Charloween

Oh yes. I have internet again. It's not that I'm utterly addicted to my digital life (it kind of is). It's that I normally use the internet to stay connected to the people I care about. And I've moved to a different continent. So. *waves hands*

Even though it seemed (still sometimes seems) like the Android phone was a frivolous purchase, its mobile internet powers kept me connected for the past few weeks. ♥ Now that I have a real internet connection and a screen where I can type with more than my thumbs I expect the phone will be used for more phone-ish things (and Twitter*).

*Twitter is an excellent medium for lurky fangirls. It's also great for SMS-style communication that ignores network barriers. Two great tastes that taste great together.

When I opened this tab I had a lot more energy and brainpower and was planning to make a much longer post. We'll see how this goes. ( Pre-emptive cut, just in case I get going )

ALSO: I must re-rec a vid that was rec'd to me by the always-lovely and rec-ishly reliable serrico... Whole New Way by mresundance - whole lotta Holmes and Holmes fandom going on in this one, all set to a Scissor Sisters song. Very yes.

It reminds me I haven't watched Sherlock nearly enough (though enough to be a little weirded out by black cabs forever - which reminds me, I'm currently registered as an MPhil and after a year there will be an Upgrade Meeting to see if I can be Upgraded to a full PhD registration, and this is standard procedure. HOWEVER every time someone's mentioned this over the last few days, I immediately think OMGWTFCYBERMEN).

Today I spent a pleasurable afternoon at the Toronto Reference Library, reading through issues of the Baker Street Journal dating from 1946 to 1948.

These are Sherlock Holmes fanzines from the 40s! Full of what today we'd call meta and fic* (and poetry! oh man: the poetry), all charmingly American and self-important about how much they love Sherlock Holmes.

*One of them had angels who'd formed their own fan club (sorry, their own Scion Society of the Baker Street Irregulars). The recently-dead Arthur Conan Doyle wins their annual fic pastiche contest. Fic from 1948, I kid you not.

And oh, they really loved Sherlock Holmes. It's all fairly tongue-in-cheek, at least I think it is, but still it's interesting to look at this early expression of organized fandom from what I know of present-day media fandom.

Here are three bits from Edgar W. Smith's 1946 editorial found in Vol 1, No 3 (p243-244):

"... Sherlock Holmes belongs to all the world. Like any other man who was ever lived, the very fact of his existence has put him, in the best and most broadest meaning of the term, securely in the public domain. And since he is, in consequence, the unalienable property of our minds and our affections, we feel a sense of wonderment and something close to pity in the presence of those unperceiving souls who would check us in our urge to think and talk and write about him as we please. For think and talk and write we well: there is no such thing, in ethics or in morals, as a copyright on reality."

On film adaptations: "We have writhed in open agony at the spectacle of our rugged Boswell transmogrified into the semblance of a doddering buffoon... We have resisted every temptation to modernize the scene in Baker street..."

"...we shall continue to take our Holmes and Watson straight [HA!], safe in the revelation of Canon as it is writ, and undeterred in our endeavors [sic] by the threats of men who know not what they do. Theirs is the world of make-believe. Our is the legend come to life."

Speaking of their "rugged Boswell", there is a fascination with Watson in these early issues. Rex Stout's "Watson Was A Woman" had been published by this point, so I betting that's why there's an entertaining push in these semi-serious essays to prove Watson's lady-killing status and masculine virility. If you haven't read Stout's piece, it's hilarious: it lists all the most charmingly domestic scenes in the books, and uses them to prove that "Watson" was in fact Holmes's wife.

I'm also a fan of Smith's line "the unalienable property of our minds and our affections".