The Hound of the Busterville
I will not be joining my good comrades of the Diogenes Club of Carmel-by-the-sea this Saturday for the centenary celebration of "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Even though I aman avid, though not obsessive, Sherlockian, and proud to be a B.S.I., which stands for Baker Street Irregular, as we organized worldwide afficionados of The Canon call ourselves. It's not because the story, one of Doyle's full length Holmes cases, isn't a favorite, though it isn't. But the mundane reason that Holmes wouldn't likely appreciate — at least not in public — is that I'd prefer to spend the weekend with my lovely Linda.
I had thought of attending the bi-monthly Holmesian event in Carmel -- black-tie, a bunch of different courses and free-flowing if inexpensive wine, three presentations, oh my -- and I had even almost arranged a business assignation two-thirds of the drive south as an excuse. But my fellow Sherlockians will have to toast Queen Victoria, The Woman (Irene Adler, of course), Mrs. Hudson, the second Mrs. Watson without me. Linda and I have been in different directions for the past several weekends, and if I don't stay home with her, she'll stick her nose into a pile of newspapers from when she was outta town, and will get lost in the crossword puzzles.
It's not that I begrudge her a moment relaxation, or distraction from the duties of the office. Indeed, not; I got her started on crossword puzzles, going so far as to get her last Christmas a now well-thumbed crossword puzzle dictionary. Nor would be concerned if she didn't putter around the gardens, dead-heading the late blooms, nurtured along by a summer the Indians would have called late, if they weren't too busy with their casinos.
Nope, I'll slave myself to this here keyboard, and finish a television news textbook I've been penning since I left The Biz, and induce a degree of Linda to get cracking on her book about collaborating instead of fighting when it comes to dissolving marriages. And I'll cook her meals, as I always do, and ply here with fresh coffee and old wines, and maybe cut some more brush between chapters. To look industrious, at least.
Truth be told, I was also a little put off by a couple of television versions of the story of The Hound. One was on the Hallmark Channel and featured Canadian Matt Frewer, known for playing "Max Headroom" and it shows. He seems to have taken off from the Jeremy Brett version of the fabled consulting detective, and in the wrong direction taking quirky effeminacy to new depths. Oops, and it didn't help that this was the first Holmes story released by Doyle, unhappily, after he had killed him at Reichenbach Falls.
As fond as I am of most everything Sherlockian, this one hundred year anniversary I will celebrate quietly, likely unshaven, with my wife and dawg, nicknamed for the occasion, The Hound of Busterville. He puts up with a great deal, but as he's forgotten how to hunt, he puts up with it. But no, I won't make him wear my deerstalker hat this year.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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