Snow Day

Another day when I can't leave home. It wouldn't annoy me if I could get out to the store and run errands, but I can't. And I'm certainly not going to ask some driver on an app to go risk their life for me on the icy roads. At least I still have power and internet. So naturally with nothing to do, I obsess over Holmes again as a relief from the grim world. As I said on Bluesky, I found the old Russian Holmes series with English subtitles on a playlist. (I have the series already on DVD, but wanted to publicize the show for other people to discover.) Rewatching it is quite lovely, though I don't like their Hound of the Baskervilles, and it's a slog getting past their awful Sir Henry.

A youtube Johnlock compilation video featured a kiss from a 1986 genderbent Russian movie called My Dearly Beloved Detective, and I found it posted on Reddit. I used to think that "Johnlock" only applied to BBC Sherlock shippers, but now I see it being used in general for Holmes/Watson in every universe. I suppose that's okay, though the Johnlock conspiracy gave them a bad reputation.

Lately I also found the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which featured sixteen Holmes episodes, starring Kevin McCarthy as Holmes and Court Benson as Watson. I listened to the Speckled Band first, and found that Watson is somehow married in this despite the fact that Holmes woke him up that morning as if he was living in Baker Street. Watson later sends Helen Stoner to hide out with Mrs. Watson a while, and then Helen's fiance Peter Armitage wants to stop her from going back to Stoke Moran. The writers also expanded the plot by having Holmes talk to the Romany people encamped on Roylott's grounds (similar to the BBC Douglas Wilmer version). Very nice that they used the term Romany and had the guy say that Roylott is not their friend; they just do odd jobs for him. Holmes soon rules them out as suspects. I wonder if they made any interesting changes to other stories. I want to listen to everything and watch everything on Youtube too.

Bitter Cold

It's been cold, sleeting and icy in North Texas, but so far I haven't lost power this weekend, so at least that's better than in 2021 when I suffered a blackout. I know other people in other states have it worse. Borowitz's satire is funny, but I do hope people stay safe.

Of course, in Minnesota they are still suffering the ICE invasion and another murder. This latest outrage apparently got Schumer to finally say that Senators would block the funding bill. The government may shutdown on 1/30/26, which I would be glad for. We didn't win any real concessions on the last shutdown. I hope they hold out this time. It's way past time for them to fight harder.

Meanwhile, I did manage to early vote in my local election before the icy weather started, but I was the only voter there. I hope it was just an odd time of day, and not because nobody's bothering to vote.

Mary Darling

I've been reading The Adventures of Mary Darling, a novel combining Peter Pan characters with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It's narrated by a Darling descendant who wishes to combat J. M. Barrie's tale by revealing what really happened when Wendy, John, and Michael disappeared one night. Mary is apparently the daughter of Watson's older brother Henry, who married and moved to Australia for the gold rush. (In chapter 5 of The Sign of Four, Watson did mention seeing gold prospecting in Ballarat, so perhaps he visited his brother or received photographs from his brother's family.)

Anyway, Mary Watson grew up in Australia with her brother Tom. Their mother Alice painted fairies and mermaids often, and she spoke like she's had experiences in Neverland. (Mermaids are malicious and not friendly.) Perpetually victimizing this family, Peter Pan takes Mary and Tom away to Neverland, and by the time the kids return, their mother has died, drowned in what could have been a suicide. So Henry Watson sadly decides to take his family to England, though they get separated from Tom and Sam, who is a friend of the family. (Actually Sam is one of the Lost Boys, and he helped them escape Neverland.) When the alcoholic Henry Watson dies, John Watson has to take care of his niece, with some help from Mrs. Hudson, a boarding school, and eventually his own wife Mary Morstan.

SPOILERS BELOW 

Election Woes

Early voting has started for a local special election in January. It's very hard to find out information about the candidates. The one website I found has information on a candidate's issues, and I don't agree with her policies. The others I know nothing about. I just don't want to accidentally vote for a MAGA person or someone against affordable housing, mass transit, etc.

I'll probably run into the same issues with runoff elections in the spring, and the midterms later. Right now, Tarrant County is embroiled in a fight over candidates on the ballot. The GOP chair wanted to disqualify all the Democratic candidates, so the Dems responded by targeting Republicans.

It's just fucked up in general that we have to use this Republican redistricting map anyway.

Scary Times

It's been freezing cold in the mornings lately, which makes it hard to get out of bed in the mornings, especially with the frightening, hellish news lately.

Apparently the Golden Globes awards were on Sunday, with Sean Hayes, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman on as presenters. I'll have to look later to see if they had any amusing jokes. I've only listened to a couple of their Smartless podcasts before losing interest. So many times they start to tell a funny story, then interrupt each other and derail it.

Applause to the host Nikki Glaser for taking a jab at CBS on the show, and to Wanda Sykes for supporting the trans community.

Anyway, I hope no more invasions, kidnappings, and murders happen. Stay safe.

Mixed Emotions

Happy Epiphany to those who celebrate. Sherlockians also traditionally celebrate January 6th as Holmes's birthday, but it's based on silly reasoning; they claim that Holmes and Watson have hangovers on January 7th in Valley of Fear because they apparently got drunk the day before. But why couldn't they have got drunk over celebrating Epiphany aka Twelfth Night that Holmes loves to quote from? Maybe Holmes just loves that Shakespeare play because of all the cross dressing disguises, or because he acted it on stage once. It doesn't have to be his birthday. Sherlockians make such strange leaps of logic. But I don't want to be a nitpicky killjoy, so I let Sherlock fans online celebrate as they wish.

Of course today is also the anniversary of the January 6th attacks on the Capitol. And they still haven't put up the plaque commemorating it. Plus Trump has attacked Venezuela and is claiming that we'll run the country to steal its oil. It's all madness, and to probably distract from the Epstein files again. I can't stand that political blogs like Daily Kos are sitting around arguing over whether we're at war or not. Technicalities don't matter. We need some idea of what we can do, other than wishing that Canada or somebody decide to intervene in the US to stop the madness.

Anyway, yesterday I went to see Song Sung Blue starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. I understood that it was not an biopic of Neil Diamond himself, but of a married couple who had a Neil Diamond tribute act for years. I enjoyed the many songs, and they did find obsure songs that I had never heard of before. I was shocked by the traumatic things that kept happening to Claire Sardina; the film deals with her sudden injury and her post-amputation depression. Ella Anderson is interesting as Claire's daughter Rachel dealing with the blended family and her own pregnancy. The movie compresses all the drama happening over only 3 years or so, when in real life this stuff happened over two decades. That's Hollywood for you, trying to make things more heightened and tense. Overall an enjoyable movie if you need a distraction from the madness of the world.