eldritchhobbit

Happy birthday to the Great Detective himself, Sherlock Holmes. May you party like it's 1895!



"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last."
- Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's “The Adventure of the Red Circle” (1911)

My latest article is now out in the print edition of Reason Magazine (Oct. 2015 issue): "The Many Resurrections of Sherlock Holmes: Why the Great Detective is Always in Fashion."

When it's online, I'll post a link.

I had quite a bit of archive-y, research-y, rambly fun before Worldcon. As for London, beyond the Sherlock Holmes Museum, I managed to drop by the Museum of London (my photos are here) and several Holmesian spots, such as Arthur Conan Doyle's home on Upper Wimpole Street (where he wrote the first five Sherlock Holmes short stories), St. Bart's Hospital (where Holmes and Watson first met and, in the BBC's Sherlock, where Sherlock fell), etc.



In one of the most amazing experiences of my trip, I was privileged to get to spend an afternoon one-on-one in Whitechapel with noted Ripperologist Richard Jones. I've annotated my photos to try to explain where we went and why. (Alas, I didn't take photos inside the Royal London Hospital Museum and Archives, which was utterly fascinating.) Even if you're not specifically interested in the subject of Jack the Ripper and the Autumn of Terror, you may find the historical architecture worth a look.

Here is the "virtual tour" of Whitechapel I've constructed with my photos and explanations.

I'll leave you with a teaser: this is the beautiful tile work inside The Ten Bells Pub, which has been standing since 1752 and remains largely unchanged on the inside from its condition in 1888, when it reportedly served at least two victims traditionally attributed to Jack the Ripper, Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly.



I'll be posting very soon about Worldcon/Loncon 3 itself. Thanks for letting me share! :)

I'm back, staggeringly jetlagged and tired but very happy, from a fantastic visit to London and Loncon 3/Worldcon. I'll be catching up on emails shortly. Pictures and reports of my English adventures will follow. You have been warned.

For now, let me say that the third and final installment of my "Looking Back on Genre History" series entitled "Seeking Dumbledore's Mother: Harry Potter in a Native American Context" is now live on StarShipSofa. If you listen, I hope you enjoy. Here are links to all three segments:
- "Seeking Dumbledore's Mother": Part 1 of 3
- "Seeking Dumbledore's Mother": Part 2 of 3
- "Seeking Dumbledore's Mother": Part 3 of 3

I'll leave you with a couple of my photos of notes left by fans at the The Sherlock Holmes Museum in London.

Ruth Graham started it with her article at Slate: "Against YA: Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children." Graham manages to diss not only all of YA fiction, but also fantasy, science fiction, and detective fiction, as well, in favor of big-L Literature.


One of my favorite contemporary authors, Lyndsay Faye, has just responded with a wickedly tongue-in-cheek "thank you": "Slate Nailed It: YA and Detective Fiction Are for Rubes."

Faye's reply is well worth reading for insightful sarcasm like this:
"In a knockout left hook of an argument that left me reeling at Graham’s perspicacity, she later suggests, 'the YA and "new adult" boom may mean fewer teens aspire to grown-up reading, because the grown-ups they know are reading their books.' This is not merely true of adults reading Harry Potter, a terrible series touching on love, bravery, ultimate self-sacrifice, and a truly unambiguous, almost cartoonish character named Severus Snape; it is likewise true of detective fiction. When I was very young, I read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes at the behest of my dad, who loved The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. My father’s unabashed admiration for the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have stunted my capacity to comprehend literary fiction, razing my intellect like a nuclear winter, had a half-bespectacled, elbow-patched stranger not bashed me over the head with a first edition Finnegan’s Wake when I was a nubile sixteen years of age. If not for this vigilante illuminati (they have capes, and a lair), I would not now have To the Lighthouse and Beloved open at either elbow so I can read them simultaneously in my periphery while writing this article in praise of 'Against YA.'"




* Nope, me neither.

I finally saw National Theatre Live's broadcast of Coriolanus. Fantastic! Incredible staging, terrific performances by everyone (Tom Hiddleston and Mark Gatiss included), and Deborah Findlay absolutely made the show. I just recently used Coriolanus in teaching The Hunger Games (there's good reason why President Snow's first name is Coriolanus!), and it was a delight finally to see this new and justly acclaimed adaptation.

A couple of items of possible interest:

* From Heritage Daily: "‘A Study in Sherlock’ – The Case of a Revolutionary Detective."

* From Metro: "Sherlock Holmes Swaps Baker Street for the South Coast for New Museum."


We've recently covered Lord Ruthven, Varney, and Carmilla in my Gothic Tradition class (we're on a vampyre/vampire roll), and now it's time for Dracula. To celebrate, I'm reading Stephen Seitz's very canon-conscious Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula, which I'm enjoying immensely.

And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill.
- Bram Stoker, Dracula

Happy 160th birthday to the Great Detective himself, Sherlock Holmes. May you party like it's 1895!



"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last."
- Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's “The Adventure of the Red Circle” (1911)

PS. I am quite delighted thus far with the new series of Sherlock!

Fresh from Wildside Press, the new Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #10 includes my essay "Sherlock Holmes and Science Fiction."

Fun stuff:
1. "What to Expect When You're Expecting Cthulhu."
2. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Lego Trailer.
3. The Honest Trailer: Star Trek into Darkness.


And a quick reminder: "Sherlock, Science, and Ratiocination" begins next Tuesday! There's still time to sign up to audit or take the course online.

I have lots of links and news to share today!

* I've chosen my text assignments for the Fall 2013 semester. For my online graduate course "Sherlock, Science, and Ratiocination" for the Mythgard Institute, here is the list.
( Assigned Texts )

For my undergraduate/graduate cross-listed course "U.S. Exceptionalism: The American and the Frontier" for the Lenoir-Rhyne University, here is the list.
( Assigned Texts )

* A news story very much worth a listen/read: "Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl." "This is the story of a three-year-old girl and the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is a legal battle that has entangled a biological father, a heart-broken couple, and the tragic history of Native American children taken from their families. When producer Tim Howard first read about this case, it struck him as a sad but seemingly straightforward custody dispute. But, as he started talking to lawyers and historians and the families involved in the case, it became clear that it was much more than that. Because Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl challenges parts of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, this case puts one little girl at the center of a storm of legal intricacies, Native American tribal culture, and heart-wrenching personal stakes." Read/hear more here. (Thanks to agentxpndble.)

* The Force is strong with the Navajo! "Translated Into Navajo, 'Star Wars' Will Be". (Thanks to agentxpndble.)

* Speaking of Star Wars, Luke Burrage of The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast has made his own edit of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Here's the tagline: "No illogical dialogue. No annoying voices. No racist accents. All the best visuals. All the best music. An all new script.” Check out Star Wars, Episode I: The Silent Menace.

* On July 19, Midnight Syndicate will release its sixteenth studio album, Monsters of Legend. This "tribute to the golden age of horror" will feature sweeping symphonic horror instrumental music and sound effects in the signature style the band pioneered. "We want to make you feel like you are a character in one of those classic horror films - that you've entered a world where any one of the iconic characters from the Universal Horror and Hammer Films could be right around the corner," said composer Edward Douglas. Check out more information here.



* A national conference on Whedonesque scholarship, Joss in June, is coming up on June 28. I'll be presenting a paper on Firefly/Serenity, and I hope to see some of you there!

* More than half of the tickets for SofaCON: An Online International Science Fiction Convention have sold. Be sure to get your tickets now before they're gone!

I hope you have a terrific day, my friends.


“I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane