March movie night

On Friday, March 14, the Parallel Case of Saint Louis hosted our March 2015 movie night! We had six people total, and we watched two movies. First up was Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/SGcEmkNaR0c

 This is one of my favorite movies. I love Sherlock Holmes movies that are subversive to the canon in the sense that they never contradict the stories, but they add onto implied aspects or elaborate further on events. I guess we can't say for sure that Holmes' only sibling is Mycroft, so why not?

The other movie is here on this link: https://youtu.be/xKsFURf7C18?list=ELJ7W8YJE1z_8

It's the first episode of Sherlock Hound. We've watched these episodes before, but I really love them. The director is Hayao Miyazaki, of Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away fame. Something about how the music and atmosphere of the Victorian city life in the anime is what charms me. The stories don't follow the Canon, nor is it the substance of complex plots, but it's still worth watching.

Have just been wired for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall be glad if you will come with me. (BOSC)

Yesterday the Parallel Case had our meeting, centering on "The Boscombe Valley Mystery". Our first meeting in a few months, we had much to catch up on! And today was extra special because it was my first time leading the meeting as leader. Six people attended including myself.

Sherlockian news was discussed first:

•  International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes- everyone got a chance to go and loved it! The exhibit made a huge impression on the city and it was a great thing to bring Sherlock Holmes back into the mainstream public. I, myself only got to go once, but I can say it was both informative and enjoyable. I will post a review and pictures soon!
• BSI Weekend 2015- sadly, I was away at a compounding boot camp learning how to make lollipops and capsules, so I did not get to go. However, we did discuss some of the interesting new investitures. Congrats to everyone who got their shilling this year!
• The "lost" Sherlock Holmes story- revealed to be mere fan fiction. Still, the great debacle it caused over Twitter was definitely something to talk about.
• The Baker Street webseries. Definitely worth a watch! Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6m8pknf2xi8pEsrUqPSgIY2b7QWeGXwa
• Upcoming events:
• Holmes, Doyle, and Friends conference: http://www.agratreasurers.net/holmes--doyle----friends.html
• 221B Con! See you there!

 Next, we discussed the story itself.

• Historical context- during the time the story was written, Australia was regarded as a "wild frontier", having a violent history, and the people were rallying for independence. So the story makes sense in a historical context as violence being typical of Australian crimes.
• Quiz
• We listened to a bit of the radio drama by Bert Coules

One of our members got an excellent book analyzing all of the crime scenes in the canon, so he brought it and we all passed it around to look at a map of the Boscombe Pond.

Closing remarks

• Next movie night will be on Saturday, March 14 at 7PM at the Saint Louis College of Pharmacy- room TBA
• Planning a special dinner for Helen- please let us know if you have ideas!
• Recruitment ideas?

 I run a tight ship, so we got out a half-hour early. The snow was really coming down, so yours truly had to leave as quickly as possible to avoid an accident! However, I did make it home safely. 

September movie night

I'm a bit late on posting this one, but I assure you...the movie night happened!
We all gathered at my college's lecture hall to watch the movies on the big screen.
Four of us were there at the September movie night, which made for a nice, intimate party.

We had a variety of food, which included popcorn, lemonade, water, cookies, grapes, and cheese puffs. Not very Sherlockian, but still delicious.

We started off by watching Sherlock Hound, episode 1: A Small Client. Sherlock Hound is a Hayao Miyazaki adaptation of the Holmes stories. You can watch it on youtube.

Pictured to the left is the small client and Scottish Terrier Watson.

You may notice that the plot bears a great deal of resemblance to the story, The Engineer's Thumb. These stories are all so amusing that even if they don't follow the stories that you can still see the influence and enjoy them. This adaptation gets Lestrade absolutely right.







The other movie we chose to watch is Scarlet Claw (1944). Rathbone is personally my favorite Holmes because he is so dreamy. Seriously, all of these Holmes movies just have this dreamy, surreal- almost nightmarish feeling. We all enjoyed this one. It was as spooky as the devil.

Unnecessary worries

I was thinking about making shirts for us local Sherlockians, since it is a key anniversary for a couple of the scions in St. Louis.

I was thinking about getting some artwork made that looks like a parody of the Cardinals logo (http://wugange.com/st-louis-cardinals-logo-2-birds-25655-hd-wallpapers.html) but the birds would be dressed as Holmes and Watson. Instead of the bat, it would be a Victorian walking stick that the birds would be perched on. The letters beneath would say "Sherlock Holmes" or something of that nature. 
 The shirts would be jersey style, and then on the back we could have whatever you want on it. I think it would be neat if the letters on the back had the affiliated scion and then the number of years in St. Louis, but that can be whatever one wants.

 To recoup the cost of the artwork, the shirts would be sold for ~$20-30 per shirt, depending on how many people decide to order one.

 I've attached a rough sketch of what I'd like it to look like. What do you think? Maybe I could have a couple of versions made? one for just St. Louis people and one for everyone else?


What do you think, dear reader?

If you weren't envious of us before, you will be soon.

I was the happiest person this weekend. In case you haven't noticed, I've changed our profile picture for the blog. I was using the one from the 1990's which I took from the Big Sleep Books bookstore website. For the sake of putting a picture to the blog, I used it- but I'm not one to dwell on the past. Your faithful blogger yanked people from conversations and half-finished cake to corner members into taking pictures.

You're welcome.


Anyhow, I had the opportunity to do this because some of us got the marvelous opportunity to attend the Gillette to Brett IV conference organized by the great Steven Doyle. The entire conference was on the stony grounds of the beautiful Indiana University campus that supplied us with a steady stream of Starbucks coffee and room to discuss Sherlockiana with like-minded folk.

I've never seen any Sherlockian stationery goods, have you?

I'm a stationery fanatic so of course it makes sense to combine two of my obsessions in life to find Sherlock Holmes themed stationery goods. Since I can't seem to find any Sherlockian themed get-well cards, I made my own for Microsoft Publisher. It uses copyrighted images, so feel free to download this one for free.

 I made this one because one of my Sherlockian friends in my scion had been receiving serious medical treatment. Feel free to send prayers and good wishes his way.

You can download my card by clicking on this sentence!

Wednesday special

So usually I keep my posts to scion meetings and Sherlockian gatherings, because this is a gossip blog, after all. However, I felt encouraged to post this after some discussion and it's something I plan to present to the real-life (as opposed to virtual) public sometime this fall.

It's sort of an essay/script I wrote about Sherlock Holmes and medicine, or more specifically, Holmesian methods as applied to pharmacy.

Read under the cut!