Making Up for Lost Posts: At Scintillation of Scions 2019
When is a post delicious on French fries?
When it’s a ketchup post!
As my lengthening to-do list tells me, I’ve been meaning to catch up on the places we’ve been and the people we’ve seen.
The fault’s all mine. It’s one reason that have a hard time keeping a diary. There’s too much going on at any one time that it’s hard to look back.
But let’s try anyway, shall we?
Scintillation of Scions
Looking back, I realized that there were two ways to appreciate events like Scintillation of Scions: for the enjoyment of the Sherlockian-related entertainment, and for the privilege of meeting and mingling with people who have an interest in Sherlock. The two are not as intertwined as you might think.
People who like Sherlock – and I think this applies to other hobbies as well – tend to be interested in the same things I appreciate as well. It could be the written word, movies, graphic novels, history, perhaps other types of fandom as well.
So what I’m remembering most about Scintillation – in addition to the presentations – are the conversations Teresa and I had with some of the other attendees. Like the two women who had clearly different opinions about their favorite authors (like Nora Roberts, after we mentioned we were doing to see her town, Boonsboro, later that day).
The talks were equally fun. They were wide-ranging in subject matter and in tone. This year, we saw presentations by:
* Bob Katz on “Watson’s Hidden Diagnosis,” a discussion of drugs and their uses in the canon;
* Mary Alcaro, examining the subtext of venereal disease in “The Blanched Soldier”;
* Jane Almquist examining Bram Stoker’s relationship with Arthur Conan Doyle);
* Heather Holloway on the Victorian obsession with dinosaurs and “The Lost World”;
* Greg Ruby, who won my “most entertaining” prize for his look at a day in the life of Basil Rathbone through the products he endorsed;
* Crystal Noll discussing Watson’s military career in Afghanistan;
* Liese Sherwood-Fabre on “The Scandalous Canon”;
* And ending with Burt Wolder (of the podcast “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere”) on Conan Doyle reflected through a cartoon ACD drew near the end of his life.
I also got a chance to talk with Dan Andriacco, who was attending as a vendor selling his line of Sherlock pastiches. Unfortunately, I mistook him for another Sherlock blogger, one who actually liked “Holmes and Watson.” After further conversation, I realized he was the Cincinnati Sherlock blogger whose posts I’ve been reading for the past few years. He was also the author of “The Revengers,” which I bought and enjoyed.
Oh well, name and facial blindness and foot-in-mouth disease is nothing new to me. I can’t say I’m beyond embarrassment, but I am accepting of my condition. Perhaps I can make it up by mentioning that Dan’s Sherlockian-themed contemporary mystery “No Police Like Holmes” is free for the Kindle?
Next time, I’ll talk about Nora Roberts and our visit to Boonsboro.