HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder)
Subject: Re: A brett quirk
Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973
Distribution: alt.fan.holmes
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 16:28:30 GMT

In article <VSUMMERS.92Sep11115436@polaris.cv.nrao.edu> vsummers@polaris.cv.nrao.edu (Vince Summers) writes:
>
>     One thing I think that distracts from Brett's performances is his quirky
>facial expressions that don't always match what they should be at the time.
>It gives a feeling not of superior intellect, but of madness.  At least
>Rathbone always gave the feeling of intense, even anxious, interest in things
>being said at the time.  Sometimes he showed impatience for lesser intellect,
>but never weirdness in his facial expression.


I always interpreted this as being due to the fact that his mind was
always racing ahead, while at the same time listening to what was being
said to him.  Besides, who's to say that Holmes isn't just at the border
of madness anyway?  He's so a-social, that he's probably on the verge of
a breakdown.  Being a genius has it's disadvantages.


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary L. Schroeder  		|  
schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov         |             Boo. 
Brookhaven National Laboratory  | 
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: stame@emunix.emich.edu (Stewart Tame)
Subject: Re: A&E Sherlock Holmes Week
Organization: Eastern Michigan University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 00:05:34 GMT

In article <2461@tymix.Tymnet.COM> steve@gabriela.tymnet.com (Steve Sandke) writes:
>I think Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley made a hilarious pair as Holmes and Watson
>in "Without A Clue".  Does anyone else agree?
>

God, yes!  I discovered the movie entirely by chance and it remains a
personal favorite to this day.  Michael Caine seems to crop up in more
and more good movies . . . 

Anyone else read Daniel Stashower's _The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic
Man_?  Holmes meets Houdini.  Wonderful book!  I think it would make a
really nifty movie . . . 

		-- Stewart "wants to direct that movie" Tame

****************************************************************************
 I understand it's obligatory to mention Kibo somewhere in one's postings.
****************************************************************************
		Email:  stame@emunix.emich.edu
****************************************************************************
Disclaimer:  Not only do my opinions represent those of Eastern Michigan
University, but also those of Dan Quayle, Richard Nixon, Frank Zappa,
Pee-wee Herman, Bart Simpson, Tipper Gore, Murphy Brown, Maggie Thatcher,
and the Easter Bunny.
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: jkiparsk@reed.edu (Jonathan Kiparsky)
Subject: Re: Shocked ...
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 19:38:36 GMT
Distribution: usa

In article <1992Sep9.183018.21589@research.nj.nec.com> yoko@research.nj.nec.com (Yoko Ozawa) writes:
>eric_gorr@coglab_psych.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr) wrote:
>What bothered me more back when I was a child was that Holmes seemed
>to kill people a lot and not be too bothered about it.... There was

I can't think of a single case, offhand, of Holmes or Watson killing anyone.
There are murders, and people die in accidents, but I think the pistol which
Holmes always had Watson bring along was "just in case."
Oh, there was Moriarty, but that was something of a special case.

>in which Lupin denounced Holmes as a bloodthirsty murderer.
I'm not sure how he rationalized this claim. I'll have to look through
the stories...
-jon
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: art@world.std.com (Al Thompson)
Subject: Re: homosexuality
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
	<1992Sep10.054008.28619@csi.uottawa.ca>
	<ART.92Sep14105915@world.std.com>
	<1992Sep14.194836.14737@access.digex.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 17:23:11 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.194836.14737@access.digex.com> dzik@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz) writes:

   In article <ART.92Sep14105915@world.std.com> art@world.std.com (Al Thompson) writes:
   >
   >Oscar Wilde was jailed for criminal libel.  He publicly exposed his
   >affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the Marquis of Queensbury of
   >boxing rules fame.  Queensbury pressed charges against Wilde on the issue
   >and truth was no defense to libel.
   >

   I thought it was the other way around, that Wilde sued Queensbury for
   libel (I can't remember the exact wording, but I believe that
   Queensbury wrote a letter to Wilde addressing him as "Oscar Wilde,
   the notorious sodomite") and lost because Queensbury could show
   that what he had said was true.  Following that, the legal authorities
   tried Wilde for homosexuality.

   I'm not sure of this, but I am sure that at Wilde's trial there was
   testimony by male prostitutes against Wilde.  It doesn't make sense
   to me that there should be such testimony if the trial was over a
   libel by Wilde.

You know, you're right.  It would be worth a check in the literature.
The problem I have is that for Wilde to have been tried on the sodomy
charge would have required Douglas Sr. to admit Douglas Jr. was also
a "notorious sodomite" and thus expose him to the same fate as Wilde.

Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston)
Subject: Re: Shocked...
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 10:39:30 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.203438.29533@samba.oit.unc.edu> Chuck.Lavazzi@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi) writes:
>In article <1992Sep9.173719.18096@riacs.edu> whitney@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (David Whitney GDP) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep9.163035.15364@nntp.uoregon.edu>, eric_gorr@coglab_psych.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr) writes:
>>|> When you first started to read holmes, were you as shocked as I was that he
>>|> was a drug user (cocane and morphine) in the novel The Sign Of Four?  
>>|> 
>>|> This totally blew my whole conception of the man when I read it.  
>>|> 
>>|> Yes, I am aware that there is either very little or no mention of it in
>>|> later novels and stories - allowing us to assume that he "kicked" the
>>|> habit.  Thank goodness.  Did Arthur Conan Doyle use drugs at one time? 
>>|> What that the reason for the appearence in the novel?
>>
>>Kicked the habit?  In almost every story it seems Watson is mentioning his
>>vice of cocaine "to relieve his mind of stultifying boredom in between
>>cases".  It surprised me too, but the more I read, the more it's just another
>>part if him that makes him so unlike any other person.  He's Sherlock Holmes.
>>
>	Actually, none of the stories following The Great Hiatus mention any
>drug use beyond the more socially acceptable tobacco and alcohol.

Quite correct and exploited by Nicholas Meyer in _The 7% Solution_.

>More than
>one Sherlockian scholar has speculated that Holmes' character underwent some
>changes during that time, and that his lack of interest in cocaine is just
>one sign of this.

Indeed, at least one has concluded that Holmes was killed at Reichenbach
and that Moriarty out of remorse assumed Holmes' identity to continue his
work with the full connivance of Watson and Mycroft.  (Personally, I'm not
convinced.)

>	For that matter, only a handful of the stories preceeding "Empty
>House" actually refer to his drug use.

Yes, it's been blown out of proportion by the movie and TV adaptations.

-- Herb Huston
From: hand@spc9.jpl.nasa.gov (Kolin Hand)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
Subject: Re: So, which Holmes is it?
Date: 9 Sep 92 22:04:08 GMT
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA

In article <TORKEL.92Sep9205128@bast.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
>(Patrick C. Beard) writes:
>
> >Jeremy Brett's portrayal is slightly effeminate.
>
>  Really? In what way?

The thing that makes ME think this is the way Brett's Holmes hold his
cigarettes.  He tends to hold them between his index and middle fingers
with the lit end opposite his palm side.  Also, he tends to cross his
legs when sitting.

Mind you, these do not particularly bother me since I quite enjoy his
portrayal of Holmes.

Kolin E. Hand

+===========================================================================+
+  "Guilt Trip:  The nuclear weapon of relationships."  -- K. Hand          +
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+  Kolin E. Hand                              hand@spc7.jpl.nasa.gov        +
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: nsh3@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Nadine S Harris)
Subject: Re: Why Brett is soooo goooood.....
Reply-To: nsh3@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Nadine S Harris)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:32:32 GMT


In article <naran.716068777@sfu.ca> naran@fraser.sfu.ca (Travers
Naran) writes:

> ......  from [The Hound of the Baskervilles], I
>gathered the following facts:
>
>1. Watson was quite a clever man. Not the dullard as portrayed by Bruce in
>those 1940's and 50's shows. In fact, he seemed to be almost an intellectual
>equal with Holmes except having more emotion.

Possibly not as bad a Bruce, who made a career playing superannuated
chinless wonders (in the Thirties and a few Forties, btw), 
but Doyle himself is on record saying Watson was
"rather stupid."  He was surprised anyone should find him more than
a foil for Holmes.

This is not the way Granada wanted to approach it.  From a dramatic
point of view, the Nigel Bruch approach is very limited.  They came
up with a very charming Watson, and this falls in line with the
current crop of buddy movies, so perhaps it appeals to us late 20th
c. movei-goers.  But although it might be fun, it isn't what A.C.D.
had in mind.

Nadine
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: misrael@csi.uottawa.ca (Mark Israel)
Subject: Re: Lists
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 92 20:00:10 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.193833.28799@news2.cis.umn.edu>, jill@gopher.ccbr.umn.edu (Jill Hollifield) writes:

> Could someone please post a list of Sherlock Holmes novels, short stories,
> and good basic references for a newbie just discovering the wonderful
> world of Arthur Conan Doyle?

   Get _The Annotated Sherlock Holmes_, edited by W. S. Baring-Gould.  It's
a 2-volume work containing all the canonical Sherlock Holmes stories (56
short stories and 4 novels), with zillions of helpful footnotes, and a
goodly selection of both the original British and the original American
illustrations.

misrael@csi.uottawa.ca			Mark Israel
Sunbeams brightly play, where Fancy's fair pavilion once is pight.
From: mfriley@pacman.WPI.EDU (Margaret F Riley)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
Subject: Other Holmes I have seen!
Date: 10 Sep 1992 16:38:04 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pacman.wpi.edu


Ah, yes, the group is afoot!!!!   Yay!!!

Has anyone seen the two recent TV movies of "Sherlock Holmes: The
Golden Years"?    Christopher Lee as Holmes, Patrck MacNee as
Watson, and Jerome Willis as Mycroft Holmes.   Interesting ideas,
but not great movies.   They do seem to keep running into other
famous persons of the times, such as Mr. Marconi and Dr. Freud.
In fact, the 2nd movie, "The Leading Lady," brought Irene Adler
back to Holmes.  Unfortunately, Morgan Fairchild was chosen for
Adler and really ruined the show for me.

And speaking of Holmes and Watson, has anyone seen the Tom Baker
"Hound of the Baskervilles" which A&E runs about twice a year.
Positively awful.   Baker plays Holmes in an even stuffier manner
than Rathbone (who was my favorite until Brett came along), and
Watson is an unbelievable buffoon.   Sad sad sad.

I spoke with my sister who is a student of films about the
difference in the Rathbone and Brett portrayals.  She reminded
me that in the 1940's (?) when Rathbone was doing his thing,
the subject of drug addiction was not permitted to be shown.  so
much for that idea.   

Margaret
mfriley@wpi.wpi.edu
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: roberts@studguppy.lanl.gov (Doug Roberts)
Subject: Re: A&E Sherlock Holmes Week
Organization: Technology Modeling and Analysis, LANL-A7
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:48:31 GMT


In article <16865@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> beard@toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (Patrick C. Beard) writes:

> I have to agree. He's the perfect acetic, drug-addicted, intense man that I
> always visualized 

Let's not forget affectated, pompous, arrogant, and either asexual or
slightly effeminate (I can't quite make up my mind).

--Doug
--

==================================================================
Douglas Roberts                |
Los Alamos National Laboratory | All good work is done in defiance
dzzr@lanl.gov                  |  of management. -- Bob Woodward
(505)667-4569                  |
==================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: art@world.std.com (Al Thompson)
Subject: Re: Brett IS Holmes [+Granada series info & trivia]
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
	<1992Sep13.161652.5265@bnlux1.bnl.gov>
	<1992Sep14.112450.25745@access.digex.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 15:53:15 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.112450.25745@access.digex.com> huston@access.digex.com (Herb Huston) writes:

   In article <1992Sep13.161652.5265@bnlux1.bnl.gov> schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder) writes:
   >In article <1992Sep11.083616.12394@sdcrsi.cray.com> kathyli@sdcrsi.cray.com (the Rev. Mom) writes:
[...]
   >>case for any upcoming stories. [I shudder to think what they're
   >>going to have to do to "A Study in Scarlet" to make it fit in
   >>with existing continuity, now]. 
   >
   >Yes.  After just finishing "A Study in Scarlet" this morning, I was also
   >thinking that it would be difficult to fit into the Granada series
   >without a great deal of re-working.  One of the biggest problems is that
   >to be true to the original story, they would have to depict the first
   >meeting between Holmes and Watson.  Hard to start at the beginning when
   >you've already filmes stories towrads the end of the canon.

   Movies and TV shows solved this problem a long time ago.  The solution is
   called a flashback.  Holmes and Watson are sitting at 221B talking about
   old cases and turn to Watson's first participation.  Dissolve.

This would be a neat trick since Study in Scarlet also contains a
flashback.  A flashback within a flashback, cute.

   An alternate solution is simply to begin the story with Holmes being 
   summoned to the scene of the crime.

I think the difficulty would be fitting the story into the one hour
format.  If memory serves it's the longest of the Holmes stories.  Also,
the book takes a very negative view of Mormons.  At the time Mormon
bashing was sort of a parlor game played by one and all east of the
Rockies.  Today you would probably hear hoots and hollers about religious
discrminitaion.  Come to think of it it might be ok because Mormons tend
to be a pretty conservative breed, and we all know it's ok to bash
conservatives.

Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: linley@qucis.queensu.ca (Richard Linley)
Subject: Re: So, which Holmes is it?
Organization: Computing & Information Science, Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 06:38:57 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.232004.20140@news2.cis.umn.edu> kencham@ulysses.cs.umn.edu (Deepak) writes:
>
>The issue of homosexuality, albeit not brought in the open, lurks in the 
>background and the impression I got was that in the Victorian days of SH
>there was nothing 'queer' about being a queer. If anyone has the time, 
>RHFKeating makes a detailed analysis of JSSH-JHW's homosexual relationship 
>in his book _SH, The Man and his Life_.

Well, buggery, at least, was not tolerated as poor Oscar Wilde discovered.

I think a survey of other literature of literature of the late 19th/early
20th British literature would turn up popular examples of male cohabitation.
Box and Cox springs to mind, although these gentlemen didn't know they were
roommates, and, more recently, the Psmith/Mike stories of P.G. Wodehouse
(actually, there's a lot of Holmes in Psmith, and a good slice of Watson in
Mike, now that I think of it).

For me, the whole gay issue is a non-starter.  Much better to calculate
SH's age, debate the accuracy of his traditionally-celebrated birthdate,
ponder the possibility that the post-Moriarty Holmes was a different man
altogether, discuss ACD's knowledge (?) of horse racing, and other good
stuff like that.

IMHO, of course.

	Richard.

Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: freedman@ligeti.zko.dec.com (Ed Freedman)
Subject: Re: Sherlock's secret love-life  Was: So, which Holmes is it?
Reply-To: freedman@ligeti.zko.dec.com (Ed Freedman)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 22:07:59 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.200613.21634@mr.med.ge.com>, scafati@thor.med.ge.com (Victor-charles Scafati) writes:

|> Watson was married _twice_.  While this in itself does not make him exclusively
|> heterosexual, it sure does suggest it.  Moreover, Watson had a tendency to 
|> dwell on describing attractive young ladies- again, not the kind of behavior
|> one would expect from a gay man.

Interestingly, Conan-Doyle was married twice. Now, although a gay friend of mine
once asserted that Conan-Doyle was gay, I have never heard any evidence for this,
and both of his (C-D's) marriages appear to have been love matches.

In general, Conan-Doyle seems to have reflected different aspects of his own life
in the characters Holmes and Watson. For example, the business of Holmes deducing
his client's occupation from small particulars was a game that Conan-Doyle and his father
(both physicians) used to play in public places, especially restaurants. They would make
their inferences and then sometimes accost their subject to find out who had been right.
Conan-Doyle is also said to have learned some of Holmes' deductive methods from one
of his professors in medical school.

I suppose that a practicing physician, more than most other occupations, is exposed to
the visible and invisible effects of an individual's occupation on his or her person.
In this regard, Watson could be expected to have this faculty, but Conan-Doyle necessarily
gave it to Holmes.

At any rate, if Watson reflects Conan-Doyle's own interests in women, medicine, and
writing, Holmes reflects his passionate life-long interest in crime and criminals.

Incidentally, just to further illustrate the point, Conan-Doyle, very early in his medical career, was involved in a suspicious incident where he and his eventual first wife apparently were for a brief period suspected of the murder of her brother in order that she should come into some money he stood to inherit. The police suspected that Conan-Doyle's treatment of the patient
(ie, her brother) was the cause of his death. Murder (usually of a woman) for the sake of an inheritance or life-insurance money is a recurring theme in many of the Holmes stories.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edward Philip Freedman                  Opinions and ideas expressed herein are
Mailstop: ZKO2-3/K06                     not a reflection of my employer's.
Digital Equipment Corp.                   PHONE:  (603) 881-0228
110 Spit Brookl Road                       enet:   freedman@ligeti.zko.dec.com
Nashua, NH 03062-2698                 decnet: tle::freedman
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton)
Subject: Re: A&E Sherlock Holmes Week
Organization: Intel Corp., Chandler, Arizona
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:33:25 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.223109.29936@samba.oit.unc.edu> Chuck.Lavazzi@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi) writes:
>In article <BuKy7G.MuD@nntp-sc.Intel.COM> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>I thought it was Oliver Wendell Holmes, myself...

But then, you're a well-known buffoon.

>>Has anyone noticed that, despite all the Conan-Doyle
>>hoopla, Holmes isn't all that bright, and often simply
>>makes rash, generalized decisions which improbably cause
>>apparently innocent persons to confess regurgitatively?
>>
>	In a word, NO.  In fact, your description applies to precious few
>of the stories.

The game's afoot.  Now I get to spend the balance of
my life proving that not only is he unbearably lucky,
but frequently so.

>Your characterization is hyperbolic, to say the least.

Possibly, but then, I am a well-known hyperbola.

>>In particular his views on women are entirely prejudiced.
>>
>	By contemporary standards they are chauvanistic.  By the standards
>of turn-of-the-century Britain they're fairly typical.  We are all
>products of our time.

True, but they were no more true then than they appear now.
Certain of his "deductions" are predicated on these petty
irrationalities, and if one attempts to reach similar
conclusions without these erronneous elements, one comes
away with a fistful of hair and a strange sense of loss.

				--Blair
				  "See you at the falls."
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: dzik@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz)
Subject: Re: Shocked...
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 19:41:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.154001.5788@nmsu.edu> pfeiffer@nmsu.edu (Joe Pfeiffer) writes:
>In article <1992Sep9.163035.15364@nntp.uoregon.edu> eric_gorr@coglab_psych.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr) writes:
>
>   Yes, I am aware that there is either very little or no mention of it in
>   later novels and stories - allowing us to assume that he "kicked" the
>   habit.  Thank goodness.  Did Arthur Conan Doyle use drugs at one time? 
>   What that the reason for the appearence in the novel?
>
>For some reason, I have a hazy recollection that Holmes did stop --
>there was a story in which he put some creosote on a cart wheel so a
>dog could trail it; didn't he and Watson say something about his no
>longer using cocaine in that one?
>
>-Joe.
>

From "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter" in _The_Return_
of_Sherlock_Holmes_:

	For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which
	had threatened once to check his remarkable career.  Now I 
	knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this
	artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was 
	not dead but sleeping, and I have known that the sleep was a
	light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I
	have seen the drawn look upon Holmes's ascetic face, and the
	brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes.

And yes, he did mark a carriage wheel in the story to allow a dog
to trail it, but he did so with aniseed.  I believe that tracking
creosote by dog played a part in _The_Sign_of_the_Four_.

Joe Dzikiewicz


Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: wallis@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Mindy Wallis)
Subject: Conan Doyle and Piltdown
Organization: Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:34:45 GMT

I have read in several different places that Arthur Conan Doyle may have
been the perpetrator of the Pildown Man hoax.  Can anyone supply more
details?  Why do they suspect Conan Doyle?  Was he fed up with the
anthropology community? If so, why?  Why did he never reveal it as a hoax?

Inquiring minds want to know.

------
Mindy
wallis@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu
Institute for the Learning Sciences
Northwestern University


Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes