Holmes in the Heartland will be Tassy's first solo talk at a major Sherlockian event and you will definitely want to be there! Register HERE to spend the weekend with Tassy Hayden and a whole bunch of other great Sherlockians!
How did you become interested in Sherlock Holmes?
The re-release of Disney's The Great MouseDetective occurred when I was in the second grade. By that time, I was
already reading detective fiction (Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew most
prominently), so I was primed to fall for the Great Detective. I read some
children's adaptations of the ACD stories and kept on reading other fictional
detectives but didn't revisit Canon until The Hound of the Baskervilles on
a lazy college weekend. Since then, when not busy with school, residency, and
establishing my medical practice, I've enjoyed consuming and considering the
wealth of new adaptations as well as looking for archetypal Holmes and Watson
pairs in popular media.
What is your current involvement with Sherlock Holmes
and Sherlockians?
I'm a member in good standing (I think...) of
The Parallel Case of Saint Louis [Editor's Note: The BEST Standing!], and I'm working my way through both the
Granada series and Elementary. And there are ten or so
Sherlockian books on my bookshelf awaiting perusal. I'm actually *really*
excited for the Will Ferrell adaptation. I've got an idea for a pastiche in my
mind, but it seems like the type of thing that will have to percolate for about
a decade.
Do you have a particular subset of the Sherlockian
hobby that really interests you?
As intriguing and wonderful as I find the Game, as a
physician I am fascinated by Conan Doyle himself, particularly his medical
education, interaction with Dr. Joseph Bell, and the impact this had on Holmes.
I've long felt that about 85% of the medical information I get from a patient
comes from the interview, 10% from the physical examination, and 5% from
lab testing or imaging studies. The process of medical history-taking hasn't
been exempt from my analysis and critique, and glimpses of great practitioners
of the past help me see the good bones in our seemingly idiosyncratic method.
What is your favorite Canon story and why?
The Speckled Band because there are so many
iconic elements-- the fireplace poker, the stakeout, the dark lantern, Holmes
fighting a snake... I also feel that the criminal is particularly clever in
this story.
Is there anything you would like to promote?
Can I say Saint Louis City itself? We've got a lot of
hidden gems here, so if you've got some free time this weekend or in the
future, think about checking out:
The grown-up playground that is The City Museum
Our premier independent record store in the Delmar
Loop, Vintage
Vinyl
The large-scale sculpture garden, Laumeier Sculpture
Park
Bird-watching and pavilion-peeping in Tower Grove Park
A great collection of mid-century furniture and
kitsch, The Future
Antiques
A hell of a good brunch at Rooster on South Grand
The many trains (and cars and ships, oh my!) at the Museum of
Transportation
And definitely grab a boozy
nitrogen-frozen ice cream treat at Ices Plain and Fancy
If you're interested in online fandom, the long-running ThreePatch Podcast, which I contributed to from 2016 to early 2018,
captures the zeitgeist of that phenomenon. Fandom differs from traditional
Sherlockiana in many ways, but the two hobbies are similar in the object and
fervor of passion. A few big name fans have contributed to Fandom Studies as an
academic field, and even silly online fans occasionally have serious
conversations, like those about creator/fan interaction, fat representation in media, translating
Sherlock Holmes across societies, bee-keeping,
and the accuracy of science, medicine, and drug use in
BBC's Sherlock. My personal favorite segment is an audio
tour of filming sites in London.
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