Hard Times

My monthly trash/water bills have usually been about $50 for a long time but now they're $70. Damn, is everything getting more expensive, even if it's not oil-related?  Fuck this shitty war and this crap economy because fucking Trump knows nothing and installs incompetents who only know how to grift! How am I supposed to afford to live, and go on medical leave too? (Soon I will have to get a hysterectomy and go on short-term disability while I recover. And I have to hope that my ovaries aren't cancerous, and if they are, that it's not spreading to other organs.)

But I don't mean to be so bleak. I guess I could spend my recovery time working more on my writing and publishing. Finishing my Holmes chronology. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I did enjoy seeing Ryan Gosling's movie Project Hail Mary, though I hear that the author of the book has bad takes about remaining politics-free. Whatever, dude. The movie was a fun diversion, much like Young Sherlock. As for real space, I haven't had time to follow Artemis II news, though I've seen many comments on social media about how people are inspired by the astronauts. So congrats to them for completing their mission and splashing down safely.

Concerning

I had a biopsy today. I may have a benign fibroid, or a cancerous growth. They also took some blood to do a lab test on my hormone levels, but I hadn't eaten breakfast before, so I felt faint afterward. I had to sit down quickly and hold my head for a little while. When I faint or almost faint, I get nauseous and have a hot flash. I recovered enough to go get some food, my favorite comfort food chao (rice porridge). But I am still achy and tired.

In other news, I read this Wonkette article about tradwives and the manosphere. There's an interesting passage about two types of sexism:

For those of you who don’t remember your women’s studies classes, Ambivalent Sexism Theory is the idea that there are two primary forms of sexism — hostile sexism, which the study defines as being “characterized by overtly negative feelings and attributions toward women as well as beliefs that women seek to humiliate men and undermine men’s power by using sexuality” and benevolent sexism, which the study explained “is a more subtle and patronizing form of sexism that expresses adoration, paternalism, and reverence toward women who conform to gender-role norms.” There are three main facets of benevolent sexism — protective paternalism (men have to take care of women because we are delicate flowers), complementary gender differentiation (belief in distinct gender roles), and heterosexual intimacy (the idea that a man is incomplete without a romantic relationship with a woman).

So yeah, that's definitely the kind of benevolent sexism that Victorian men like Watson have. Holmes feels similarly, though he does not feel incomplete without a woman himself. He'll sometimes make some comments like "if I had ever loved" or "if I had been murdered, I would want my wife to insist on seeing my body" but these remain hypotheticals. Holmes does distrust women, but is capable of respecting them like Irene Adler and Violet Hunter. Also he does look approvingly on couples in love, like Mary Fraser and her sailor from Abbey Grange. So, no I don't think he's really that hostile.

Meanwhile, I also have been adding to my Grand Gift of Silence fic again. The world is terrible, but you gotta find joy in life.

Orontes found

Ok I think found the answer to my chronology conundrum. I found that it was D. Martin Dakin's Sherlockian book where I had read about the October date for the Orontes troopship in A Study in Scarlet. Strange that the Annotated Sherlock Holmes didn't make a note about it at all, though it quotes from Dakin about other stuff. Dakin describes the previous research on the ship by Percy Metcalfe, and he cited a "Sherlock Holmes Journal" article as the source. But of course, that was from decades ago and I despaired of being able to buy an obscure SHJ article anywhere online. They do sometimes show up on Ebay, but the "Baker Street Journal" issues are far more widely available.

Just when I was despairing of ever locating it, I found a 2 volume book called The Grand Game: a celebration of Sherlockian Scholarship edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie Klinger. It basically gathers together lots of different Sherlockian essays from several decades, and I was able to see Metcalfe's article listed in the table of contents. The 2011 book was published by the Baker Street Irregulars, but their website listed it as sold out. I searched some rare bookshop sites trying to find a secondhand copy to buy, but it was nowhere. I began to despair again, until I found the book on OpenLibrary, where I could create an account and "borrow" the book so I could read the digital copy. Hooray!

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Discombobulated

I'm all aflutter and disoriented. I guess it's good that I didn't post a final canon chronology yet, because I was dithering about format. Now everything's upset and awry. But at least I know now where people are coming from with their various chronologies pushing Study in Scarlet to 1882, 1883, and even 1884. The old accepted 1881 date clashes with real life history, and now I'm muttering about the Orontes and Malabar in a daze.

It all began when I was reading STUD again, the first chapter where Watson says he returned to England on the "troopship Orontes" but does not give us any dates. I thought I remembered reading somewhere an October-November date for the Orontes in Klinger's Annotated Sherlock Holmes, but no, it's not in that book. It must be in one of the other Sherlockian books I've read. I at least know that I didn't hallucinate the date, because Trumbull's chronology gives a very precise date of Sunday, October 31 – Friday, November 26, 1880 on his timeline. Unfortunately, when I try to search online for a primary source about that ship, Wikipedia says that the HMS Orontes (1862) doesn't go to India at all. It sails to South Africa and the West Indies instead. What the hell? Do Sherlockians just have different references offline that online references do not?

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Discovery

I improvised another chicken thigh recipe in my slow cooker, using leftover wine and sauce. My crockpot indeed cooks the chicken so well that it falls off the bone, but it also makes the skin soft, so I wonder why recipes still insist that I should brown the skin in a pan first, if the skin isn't going to stay crunchy.

Meanwhile, I heard that some AI video service called Sora shut down and Disney backed out of its huge AI deal. (I heard it was because the Supreme Court ruled that AI products can't be copyrighted; of course Disney always wants to own everything it can.) Disney still wants to buy AI stuff, so I hope the bubble will burst soon so all AI stuff gets shut down. Then maybe I could resume my Disney+ subscription if they do decide to renew the Muppet Show. Why does it take so long to announce a TV renewal? Wasn't it a hit? I had also heard that Sherlock & Daughter was a hit for the CW, and yet no announcements still. It's puzzling.

Last night on Youtube I discovered a 1940 Mr. Wong mystery starring Keye Luke as the detective. It always bothered me that the old Charlie Chan movies had a yellowface actor and contributed to stereotypes about Chinese immigrants. Luke plays the Jimmy Wong character without that kind of tomfoolery, though he interacts with other Chinese characters who have thick accents and pidgin dialogue. There's also an Asian female lead played by Lotus Long. The actress was actually of Japanese descent but she adopted a Chinese stage name to avoid the Japanese internment camps during WWII. How sad. It's a shame also that the Wong film series didn't continue with more starring Luke.

Hopes and Pleas

Well, the equinox was on the 20th and it's officially Spring now. Bluebonnets are blooming along the highways. I don't have any Spring Break from work, but maybe I'll try to schedule some vacation time this summer.

I binged all the Young Sherlock episodes, and most of my non-spoilery reactions were already posted to Bluesky. I enjoyed the strong women characters and how they worked in the Married Women's Property Act and institutions into the plot. I didn't mind the steampunky anachronisms, and the costumes were quite lovely too. Their Moriarty is charming and roguish, but I found out he's not even in the Andrew Lane books at all, so basically they just made up the entire plot; the Lane books featured 14 year old Sherlock, not this 19 year old at Oxford. As long as they're not following any book, can they please just write young Watson into it next season? Please let me have young John meeting Sherlock and having, I don't know, drama about his alcoholic brother. Make it a homoerotic love triangle even. Just stop the queerbaiting please and actually make the gayness text.

Or else Guy Ritchie can finally give us a third movie with Downey and Law.

Meanwhile I've been getting into old-time radio shows, such as the 1952 BBC series starring Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley. I still haven't finished the CBS Radio Mystery Theater shows from 1977-1982, starring Kevin McCarthy and Court Benson. It's going to take a while to get through all episodes of both.

I wish some TV show would try adapting all 60 stories again. Nobody's tried to since Granada failed. I think they're afraid of comparisons to Jeremy Brett, but it's been decades now. Remember that Granada's last few episodes were not faithful and were largely rewritten due to Brett's health problems. There's scope to redo those stories accurately. David Suchet's Poirot hasn't stopped people trying to do Agatha Christie adaptations lately. Please someone try, or at least do a new episodic TV show like the 1954 Ronald Howard series with a mix of canon stories and original plots. Something like that.