Friday Sherlock Links Compendium (October 20 - October 26, 2012)

Jon Lellenberg broke the extremely sad news (via his Editor’s Gas-Bag blog) that longtime Sherlockian Captain Richard Miller, BSI (“The Grice Patersons in the Island of Uffa”) passed away unexpectedly at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico earlier this week (October 22, 2012). Along with being BSI, Mr Miller was a member of The Gila Lizards of the Arid and Repulsive Desert and a “gallant gentleman” respected by Sherlockians all over the country. Mr Miller also had a love of firearms, as evidenced in Mr Lellenberg’s first meeting with him in “May ’73, [Miller] was handing me a loaded gun, and it sort of set the tone of our long friendship. It was the annual Colonel Sebastian Moran Memorial Trap-Shoot of John Bennett Shaw’s Brothers Three of Moriarty.” Similarly, Sherlock Peoria succinctly recounts an amusing incident at a JBS Santa Fe Sherlock Holmes workshop in 1993: “Dick Miller tried to blow up the college during his talk on Watson’s firearms habits.” My thoughts go out to Captain Miller’s friends and family and I look forward to reading more reminiscences in the days to come (which I’ll post on next week’s Friday Links).

[Susan Dahlinger, in regards to the above picture of Mr Richard Miller remarked: “Some of you who see Dick’s picture [above] will not remember the slim, straight, red-haired Captain in his navy blues who used to breeze into impromptu ASH dinners some 35 years ago and flirt happily with the lot of us.”]

Re: Sherlock Holmes by Swedish Sherlockian Mattias Bostrom, BSI posted his second Sherlock-themed video blog, this time it’s about: “my very first Sherlock Holmes booklet, which I made in 1989, just a few weeks before I turned 18. Don’t miss me reading my old Clerihew poems at the end of the video. I wrote them when I was 17, inspired by an American Sherlockian friend, the late Don Hardenbrook, BSI.” Keep the video blogging coming Mr Bostrom. Related Note: Don Hardenbrook is responsible for Chapter 5 of Jon Lellenberg’s excellent Irregular Crisis of the Late ‘Forties - Archival History of the BSI Vol. 5 ’The Trained Cormorants of Los Angeles’. 

[Mattias Bostrom video blogging on his favorite topic.]

MX Publishing re-posted a book review by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London of Mr Dan Andraicco’s The 1895 Murder: “when a man is shot dead outside the theatre where [Sebastian McCabe is] playing Mycroft Holmes, he and his brother-in-law Jeff Cody are pleased to help find the killer. Well, mostly. Jeff‘s mind, naturally, is on his impending wedding and the need for diplomacy with his fiancée’s rather unpredictable parents. It’s a pleasure to visit Erin again and to watch the solving of a particularly baffling mystery.” I just finished reading The 1895 Murder and will post my review soon, but as much as I enjoyed Mr Andriacco’s first two McCabe/Cody novels (No Police Like Holmes and Holmes Sweet Holmes), his third novel is even better.

[The third book in Mr Andriacco’s Cody/McCabe series.]

The Red Circle - a storied scion based in Washington DC of which Peter Blau is the de facto leader - recently posted Meeting Notes from their last event: Members “gathered at the National Press Club on Friday evening, September 14, 2012. A robust group of old and new friends enjoyed cocktails and dinner. The evening’s speaker was the renowned Conan Doyle biographer and Red Circle member Daniel Stashower, who gave a well-received illustrated talk on Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure, a diary by Arthur Conan Doyle, which Dan edited along with Jon Lellenberg.” The Red Circle has a great website and is worth checking out occasionally even if you’re not a member or even an east coast denizen. 

[“By George! it’s Black Gorgiano himself!” cried the American detective. “Someone has got ahead of us this time.”]

SHSL on Flickr posted a selection of excellent photos from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London’s most recent Switzerland pilgrimage to the infamous Reichenbach Falls. I didn’t think it possible to want to go on one of the Swiss Pilgrimage trips more than I did, but after paging through the SHSL’s 2012 pictures, I’m seriously considering beginning a travel fund to ensure that I can afford to partake in the next pilgrimage. I must admit though that as fantastic as these 2012 photos are, the 1968 Swiss Pilgrimage images remain unrivaled in their sartorial flair and historical pizazz!

[Click for access to the entire set - reminiscent of pictures from the SHSL’s 1968 Reichenbach trip which can be found here.]

Lyndsay Faye as well as posting the fine illustration below announced on her personal blog: “Just won a copy of Subcutaneously, Mr Dear Watson. Dying of cool. @priorynyc @BakerStBabes.” What Ms Faye fails to mention is that she won Jack Tracy’s very excellent and very controversial book for being victorious in a canonical quiz (on TWIS) at last Sunday’s Priory Scholars of NYC Fall 2012 Session. I can’t think of a better home for a book about Holmes and his forays into intravenous cocaine and morphine use, keeping in mind Ms Faye’s obvious interest in late 19th century drug use as evidenced by Valentine Wilde (brother to Timothy) from her masterful novel The Gods of Gotham. This particular prize was drawn from my own Sherlockian library (I had doubles), though many of the other prizes awarded at the PSNYC luncheon came from The Ray Betzner Memorial Trust.

[Illustration from Subcutaneously, Mr Dear Watson.]

Quick Sherlock Links:

Susan E Bailey, just in time for Halloween, posted her wonderfully carved Hound of the Baskervilles-inspired pumpkin on her Twitter: @yuktipatipriya.

[The Pumpkin on the Tor.]

Doyleockian re-posted a slightly updated (by Alistair Duncan) version of the 2011 audio documentary by James Hodder entitled The Legacy of Sherlock Holmes. which features Mr Duncan, Andrew Lycett, Mark Campbell, Daniel Smith, Bert Coules, Nick Utechin, David Stuart Davies and more.

Dan Andriacco, to help promote Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Boer Wagon, conducted an interview with fellow MX author Kieran McMullan, whose previous books include: The Many Watsons, Watson’s Afghan Adventure, Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels, and unbeknownst to me a book about “how to care for artillery team horses in the field during Civil War reenactments. Definitely worth reading.

I Hear of Sherlock Tumblr reminds their readers about a project I personally consider to be one of the most important of the Sherlockian world, The Complete Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes audio adaptations from BBC Radio: “The head writer was Bert Coules, who served as a speaker at the BSI’s Distinguished Lecture in January 2002…this was the first time the entire Canon was recorded with the same two actors for the entire series” - those actors of course being Clive Merrison as Sherlock Holmes and Michael Williams as Dr John H Watson. The Complete Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes can be purchased on Amazon (Whether you purchase the CDs or acquire the audio files, this is a piece of Sherlockiana you should not/cannot live without!!) - though unfortunately Coules’ book 221 BBC referenced by IHOSE in their post is WAY out of print, having been published by Musgrave Monographs in a very small run. For more information on Bert Coules start with John H Watson MD blog and this interview on BBC, and for good measure start following Clive Merrison on Twitter. 

[The above image of Mr Clive Merrison in the guise of the Great Detective is from a little book by Bert Coules called 221 BBC: Writing for the World’s First Complete Dramatised Canon published by Musgrave Monographs (Number 9) in 1998 - a book I am now desperate to find.]

Well-Read Sherlockian reviewed a favorite Holmes pastiche of mine from MX, released last year entitled A Case of Witchcraft by Sherlockian and occult historian Joe Revill. If (suspected) human sacrifice at the hands of a witch-cult in the Northern Islands of Scotland, Aleister Crowley, Holmes waxing philosophical on everything from occidental vs. oriental philosophies to the virtue of properly made fish & chips and a good old-fashioned whodunit sounds intriguing, give this review a read and then check out Mr Revill’s novel. If you need more convincing, check out my review from last year.

VideoGamer is hosting a trailer for The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, the newest Sherlock Holmes video game for pretty much all the major gaming systems and OS’s on the market.

Let Us Go Then, You and I, the Tumblr of Lyndsay Faye, posted a collection of International book covers for “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” from the site My Skull Is Full of Sunken Ships. 

[Some of the excellent art that has graced the covers of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes over the years throughout the world. Click for larger versions.]

NYC Steam Punk alerts us to a seminar happening November 17 - 18, 2012sponsored by The Bartitsu Club of NYC : “London’s Bartitsu Club was all the rage in 1899, but only recently has this lost martial art been rediscovered. Learn the “gentlemanly art of self-defense” at this workshop taught by Professor Mark P. Donnelly, a world-renowned expert on historical combat.” 

The Swedish Pathological Society shared this very cool cover for a Swedish edition of a Sherlock Holmes Story Collection from 1911. 

[Swedish 1911 Sherlock Holmes short story collection.]

Sherlock. Everywhere. posted “artwork from a 1970s magazine titled The World of Sherlock Holmes” - I love a lot of the 1970s-style illustrations of various Sherlock Holmes material. I hope you dig this image as much as I do:

[The World of Sherlock Holmes from the 1970s.]

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