The Open and Inclusive Worldwide Online Sherlockian Society (Really, We're about Having Fun)
The Fall 2020 issue of the Watsonian is now making its way to 2020 Paper+ members. There was a bit of a delay, but we hope you’ll find it worth the wait.
The digital PDF edition of the Fall 2020 Watsonian and all previous issues are available for members to download now. Log in and visit the Member Resources page for the links.
Sharp-eyed visitors may have noticed a couple of additions to our menu up at the top: Member Login and Member Resources. With these links, members can view their account details, renew their membership, download the 2020 issues of the Watsonian, and a few more things.
Having trouble logging in? Not sure how to log in to your account? Selena can help!
As mentioned a few days ago, Society members will receive an email inviting them to join the JHWS Announcement e-mail list. Those emails went out tonight, and should be arriving soon (if they haven’t already). See you there!
Society members will soon receive an email asking them to confirm their subscription to the John H Watson Society Announcement list.
We’ll be using this list to share important information with our members, so please do join us!
Over at Book Riot, Eileen Gonzalez gives us her take on 7 Unconventional HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES Adaptations.
Both BBC Sherlock and Elementary get mentions, along with Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, which I just started watching, courtesy of my public library’s digital collections. I haven’t watched the episode she mentions yet, though.
There is also what is clearly a massive labor of love, an animated short film using LEGO® blocks.
Have you seen any (or all) of these? Do you have a favorite HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES adaptation?
Be your own Boswell and tell us a little about yourself!
Name (or alias):
Beth Gallego, but you can find me as plexippa on most social media platforms
Bullpup moniker (Contact us if you don’t know):
Selena
Who is your favorite Watson and why?
I’m partial to Dr David Q Dawson, faithful companion to Eve Titus’s Basil (of Baker Street). I’m a Children’s Librarian, and I collect Sherlockian children’s books, and Dawson is Watson, but adapted for children.
If Watson was writing a story about you, what would it be titled?
The Adventure of the Lost Librarian
Give us an improbable fact about yourself!
I completed all six of the Tinker Bell Half Marathons at Disneyland.
Why did you join the JHWS?
I fell into the Sherlockian world comparatively late and a little bit backwards, and when I get interested in something, I want to know everything I can about it. I ran across the Watson Society site in my digital wanderings and loved it right away. Through the Society, I’ve met so many clever and interesting people who are here to have fun among friends, and what could be better than that?
Want to participate? Answer the questions above and send to buttons@johnhwatsonsociety.com!
It has been my immense honor to serve as your Boy-in-Buttons since March of 2016. Our Society has grown and changed over the last four-and-a-half years, and it is time for a new person to lead us into the future.
I am delighted to announce that Robert Perret (JHWS “Sampson”) is our “Sampson Buttons”, effective 1 October 2020.
While I am passing on the mantle of “Buttons”, I remain JHWS “Selena”, and your faithful webmistress. While I work on improving the site, I look forward to seeing our Society as a whole move forward with new energy and ideas.
What hath the second meeting of the John H Watson Society brought to the podcast party? Why so many birds? Bad podcast organization, a good diary entry, and a mysterious movie that only one person is known to have seen? And we had to stop at a half hour for this one, because our Watsonian cup is overflowing!
The Original Sherlock Holmes and his Baker Street Irregulars game Kickstarter
Aliens in the Prime of their Lives by Brad Watson
The SOBs (Sound of the Baskervilles)
A Novel Journal: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium – October 10, 2020
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Didbin
L’ultime défi de Sherlock Holmes comic book adaptation by Jules Stromboni and Olivier Cotte
Let’s not bury the “lead”: Watson is Canonically naked, the exposed facts in this episode! Also, a pleasant conversation with Beth Gallego, the Boy in Buttons of the John H Watson Society, many of Watson’s words of the week, a slop shop deciphered, and can you really head down to Watsontown? It’s all here!
Three-Patch Podcast Episode 106 (Davey Nellist Q&A at 0:28:06)
Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Blank Page by Leah Guinn
The Watsonian, Fall 2020 submission deadline: Monday, August 17. Need a writing prompt to get you started? We’re looking for articles and stories related to Watson’s life before he became an army surgeon. Who influenced him? Who broke his heart? Who made him the man we came to know? We know so little of Watson’s past that we’re all dying to hear more, so if you have it, let us read it! Email publisher@johnhwatsonsociety.com .
221B Con – April 9-11, 2021
Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium – October 10, 2020
JHWS Meeting on Zoom – July 11, 9am PDT – join us for toasts, a song, a little show-and-tell of Watsonian artifacts, and general merriment and delights of a John H Watson nature. Email podcast@johnwatsonsociety.com for a Zoom invite.
Iliad Books, North Hollywood, CA
Junior Sherlockian Society (Beacon Society)
Beth’s copy of the 1948 BSI-published edition of BLUE:
Chris Music confirms that the signature in my copy of BLUE is Russ McLauchlin, founder of Detroit’s Amateur Mendicants Society. pic.twitter.com/xMtWvkqnn1
— Beth 🧶 ☕️ 🔎 (@plexippa) July 19, 2018
The John H Watson Society sadly lost charter member Sheila ‘Daisy’ Holtgrieve this past week to intestinal cancer.
Sheila, a long-time member of the Sound of the Baskervilles of Seattle, joined the JHWS as part of the inaugural Treasure Hunt team from Seattle in 2013. An avid quiz taker and puzzle solver, she played an active part in each treasure hunt from then through 2019.
In addition to the JHWS and the SOBs, she was also a member of The Stormy Petrels of British Columbia, The Dogs in the Nighttime of Anacortes, WA, and The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. She read mysteries and Holmes pastiches daily and corresponded with Sherlockians in many parts of the country, sending many thank you notes and encouragement cards.
Sheila moved to Seattle in 2009 from California, after her retirement from Stanford University Medicine where she worked as an RN in the ICU for many years, and the death of her husband, Denis. She is survived by her son, daughter-in-law, twin 8-year-old grandchildren, a sister and brother-in-law, and a niece and nephew.
Not long before my workplace closed to the public, a co-worker told me I ought to watch Sherlock Hound.
I think it might be fun to watch with a little virtual company. So, while I watch it tomorrow, Saturday, April 25, at 8:00am PDT (11:00am EDT) (4:00pm BST), I will be hanging out in our Society Slack. I’d love it if some Watsonians would join me!
Can’t make it tomorrow morning? I’ll let you know when I’ll be watching another episode. Or we can schedule a watch-along for something else – Granada, anyone?
A rare Sumatran tiger has escaped from the London Zoo! Professor Stamford, President of the Zoological Society of London, calls for Sherlock Holmes to help track down the missing cat. Since time is of the essence, Holmes requests your assistance.
While so many of us are sequestered at home for the duration, the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University provides a bit of Holmesian fun with their virtual escape room. Can you solve the mystery and find the missing tiger?
These are strange times we are living in.
The Covid-19 pandemic has many of us sheltering in place, with our workplaces closed and social gatherings prohibited. Others, like the Good Doctor, are essential workers in the medical field or in the service industries that we depend upon. You have our deepest gratitude.
While we are sad to see beloved and highly anticipated events canceled or postponed, we are heartened to see friends connecting through the virtual world. Being an online Society, the virtual world is our home.
Peter Blau just pointed out that we are all now fixed points in a changing age.
— Ray Betzner (@BooksnBipeds) March 25, 2020
We hope that all of you are keeping well and safe, and that you have plenty of good things to read.
The Fall issue of the Watsonian is headed to press, with print copies expected to arrive later in the month.
The digital version will be released to members over the next few days, so watch your email for an update to your order.
Our Shopkeeper is headed up to Oregon for the Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium. While she is away, print publications and the Print+ membership will be temporarily unavailable. Digital editions of publications and the Worldwide Paperless membership will remain available in the Shop.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience!
This month, some changes in Society leadership took effect. I am pleased to introduce our first official Carter (the Treasurer), Tonya Spratt-Williams (JHWS “Mallory”) and Boswell (Membership Secretary), Courtney Powers (JHWS “Destiny”).
In addition, Elinor Gray (JHWS “Misty”) is handing the reins of Watsonian Editor-in-Chief to Brad Keefauver (JHWS “Calder”). We look forward to the Fall 2019 issue, which will be the first under his charge.
Mrs Hudson (or perhaps Mrs Turner) has completed her housekeeping in the Shop, and print copies of most publications are now available.
Membership for 2019 with print copies of both the Spring and Fall issues of The Watsonian are available until we exhaust our limited supply of the Spring 2019 issue or until December 31, 2019, whichever comes first. (The Spring issue will be mailed upon purchase of Membership, and the Fall issue will be mailed upon publication.) Paperless Memberships will remain available.
While we do some behind-the-scenes work in the Shop, print publications and the Print+ membership will be temporarily unavailable. Digital editions of publications and the Worldwide Paperless membership will remain available.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience!
Andie Stabler writes:
Calling all of my Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian friends out there! Listen up!
As many of you know, the lovely Susan Diamond passed away recently. I adored Susan. She was always good to me and she and her hubby Allen were always willing to help guide this newbie Sherlock Holmes nerd through the ups and downs of Sherlockian society. So I would like to do something to honor this wonderful lady.
For this, I will need some help.
I’m going to be running the Wonder Woman Half-Marathon in the Chicago area on June 9th. What I would like to do as well is raise money for The Beacon Society in Susan Diamond’s name. I think the Wonder Woman Half-Marathon is perfect for this, as we all know that Susan was a superhero in her own right. ?
When I cross the finish line of this race, (which will take a while, I’m sure), I would like to be able to say that through the running of this race, there is at least $500 to be donated to The Beacon Society.
You can help Andie in this effort by donating at her Just Giving page. As of this writing, she has reached the original $500 goal, but wouldn’t it be lovely to make that donation even bigger?
… upon the afternoon of the 4th we set off together with the intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the hamlet of Rosenlaui. We had strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about half-way up the hill, without making a small detour to see them.
It is, indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening, coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring for ever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing for ever upwards, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamour. [FINA]
The fourth of May is a date well known to Sherlockians and Watsonians the world over. On this day, 128 years ago, Holmes and Moriarty fought a final, apparently fatal struggle at the edge of the Reichenbach Falls. What really happened there has been the subject of a number of essays and pastiches over the years.
Today, there are a number of memorial sites one can visit in and around Meiringen. A life-size statue of Holmes, sculpted by John Doubleday, was unveiled by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London in 1988. Nearby, a Sherlock Holmes Museum opened in 1991.
Also in 1991, in honour of the centennial, the Bimetallic Question of Montreal and the Reichenbach Irregulars of Switzerland erected a commemorative plaque near the Falls. There are a few other plaques to be found in the area, including one noting the location of the “Englischer Hof” (otherwise known as the Hotel Rössli, Meiringen).
Have you visited the Falls, either with a group or on your own? The closest I’ve ever been is the airport in Geneva, but I’d love to get there one day!
”Chips” writes that he will be spending the day assembling a puzzle of this iconic illustration:
