A Celebration Of Sherlock

 

It is time for another DePaul Pop Culture Conference Review. This year the topic was Sherlock Holmes which was a lot of fun. And considering I have not been to a conference where I wanted to pay attention all day since the before times I was able to handle a day of focus and a day around people better then I expected to. 

I also want to start with a shout out to Paul Jonathan Booth who was there in sprit even if COVID kept him from being there in person and a shout out to Elise Fong and all the amazing volunteers who kept the conference going.

A picture out the window of the classroom I was in pretty much all day.

Yes Saturday was one of the few sunny days we have had this spring

Yes you can give the conference the credit for causing the sun to come out and play.

(I feel like it is always sunny during the conference when we are all indoors)

Academic Keynote: Sherlock's "Lenses." by Dr Tom Ue

Dr Tom Ue explored the use of physical lenses and references to lenes through out the Holmes stories. I will say this talk was more on the academic vs. fandom side (yes I know considering it was the academic keynote that should have been clear LOL) and my brain was not quite awake and focused yet so I can't give a ton of details.

Sleuthing, Clues, and Misdirection: Crafting the crime fiction novel

This was a interesting panel around how to write crime fiction. 

• Protagonists should have curiosity and a personal stake aka needing to know answers even if not knowing would feel better
• Never writing one story. Always writing at least 2 stories for each character. How it happened and How it did not happen. Have clues that support both what happened and what did not happen
• 1st draft is for you/2nd draft is for readers and you have to become a god of an angry universe
• Writers fall into two camps either that right a short 1st draft and have to expand or a long first draft and have to cut back

Professional Keynote: Production on Sherlock by Arwel Wyn Jones

I am not really sure how DePaul always is able to get so many superstars to come to these conferences. Arwel has worked as a production designer and art director for shows such as Sherlock and Doctor Who. 

• While everyone trusted Arwel his choice for the wallpaper for 221b caused a few people to say but are you sure you want to go with that? 
• Sometimes production choices are made deliberately and sometimes it just what is on hand
• For good production design you need either time or money, preferably both LOL
• Most of the sherlock props etc. are in storage so hypothetically there is still a chance for more
• When designing the TARDIS for Jodie, Arwel had her play around a bit without anyone else there and discovered she liked playing with things on the console so added more knobs, buttons, levers etc. 
• And the reason her TARDIS produces cookies is because he found out they were her favorite cookies. 

An Actor's Search for Sherlock Holmes by Curtis Armstrong

I know the actor Curtis Armstrong from the show supernatural but I guess he has been in other things as well. (And funny enough he happened to be behind me in line when I was picking up some breakfast to eat during the conference)

He has loved Sherlock Holmes from a young age and even had a 15 min weekly version he used to do on a high school radio show. No he does not have any tapes because he would record each week over the past weeks recording on his reel to reel. 

He got to say a line about Sherlock in Supernatural because Robbie Thompson knew he loved Sherlock so much. It was fun that my "friend" Robbie Thompson got a shout out. Well "friend" as in back when he was attending C2E2 in the before times he always recognized me from our brief interaction at The Celebration of Supernatural DePaul Conference. The Supernatural conference was before I was blogging but here is a post referencing meeting Robbie Connecting With Writers: Robbie Thompson which I wrote about a year later (2016) when Robbie moved on from Supernatural.

This is a picture of when Curtis pointed out when the time was the Sherlockian 221b. LOL 

Curtis currently is involved in a Sherlock Podcast that is going to be an reimagining of Sherlock Holmes that should be coming out this summer but even he does not know who the other voices are going to be played by.

Curtis ended his panel early so he could fit in a quick signing in order to be able to listen to the next panel. I did love overhearing while I was in line for an autograph him talking about how he is glad people know him from Supernatural but Supernatural was a job, on the other hand he is that superfan of Sherlock Holmes.

I know most people at the conference even those who were running it had been surprised to find out how much Curtis loved Sherlock and that he wanted to come to the conference. It is always fun to find out what fandoms actors/producers/writers are really really into themselves. 

I also realized I now have 3 signature from Supernatural folks but each is in a different place. (I have Robbie Thompson's in a few places now, Mark Sheppard in my autograph book, and now Curtis on my Sherlock Conference program.)

Keynote: Adapting Arthur Conan Doyles: Collaboration and Competition" by Dr Ashley Polasek

This was a cool talk that looked at the evolution of the character of Sherlock Holmes using a biological model. 

Dr Ashley Polasek walked us through the though process of Ken Ludwig (who wrote Lend Me a Tenor) as he formed his most recent play which is a second play based on Sherlock. I am not sure how much I am supposed to share so all I will say is it was fascinating to explore which stories he chose to combine, which parts of which stories he chose, and go through some of his ideas that did not work out in the end. 

From the Q and A I loved Dr Ashley Polasek suggestion that part of the reason that Sherlock seems to be getting mopeyer and mopeyer is in part because John Watson is growing as a character. In the stories Watson is the narrator but with TV and Movies the camera becomes the narrator so Watson became comic relief. Recently versions are acknowledging that Watson is probably pretty capable since he was an army surgeon. So Sherlock is getting worst and worst with people/social cues/etc in order to give Watson a challenge/something to do beyond going wow what a great deduction LOL.

"Sex doesn't alarm me": Sexuality and Asexuality in Sherlock Holmes

And then it was time for my panel. While I will admit I was a bit nervous about speaking in front of others the panel went well even if a few people were missing (I am assuming for COVID reasons.) We ended a bit early but since we were one of the last panels for the day I don't think the audience minded. LOL

For anyone who was not able to attend you can order the conference book (which includes a piece I wrote) and is raising money for charity. A digital copy can be gotten on Blurb.com  and a print version can be gotten on amazon