both forms: "Re-Imagined" and "As-Imagined." 
 
Thankfully, we won't have to choose between them. 
 
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ABOMs Away! A Viewer's Guide to "The Abominable Bride"

"my 'Handy Guide to the Turf'" [SHOS] [ SERIOUS SPOILERS BELOW ] Now that we have that out of the way, let's p...

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by Tim Greer

This Irregular Waited 50 Years to Attend His First BSI Dinner

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"In fifty years of official life I cannot recall such a case." [MAZA] </h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t-Eb8PxaS1xNZo7RrMLr2tiGen5MNb6DfEnpuNyTFqPwPkQoKFrvSfQwRPG_o17tEcWNvjJDX05duhT0POgplECeekYhIiVuKH5KfF6Zupat9445nK1m9eoCgqTKFqKqB2k2wDBzhCmU/s1600/1966+BSI+Dinner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The 1966 BSI Dinner" border="0" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t-Eb8PxaS1xNZo7RrMLr2tiGen5MNb6DfEnpuNyTFqPwPkQoKFrvSfQwRPG_o17tEcWNvjJDX05duhT0POgplECeekYhIiVuKH5KfF6Zupat9445nK1m9eoCgqTKFqKqB2k2wDBzhCmU/s640/1966+BSI+Dinner.jpg" title="The 1966 Baker Street Irregulars Dinner" width="640" /></a></div>
 
In a few days I will be attending my first-ever dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars. At the same time, this year I celebrate the 50th anniversary of my investiture into the BSI — and I am bound to think that a 50-year story of being a member, but not showing up for the annual event, is a record that, if not unique, is certainly unusual. 
 
Some day, as Dr. Watson put it, the full story may be told. I have toyed with writing a tell-all Sherlockian autobiography, touching on the Baker Street Pageboys, <a href="http://www.torontobootmakers.com/" target="_blank">the Bootmakers of Toronto</a>, the <a href="http://www.ashsherlockian.org/" target="_blank">Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes</a>, my writings and friendships, and so much more. Such a document will not be as inflammatory as Douglas Maberley's roman à clef in "The Three Gables," but I suspect it will have to languish unread in some archive for a good long time. 
 
I did sit down a few years ago for a conversation with the wise and considerate Bob Coghill, BSI, who has done many such "oral interviews" for <a href="http://www.bsitrust.org/2015/01/oral-history.html" target="_blank">the BSI Oral History Project</a>. 
 
But inevitably, there were many things we had no time to touch on. 
 
For the present, suffice it to say that when I received my Irregular Shilling, I was a mere teenager, living in Kansas, leagues and decades away from the fast life of New York, and for most of my subsequent life my Sherlockian attention has been focused in Canada rather than toward the BSI. 
 
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhwyUl55yd3eqIXK4oO7U7-_pK8y9jL1BtKw8ydGstZiUQFqEc79JD0bMK2Ms6OIeUg6M_0G-s8wVSdTKDUM3R7OvcKuOmK7aMNnZdlcu5bpTtZzu0uPhI3ly3WHxhAaU7PEXo5miJOhq/s1600/CAR+investiture.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="CAR's BSI investiture" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhwyUl55yd3eqIXK4oO7U7-_pK8y9jL1BtKw8ydGstZiUQFqEc79JD0bMK2Ms6OIeUg6M_0G-s8wVSdTKDUM3R7OvcKuOmK7aMNnZdlcu5bpTtZzu0uPhI3ly3WHxhAaU7PEXo5miJOhq/s640/CAR+investiture.jpg" title="Chris Redmond's investiture" width="444" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Investiture certificate of Chris Redmond, BSI ("Billy")</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
 
These days I understand that virtually everyone who receives a BSI investiture does so at a January dinner in New York. It was not so <a href="http://www.bsitrust.org/2015/09/the-1966-bsi-dinner.html" target="_blank">in 1966</a>. My certificate (much more modest than the certificates handed out nowadays) and silver shilling arrived by mail one day in the spring of that year, as part of what the then Commissionaire of the BSI, Julian Wolff, called the Edgar W. Smith Birthday Honors List. 
 
Smith, of course, was the first and great Commissionaire, who had died in 1960. In the years that followed, his April 1 birthday was marked annually by the distribution of investitures to those whom Wolff considered worthy of the honour but who had not come to New York and, I suppose, were not expected to. I don't know how long the spring Honours List continued, but it was still in operation in 1969 when my father, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2014/11/remembering-donald-redmond-bsi-2s.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Donald A. Redmond</a>, received his investiture as "Good Old Index". 
 
My 1966 investiture certificate as "Billy", with Julian Wolff's signature, hangs on my study wall, within sight as I write these words, and I will be all the prouder of it when I can say that I have actually attended a BSI dinner. And I will think of it again come April 1, fondly — and with amazement that my Sherlockian career has now lasted more than half a century. 
 
Image credit: <a href="http://www.bsitrust.org/2015/09/the-1966-bsi-dinner.html" target="_blank">The Baker Street Irregulars Trust</a> 
 
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This Irregular Waited 50 Years to Attend His First BSI Dinner

"In fifty years of official life I cannot recall such a case." [MAZA] In a few days I will be attending my first-ever dinner...

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by Chris Redmond

Original Holmes and Parallel Holmes

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"running on parallel lines" [HOUN]</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkifMgcxbJbhKhMMvN5BS4UzZldB1dT9EIiNjyN7LEVtgcBiUxq1ZEmrTH1ONR00lQ4AnSUO0eR4m_tFKeq8iBF49FR8ZbijOdyoSugr0mXTXZN8AZGAiFSwiOV5EKdiYb6MIQ8IJaNKL/s1600/Twin+Sherlock.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkifMgcxbJbhKhMMvN5BS4UzZldB1dT9EIiNjyN7LEVtgcBiUxq1ZEmrTH1ONR00lQ4AnSUO0eR4m_tFKeq8iBF49FR8ZbijOdyoSugr0mXTXZN8AZGAiFSwiOV5EKdiYb6MIQ8IJaNKL/s640/Twin+Sherlock.png" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Someone asked me recently what I think about <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="SEARCH" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="70ae33057d1791c34cc06229a54c230d" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies" href="http://amazon.com/s/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Guy%20Ritchie%E2%80%99s%20Sherlock%20Holmes%20movies&tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=70ae33057d1791c34cc06229a54c230d&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3883869" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3883869" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=70ae33057d1791c34cc06229a54c230d&_cb=1452234544849" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> – do I really like them, even though their resemblance to Conan Doyle’s original is so little? My answer was not specifically about those two movies, but rather the whole genre of Sherlock Holmes adaptations. 
<h3>
 
A Tale of Two Holmeses</h3>
My way of seeing this is that there are two kinds of Holmes. There is the original Holmes – and there is the parallel Holmes. The parallel Holmes has existed almost since the beginning (the first parody came just a few months after the first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891), and is a version of Holmes that other persons have formed, rather than Conan Doyle. 
 
For many people this parallel Holmes is often more true than the original version. Without parallel Holmes, the detective would lack many of his most characteristic features: the deerstalker, the curved pipe and the line "Elementary, my dear Watson." The deerstalker was of course put there by Sidney Paget – and that’s definitely connected to the original Holmes – but without William Gillette’s use of it, Holmes would have had no characteristic hat, and his easily recognizable silhouette would be less easily recognizable. 
 
When Gillette’s play toured America and all around Europe at the turn of the century, more people had seen this Sherlock Holmes on stage than had ever read a book about Conan Doyle’s detective. [Is this true? Even with subscriptions of The Strand (in which Paget's drawings existed) soaring? -Ed.] Even if Gillette’s Holmes had lines and plot taken from original Holmes, and even if Conan Doyle had said okay to the manuscript, it was nevertheless a parallel Holmes – Gillette’s own view of the detective. Gillette’s Holmes play showed generations to come what could be done with the detective (e.g. his emotions towards Alice Faulkner) and how far away from original Holmes he could be taken – while still being able to call him Sherlock Holmes. 
 
But Gillette’s Holmes wasn’t the only forefather of future parallel Holmes. The parodies of the 1890s had done as much to create that parallel Holmes. They had sped up the plots and made Holmes’s deductions faster and more impossible – and, of course, sometimes entirely wrong, since they were parodies. They had given Holmes even sharper features and more insane personality. And they had spread and further established Sherlock Holmes’s increasingly famous name among the readers. 
<h3>
 1 + 1 = ∞ ?</h3>
These two early sorts of parallel Holmes melted into one big category, and formed what was to become the popular icon Sherlock Holmes. Parallel Holmes was – and still is – the Holmes that most people know about. Much fewer have read the original stories. Original Holmes was the origin of parallel Holmes, but parallel Holmes was the origin of popular icon Holmes. 
 
Parallel Holmes can be almost anything, and it can be boring and it can be fun. The most boring examples are often the ones that painstakingly want to be original Holmes, but are made with such lack of love that they entirely miss the goal. They are mainly just constructed mystery plots with an investigating cliché duo in the middle. However, when parallel Holmes is made with love and genius, and when it comes really close to original Holmes, it’s just a pleasure to consume, e.g. some of the best episodes of <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000RPCJB6" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="532edbb2d62a2af44f3b56afbc329aea" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="the Granada series" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Complete-Granada-Television/dp/B000RPCJB6/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=532edbb2d62a2af44f3b56afbc329aea&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1954625" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Granada series</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1954625" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=532edbb2d62a2af44f3b56afbc329aea&_cb=1452236001230" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> with Jeremy Brett, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/02/interview-author-lyndsay-faye-on-art-of.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lyndsay Faye</a>’s novel <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1416583319" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="8e65af0d391af9cbf36451ef5da326a5" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Dust and Shadow" href="http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Shadow-Account-Ripper-Killings/dp/1416583319/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=8e65af0d391af9cbf36451ef5da326a5&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6944122" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dust and Shadow</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6944122" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=8e65af0d391af9cbf36451ef5da326a5&_cb=1452235406143" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />, or <a href="http://ihose.co/ihose85" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nicholas Meyer</a>'s <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0393311198" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="fe0f0b2d2df357685fcf62102ca682d2" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Seven Percent Solution" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Seven-Per-Cent-Solution-Reminiscences-Paperback/dp/0393311198/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=fe0f0b2d2df357685fcf62102ca682d2&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5740271" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Seven-Per-Cent Solution</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5740271" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=fe0f0b2d2df357685fcf62102ca682d2&_cb=1452235398743" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />.  
 
Many of the most interesting parallel Holmes productions are the ones where the creators are doing something totally different. They move away from Conan Doyle, and their foundations are sometimes to be found in other genres, not necessarily crime fiction related. They want to tell something else, and they often demand more of the reader/viewer. To look upon such productions as detective stories can be risky – in their cores they often hold a vibrating packet full of emotions. 
 
These creators are not just satisfied with playing the game, but are instead constantly adding to it, evolving it. Mitch Cullin’s novel <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1400078229" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="e43988e5c7776901c8725e0297c7865e" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="A Slight Trick of the Mind" href="http://www.amazon.com/Slight-Trick-Mind-Mitch-Cullin/dp/1400078229/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=e43988e5c7776901c8725e0297c7865e&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1353403" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Slight Trick of the Mind</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1353403" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=e43988e5c7776901c8725e0297c7865e&_cb=1452235633556" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> (which became the film <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B014PIQYIO" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="8f6f4a31a4822c30e484288dcba94237" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Mr. Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Holmes-DVD-Digital-McKellen/dp/B014PIQYIO/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=8f6f4a31a4822c30e484288dcba94237&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1945634" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mr. Holmes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1945634" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=8f6f4a31a4822c30e484288dcba94237&_cb=1452235643516" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />) is one modern illustration of this. And Billy Wilder’s movie <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00K6D1R0I" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="b83af11c30d4fb4f283e19b36c37fc90" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/Private-Life-Sherlock-Holmes-Blu-ray/dp/B00K6D1R0I/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=b83af11c30d4fb4f283e19b36c37fc90&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7658103" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_7658103" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=b83af11c30d4fb4f283e19b36c37fc90&_cb=1452235653371" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> and Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s TV series are other examples. They don't just play the game, they keep changing it. 
 
It is sometimes the case that when parallel Holmes gets even further away from original Holmes, great entertainment is to be extracted. I love the film <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00RYZFSJM" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="6cc182abc3cb65377b8e1e0390997fac" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Without a Clue" href="http://www.amazon.com/Without-Clue-Michael-Caine/dp/B00RYZFSJM/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=6cc182abc3cb65377b8e1e0390997fac&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5736662" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Without a Clue</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5736662" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=6cc182abc3cb65377b8e1e0390997fac&_cb=1452235717367" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> – it's definitely not original Holmes, but it's fun. I also like such a thing as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOj-Is2ylA0" target="_blank">the short rap version of The Hound of the Baskervilles</a>. 
 
<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wOj-Is2ylA0?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></center>
 
And many other crazy things that have been made. And I like the Guy Ritchie movies – not because they are good adaptations of original Holmes, but because they are good versions of parallel Holmes. They effectively make use of the popular icon Holmes and make something new out of that and something that can attract a lot of people that prefer to watch a film with a super hero rather than a film with a serious thinker. 
 
And since Warner Bros have succeeded in making these films that people want to see, I have no trouble at all with this not being close to the original Holmes. Because I love parallel Holmes as much as I love original Holmes. 
 
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