Jan 10 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Sherlock Holmes' 156th birthday was celebrated heartily in New York on Jan. 15, and others date during a never-boring long weekend that began with the traditional ASH Wednesday supper at O'Casey's and continued with the Chris- topher Morley Walk led by Jim Cox and Dore Nash on Thursday morning (with the usual lunch at McSorley's). The Baker Street Irregulars' Distinguished Speaker at the Williams Club on Thursday evening was Joan Winterkorn (archivist and appraiser for the Brit- ish bookseller Bernard Quaritch), who spoke about evaluating the papers of seven generations of Conan Doyle's publisher John Murray. The Beacon Society held its annual meeting at the Algonquin on Friday morn- ing (the group's mission is to encourage and recognize programs that intro- duce young people to Holmes), and the William Gillette Luncheon at Moran's featured The Friends of Bogie's at Baker Street (Paul Singleton, Sarah Mon- tague, and Andrew Joffe) in a reprise of their imaginative "Holmes in the Nursery". The luncheon also was the occasion for Al Gregory's presentation of the Jan WHIMSEY award (in memory of his wife Jan Stauber) for the most whimsical piece published in The Serpentine Muse last year; the winner was Philip Shreffler, who received a certificate and a check for the Canonical sum of $221.17. And Otto Penzler's traditional open house at the Mysteri- ous Bookshop offered the usual opportunities to browse and buy. The Irregulars and their guests gathered for the BSI's annual dinner at the Yale Club, with Jerry Margolin offering the first toast to Karen Gurian as *The Woman*. The dinner featured the usual toasts and traditions, and Nils Nordberg's proposal that Sherlock Holmes was Norwegian, a report by Hartley Nathan on an authentic Penang lawyer that security concerns prevented him from bringing onto the plane in Canada, Sue Vizoskie's discussion of what might have happened in Sherlock Holmes had been a woman, and a toast to Old Irregular Bill Rabe, singing of "Aunt Clara" by Henry Boote to the original music that was composed by Bud Willis in 1936, followed by a performance by Ray Jessel (who was one of the authors of the musical "Baker Street"). Mike Whelan (the BSI's "Wiggins") announced the Birthday Honours, awarding Irregular Shillings and Investitures to Tom Cynkin ("Lord Bellinger"), Pj Doyle ("Ettie Shafter"), Sir Christopher Frayling ("Vernet"), Patricia Guy ("Imperial Tokay"), Laurie King ("The Red Circle"), Sarah Montague ("Violet Smith"), Daniel Polvere ("Holloway and Steele"), Sally Sugarman ("The Three Gables"), and Maria Carmen Veiga-Hayzen ("Isadora Klein"). Mike also presented the BSI's Two-Shilling Award (for extraordinary devo- tion to the cause beyond the call of duty) to John Bergquist, Bob Coghill, and Steve Doyle; and Editor's Medals were awarded to John Bergquist, Susan Dahlinger, Glen Miranker, Gianluca Salvatore, and the late Paul Jeffers in recognition of their services in editing books and Christmas Annuals pub- lished by the BSI. Mike also presented an engraved crystal vase to Freda Howlett, recognizing her as co-founder, honorary member, and past president of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. The Gaslight Gala, held as usual at the Manhattan Club, celebrated "Poisons Jan 01 #2 in the Canon" with toasts and songs (including a performance by Cynthia and Richard Wein's of Warren Randall's "You've Got to Pick a Poison or Two"), plus a skit (Warren Randall's "Watson's Agency, or a Case of Double Indemnity" acted by Elyse Locurto and Don Hobbs), a quiz game (Donny Zaldin's "Who Wants to Be a Sherlockian Millionaire"), and oth- er entertainment. On Saturday morning the dealers room at the Algonquin welcomed (as usual) sellers and buyers, and at 10:30 The Clients of Adrian Mulliner (devotees of the works of both Wodehouse and Watson) gathered for their Junior Blood- stain, which featured a dramatic reading of Anne Cotton's script for "Sher- lock Holmes and the Sure Thing". The BSI's Saturday-afternoon cocktail party was again at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, with wining, dining, and conversation in the Great Hall, and entertainment in the Meeting Room: Mary Ann Bradley in- troduced ladies present who had been honored by the BSI as *The Woman*, and Al and Betsy Rosenblatt reported poetically on the events of the previous year and of the previous evening. Mike Berdan was announced as the winner of the Morley-Montgomery Award (an attractive certificate and a check for $500) for the best contribution to The Baker Street Journal last year: his article "Holmes Alone: Glimpses of Post-Watson Baker Street in 'The Mazarin Stone'". And the Watson Fund ben- efited from energetic sales of raffle tickets by June Kinnee, Sue Vizoskie, Elaine Coppola, and Carol Cavaluzzi for a bottle of vintage (and well trav- eled Madeira donated by Patricia Guy . The Dr. John H. Watson Fund (administered by a carefully anonymous Dr. Wat- son) offers financial assistance to all Sherlockians (membership in the BSI is not required) who might otherwise be unable to participate in the birth- day festivities. The generous donors to this year's auction were The Deni- zens of the Bar of Gold (a pillow hand-crafted and decorated by Alice Zalik that commemorated "The Abbey Grange", Joseph Coppola (a diploma issued by the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh and signed by the father of Jos- eph Bell), The Curious Collectors of Baker Street and Jerry and Chrys Keg- ley (a set of five medals crafted by Maggie Schpak), Chuck Kovacic of Bak- er Street Los Angeles (posters and fake lottery tickets for Guy Ritchie's new film), and Scott Monty (the annual-dinner packet he left behind at the Yale Club and kindly bought back from the Fund). There was an informal "The One Fixed Point Dinner" at Kennedy's on Saturday evening, with the traditional reading from Ogden Nash's work and the tradi- tional toasts ("the Guinness flowed like wine," one of the participants has reported); and on Sunday a brunch arranged by The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes at the Oldcastle Pub & Restaurant. A final note for those who want to plan ahead: The Baker Street Irregulars' next annual dinner will be held on Jan. 7, 2011. And the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's annual dinner will be on Jan. 15, 2011. I've not reported on everything, I hasten to add; if you want more details than I've provided here, you can visit Scott Monty's well-illustrated blog Jan 10 #3 at , or wait for the reports that will be published in the spring issue of The Baker Street Journal. The BSJ appears quarterly, and subscriptions (four issues plus the Christ- mas Annual) cost $37.50 (to the U.S.) or $47.50 (international); checks can be sent to the BSJ (Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331), and credit-card payments are accepted from foreign subscribers. You can also subscribe at the BSJ web-site at , which also has interesting fea- tures such as some of the papers written by winners of the Morley-Montgom- ery Awards, articles from recent issues of the BSJ, and information on the BSI's other publications. Al Gregory offers (by e-mail only) his 2010 edition of "The ABC of the BSI" (an alphabetical listing of Investitures, with recipients, from "Abbey Grange" to "Young Stamford") and "The Florin Society" (couples in which both spouses have received Irregular Shillings). Highly recommended: "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" is a set of four DVDs issued by Acorn Media last year ($59.99) with the 13 programs in the first series broadcast by ITV in 1971. The series was based on the anthology ed- ited by Hugh Greene, and featured excellent performances by fine actors in good stories, including John Neville as Dr. John Thorndyke, Robert Stephens as Max Carrados, Roy Dotrice as Simon Carne, Peter Vaughan as Horace Dorr- ington, and Donald Pleasance as Carnacki. It will be nice indeed if Acorn Media follows up with the second season. Donald J. Terras (whose Investiture in The Baker Street Irregulars is "The Politician, the Lighthouse, and the Trained Cormorant") presides over the Grosse Point Light Station near Chicago, and lives in the keeper's quarters (the station is still in operation as a private aid to navigation on Lake Michigan). And he happily reports that the federal government has awarded $165,000 to help preserve the lighthouse. David Levine died on Dec. 29. His artistic caricatures were a trademark for the New York Review of Books, which published more than 3,800 of his drawings over 40 years. His work appeared on the cover of Time, and in many other magazines and newspapers, and his art is in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress and the National Portrait Gallery in London. His subjects included both Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes; this portrait of Conan Doyle appeared in the New York Review of Books on Aug. 17, 1978, accompanying Julian Symons' long review of Michael Dibdin's THE LAST SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY. William Safire's death (Oct 01 #1) has not ended his interesting N.Y. Times column "On Language": Erin McKean wrote (Dec. 17, 2009) about Wordnik.com, a new on-line dictionary (she's its founder and chief executive) that "uses text-mining techniques and the unlimited space of the Internet to show as many real examples of word use as we can, as fast as we can." The URL is , and there are (as I write this) 300 million example sen- tences, 4.7 million unique words, and 29,177 Wordniks who contribute. You are welcome to join their ranks, if only to add to the examples for sher- lock, Sherlock, and Sherlock's (or for moriarty, Moriarty, and Moriarty's). Jan 10 #4 Phillip Bergem has compiled two extensive checklists of Sher- lockian and Doylean television programs, with more than 800 en- tries, annotated for date, country, actors who played Holmes and Watson (or Conan Doyle), production company, and alternate titles. It's available by e-mail from Phil as a PDF or Excel file. This year's Cameron Hollyer Memorial Lecture of the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Public Library will be given by Peter Calamai on May 29, and the Friends have announced that a "revitalization" of the Library will involve creation of a new Special Collections Centre on the 5th floor that will allow access to the Arthur Conan Doyle Room when- ever the Library is open. Further to the item (Jul 09 #4) on the statue of Sherlock Holmes in Edin- burgh, the Scotsman has reported (Dec. 21) that planning calls for devel- opment of Picardy Place as a public square that will include a new hotel, part of a L850 million commercial development. There's no word on where the statue now in storage will wind up. The "Sherlock Holmes Weekend" in Cape May, N.J., on Mar. 19-21, 2010 will offer a new Sherlockian mystery ("The Case of the Demons in a Padded Room") written by John K. Alvarez. The weekends have been held in the spring and call for many years, and there's more information at the festival web-site at , and from 1048 Washington Street, Cape May, NJ 08204 (800-275-4278). "The membership of Holmes societies around the world is of high intellec- tual caliber," Theodore Dalrymple suggests in a long piece on "The Eternal Detective" in the National Review (Dec. 31, 2009). "Their publications are learned and ingenious. Never is pedantry more joyously or innocently em- ployed, for example, than in the ferreting out of the details of the bio- graphy of Sherlock Holmes (and Dr. Watson, of course)." Donal Donnelly died on Jan. 4. He described himself as "an itinerant Irish actor," and had a long career on stage, screen, and television. He played a fine Watson to Frank Langella's Holmes in "Sherlock's Last Case" in Wash- ington and New York in 1987. The series of Sherlockian mystery jigsaw puzzles was launched quite a few years ago (Mar 96 #3), and two of the 1000-piece puzzles ("The Kent Chapel Murder" and "Watson's Inheritance") are back, with a twist: they're now bi- lingual, with English and French booklets in each puzzle box ($29.99); you "assemble the puzzle, read the mystery booklet, search for clues, and solve the crime!" Will Thomas reports that the Bartitsu Forum is receiving increased atten- tion, thanks to Guy Ritchie's new "Sherlock Holmes"; the Bartitsu Society's web-site at offers an interesting interview with Richard Ryan, who choreographed the fight scenes in the film. There's also a link to a 4-minute preview of an up-coming documentary ("Bartitsu: The Lost Mar- tial Art of Sherlock Holmes") about E. W. Barton-Wright's "new art of self- defense" that Watson may well have misheard or misspelled when he told his readers what Holmes said about baritsu in "The Empty House". Jan 10 #5 The January-February issue of Dollhouse Miniatures (successor to Nutshell News) has an interesting and well-illustrated ar- ticle by Deb Weissler about her Sherlockian room box. And the magazine is honoring the 30th anniversary of the founding of The Mini-Tonga Scion Soci- ety with a new room-box contest, open to all miniaturists and collectors; you should submit one or more photographs of your Sherlockian room box with a brief description (up to 250 words) to the magazine (68132 250th Avenue, Kasson, MN 59994) , and the contest deadline is Mar. 10). The magazine costs $6.95 (866-606-6587) . The 2009 issue of Beaten's Christmas Annual has been published by The Sound of the Baskervilles of Seattle, with 48 pages of scholarship and occasional whimsy; the scholarship includes Terri Haugen's report on the research by the late Samuel C. Fry for his paper "The Influence of Mr. Sherlock Holmes on Twentieth Century Arctic Exploration". $13.00 postpaid ($18.00 outside the U.S.), with checks payable to The Sound of the Baskervilles, from Terri Haugen, 3606 Harborcrest Court NW, Gig Harbor, WA 98332. Their 2007 annual also is available, with 290 pages celebrating the society's 25th anniversa- ry with a compilation of the best material published in earlier issues; the cost is $24.95 postpaid to the U.S. ($27.95 to Canada, $35.95 elsewhere). L'HOMME QUI ETAIT SHERLOCK HOLMES: UNE BIOGRAPHIE DU DOCTEUR JOE BELL (Par- is: Editions Baker Street, 2009; 355 pp., E21.00) is the French translation of Ely Liebow's DR. JOE BELL: MODEL FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES (1982), and it is nicely done indeed, with a new preface by Thierry Saint-Joanis; it's inter- esting to see that it has been "traduit de l'americain" (the French obvi- ously are aware that Yanks and Brits don't use the same language). You can buy the book easily at . Patrick Stewart was knighted by the Queen in her New Year's Honours List, for services to drama. As Captain Jean-Luc Picard he commanded the Enter- prise in the series "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and in "Lonely Among Us" (1987) he mentioned "the immortal Sherlock Holmes" (this was the first episode of the series to pay tribute to Holmes). Watson's Tin Box will host their third "Scintillation of Scions" at Claret House in Clarksville, Md., on Aug. 28, with the intent of bringing together members of mid-Atlantic (and east-coast) Sherlockian societies for "an af- ternoon of fun, scholarship, and social time." It's an entertaining gath- ering, and additional information is available from Jacquelynn Morris (3042 Old Channel Road, Laurel, MD 20724) . Alastair B. Martin ("Colonel Sebastian Moran") died on Jan. 12. He was an art collector, and chairman of the Brooklyn Museum from 1984 to 1989, and a devotee of tennis, many times an amateur champion in court tennis (the game dating back to the Middle Ages and played on walled courts) and in the more modern United States Open; as president of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association he supported opening its amateurs-only tournaments to professionals. And he was a Sherlockian: he was a member of the Five Orange Pips of Westchest- er County, and he owned the four surviving pages of the manuscript of "The Crooked Man" and first contributed to The Baker Street Journal in 1970 with a paper suggesting that Moriarty was a woman. He received his Investiture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1972. Jan 10 #6 "During one of the Church of England's more gruesome civil wars recently, I happened to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury at a literary festival," A. N. Wilson wrote in the December issue of the British edition of the Reader's Digest. "I asked how he managed to stay sane. 'I just keep reading the Sherlock Holmes stories,' he said." The article was titled "Sherlock Holmes: What *Is* the Secret of His Success?" "Sherlock Holmes" is the title of a new DVD released on Jan. 26 by The Asy- lum Home Entertainment ($24.95), nicely timed to benefit from the attention given to Guy Ritchie's film. This one's billed as "an explosive, creature- filled mystery adventure in the vein of Harry Potter and Hellboy," and it's a low-budget film produced last year in Wales. Sherlock Holmes is played by Ben Snyder and Watson by David Gareth-Lloyd, and they're supported by a cast that includes a sea monster, dinosaurs, fantastic steam-punk machin- ery and a robot; the film's not to be taken seriously (the box for the DVD carries a warning that it "contains scene of creature and sci-fi action"), and there is more about the film (and the company) at . "Attack of the Clones" is a long and interesting arti-cle by Brian Raftery about The Asylum that appeared in the January issue of Wired; according to Raftery, the company's planning to make "a meteor film, an airplane-disas- ter movie, a western, and something called 'MILF'." Tim O'Connor reports that "The Sherlock Holmes Collection" (a two-sided DVD from Echo Bridge Entertainment in 2009) has three of the Matt Frewer tele- vision films ("The Hound of the Baskervilles"/"The Case of the Whitechapel Vam Vampire"/"The Royal Scandal") in a box with artwork echoing the colors of the posters for Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" (sold on discount racks at Target for $5.00). And there's a variant with more sedate generic art- work in black and white (sold on discount racks at Walmart for $5.00). "Majoring in the Memoirs" is the theme of this year's "Gathering of South- ern Sherlockians" in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Apr. 17-18; their mailing list is maintained by Kent Ross (721 Hartford Road, Springfield, OH 45503) (678- 464-8321) . The Norwegian Explorers' "Christmas Annual 2009" includes Timothy Reich's amusing "A Theft Forgiven: A Newspaper Vendor's Letter to Watson", Robert Brusic's "A Baker Street Visit from St. Nicholas", and other entertainment and scholarship; the 50-page booklet is available from John Bergquist (3665 Ashbury Road, Eagan, MN 55122) for $8.00 postpaid (please make checks pay- able to The Norwegian Explorers). Reported: Michael Chabon's MANHOOD FOR AMATEURS: THE PLEASURES AND REGRETS OF A HUSBAND, FATHER, AND SON (New York: Harper, 2009; 320 pp., $25.99) in- cludes an essay titled "The Ghost of Irene Adler" (not really Sherlockian). There's a new date for the conference planned by The Norwegian Explorers in Minneapolis (May 09 #1): "The Spirits of Sherlock Holmes" will be held on Aug. 6-10 at the Elmer L. Anderson Library at the University of Minnesota. You can enroll on the mailing list by contacting Gary Thaden (2301 Aldrich Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55404) . The conferences have been held every three years, with interesting events and good attendance. Jan 10 #7 "Sherlock Holmes. Duration: 2 hours and 6 minutes. Can you hold it that long?" Kelly Blau discovered , a web- site devoted to "helping your bladder enjoy going to the movies as much as you do." "Sherlock Holmes" is one of the films, with synopses provided for four points recommended by the site for bathroom breaks. Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" obviously is a commercial success: accord- ing to the Box Office Mojo web-site, as of Jan. 27 (32 days after the film opened, the film had grossed $389.1 million worldwide ($192.1 million do- mestic and $197.0 million foreign), and ranked #121 in the list of biggest grossing films ("Avatar" is #1 with $1.878 billion, and "Titanic" is 2 with $1.848 billion). And the attention devoted to the film has had some inter- esting side-effects: reviews and side-bar stories included interviews with local Sherlockians and publicity for local Sherlockian societies, and (ac- cording to the Hollywood Reporter) sales of the MPI Media set of "Sherlock lock Holmes" DVDs increased by nearly one-third in the first week after the film's release. Dennis Palumbo, blogging about the film to the Huffington Post on Jan. 5, recalled and told once again the famous (perhaps infamous) "tent joke" that was posted to The Hounds of the Internet in July 1998 and apparently first published in the Nov. 1998 issue of the Reader's Digest. I've reported the full text of the joke some years ago (Dec 01 #6); I won't reprint it here. "Sherlock Holmes (well-cut trenches) meets Edwardian dandy (slick, elegant, eight-button double-breasted suits) meets...Hong Kong Phooey? (silk boxer briefs)." That's GQ's description of John Galliano's fall 2010 collection, unveiled in Paris this month; thanks to Mitch Higurashi for a URL that has lots of photographs . One suspects, of course, that Galliano was inspired by the Guy Ritchie film. Robert Downey Jr. received the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe Award for best performance as an actor in a motion picture (musical or comedy) for his performance in "Sherlock Holmes" (winning over Matt Da- mon, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Michael Stuhlberg), and in his acceptance speech (one of the more interesting during the evening) he quoted the Canon: "Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms," he said, noting that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is a "strange bunch." The Critics' Choice Awards (bestowed by the Broadcast Film Critics Associa- tion) included a nomination for Hans Zimmer ("Sherlock Holmes"); the winner in the category was Michael Giacchino ("Up"); nominations were announced on Dec. 14, and the awards were made on Jan. 15. Jacquelynn Morris reports that Laurie R. King will speak (and sign books) at East Columbia Branch of the Howard County Library at 5:00 pm on Apr. 30; 6000 Cradlerock Way, Columbia, MD 21045. More information will be avail- able at . Laurie will be on tour promoting the new Mary Russell novel THE GOD OF THE HIVE. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669)