Data as Holmes

A very nice rendition of Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation playing Sherlock Holmes. Everything about this costume is very well done, from the outfit to the makeup and the eyes especially. This was from DragonCon '06.

Holmes or someone else?

This gentleman was at DragonCon this past year, an enormous sci-fi convention held annually in Atlanta. I don't know if he's supposed to be Holmes, Watson, H.G. Wells from Time After Time or some other character entirely. Whoever he's supposed to be he looks an awful lot like Holmes...with the exception of the mustache.

Elementary, Mr. Hooper!

Hands down, my all-time favorite film is Jaws, it always has been. It's incredibly suspenseful, extremely well-written, well acted, and practically timeless. Aside from the polyester suit that author Peter Benchley is wearing in the news report scene, there is very little that dates the movie. Just about everything the characters are wearing can still be found in any beach/fishing town. But it was years later after I became a Sherlock Holmes fan that I realized that there is a Holmes reference in Jaws. In the scene where oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) visits Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) at his home the dialogue between them and Brody's wife, Ellen (Lorraine Gary), runs as follows:

Hooper (to Brody): You know, you're going to be the only rational man left on this island after I leave tomorrow.
Ellen: Where are you going?
Hooper: I am going on the Aurora.
Ellen: The Aurora, what is that?
Hooper: It's a floating asylum...for shark fanatics, pure research, eighteen months at sea.

Now, either the writer of the screenplay, Carl Gottlieb, or the author of the novel, Benchley, must have been a Holmes fan because, as every Sherlockian knows, in The Sign of Four the speedy steam launch that Jonathan Small hires to make his escape down the river Thames is called the Aurora, and it has become one of the most famous ship names in classical literature. At the moment I don't know if the name Aurora appears in the novel. Since the movie differs so drastically from the novel it may have simply been a tributary piece of dialogue that Gottlieb wrote into the script.

RIP Ian Richardson

The great Ian Richardson has passed away at age 72. He played Sherlock Holmes and also Dr. Joseph Bell in Murder Rooms. A link to CNN's obit is here.

A Study in Scarlet

"Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it." (pause) "And now for lunch..."

Dr. John "Don Juan" Watson

1991 was the year I became a Sherlockian. I was working in Huntington, WV and attending classes at Marshall University and had taken a small apartment there. Having no significant school work that evening I dropped in at the Cabell County Library and desperately searched for reading material. My eyes fell on a volume of Sherlock Holmes which I took back to my little flat and promptly devoured. Now, I am a great fan of the language of romance. Well-written words of woo are breathtaking to read and even more so to hear when spoken by a skilled orator or actor. At this time I had recently seen Kenneth Branagh's film version of Shakespeare's Henry V which contains some of the most beautifully-written language of love between King Henry and Katherine of France, as he attempts to woo her and convince her to marry him in a timespan of about five minutes! King Henry's words were what was spinning about in my mind when I indulged for the first time in the Holmes story The Sign of Four. It is in this dark and sinister story where Watson meets Ms. Mary Morstan who will later become his wife. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ability to scribe words of romance amid the mystery and darkness of this tale is a great testament to his ability as a writer. They seem to fit right into the situation on hand and gives the story an emotional core that it otherwise would have lacked. The following are the words that I found so beautiful, almost poetic in nature. The setting is outside a place called Pondicherry Lodge where Holmes, Watson & Ms. Morstan have been taken by Mr. Thaddeus Sholto in search of a long-hidden treasure that rightly belongs to her. The Lodge is where Thaddeus' brother, Bartholomew, lives and is soon to be found dead from a poison dart. The lawn on which our heroes are standing is pitted with holes and mounds of dirt that have been left in search of the aforementioned treasure:
Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round and peered keenly at the house and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.
And later, Watson in instructed to take the iron box which supposedly contains the Great Agra Treasure to Ms. Morstan at her lodgings at Mrs. Cecil Forrester's home. There is no key to open the box, since Jonathan Small, the wooden-legged man from who they have acquired it, has thrown it into the river during the chase down the Thames. In order to open the treasure box, Watson borrows Mrs. Forrester's poker: There was in the front a thick and broad hasp, wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!
No wonder that it was heavy. The ironwork was two-thirds of an inch thick all round. It was massive, well-made, and solid, like a chest constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or crumb or metal or jewellery lay within it. It was absolutely and completely empty. "The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan calmly. As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great shadow seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra treasure had weighed me down until now that it was finally removed. It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize nothing save that the golden barrier was gone from between us. "Thank God!" I ejaculated from my very heart. She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. "Why do you say that?" she asked. "Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand. She did not withdraw it. "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is why I said, 'Thank God.'". "Then I say 'Thank God', too," she whispered as I drew her to my side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had gained one.

Last sketches

"I beg you, nothing, absolutely nothing, is to be moved!"