In order to bore you right up front, I'll tell you that my drive out on Friday to attend the reception was wonderful. I believe it was the first time I'd ever driven to Dayton with no construction slowing everything down. I turned on Sirius/XM's Elvis Channel, grabbed a tasty beverage, and had a wonderful afternoon drive. Upon arrival I had a quick bite and discovered a slight problem with my hotel room. Once corrected, I headed to the reception to see a lot of familiar and friendly faces. After the party I headed back to my room to pratice my presentation one last time, and hit the sack.
Breakfast had, I checked in at the conference, found a good seat, and did some chit-chatting. Dealers of all sorts of things Sherlockian encircled the large room, and people mingled and bought. At 10 a.m. it was time for the speakers to take the stage. Dan Andriacco, the ring-master for the Dayton events, introduced the first speaker - Bob Katz. Bob gave (from memory) a talk about how there's some proof that John Watson was a drummer boy in the Civil War. (I had just met Bob the night before, and he is a very nice gentleman. Oh, and he mentioned me in his talk. Helped how much I like him a lot!)
Next up was Susan Bailey. This lady is one of the most genuine people I've ever met, and she has become one of the foremost researchers in the Sherlockian galaxy in the last few years. She gave a frank talk about the real-life inspiration for Tonga from The Sign of [the] Four (SIGN). Here's a shot of her with yours truly. (I didn't have time to smile.)
Ann Margaret Lewis was up next, and she took us through one of the lesser-discussed points in The Canon - the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus. She explained what everything was, and we even got to hear examples of the music that is being referred to. (Motets are defined as a short piece of sacred choral music, typically polyphonic and unaccompanied. Lassus was a composer.)
The inimitable Scott Monty was behind the mic next. He gave a hilarious talk about brand names in The Canon. It's amazing how many he found, and he had us in stitches.
After Scott was teacher Susan Neihart Carlisle. She gave us a peek into her Tennessee classroom, and her teaching style. It's heavily Sherlockian, and she uses The Canon and Holmes's methods in her teaching. It was an amazing talk, and one that got a hearty round of applause.
Jeffrey Marks then took the mic to give us a look into the life of eminent Sherlockian Anthony Boucher. A nice addition was the part about the Rathbone/Bruce radio plays. Some fascinating info came out of that talk that I may use at a later date.
I was next on the program, and I got to give a repeat of a talk from five years before titled 'Around the World in 63,540 Days.' It's a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon meets Connections (the James Burke show) kind of thing. It's so much fun to give, and it really gets a lot of laughs from the audience. I was so pleased with the reception of it, and can only hope I get to expand upon the idea some day. (The 63,540 day spread is basically the number of days between the earliest and latest events in the talk.)
Finishing out the day was Regina Stinson. Regina is an amazing Sherlockian who runs her own club in Detroit. Her talk was a chronological look at the Holmes filmography. She mixed in some clips, and had some opinions to give about some of the really bad movies out there. It was the perfect presentation to end the day.
The whole thing is a mixed effort by a number of people, all belonging to a scion society named The Agra Treasurers from Dayton, OH. They truly do an amazing job. This year saw a record crowd, and I understand that next year is going to be even bigger.
For those of us who continued to attend even when things were less than wonderful, this is a true pleasure. It's such a midwest institution for we faithful, and it was necessary to keep going to make sure it didn't go away completely. What we've all got to experience for the last few years has been the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of great people. I offer my congratulations, and am really looking forward to next year.
(On a side note, I was listed on the program as a BSI member. I don't bring this up to embarrass anyone, it was just a mistake. However, a number of people have contacted me about it and asked when that happened. Well, it hasn't. I'm not a BSI member. Just wanted to clear that up.)
So, if you can fit it into your calendar, make plans to attend this event next year. It will fill up quickly, so keep an eye out for announcements about it on Facebook. It promises to be another great conference, and you'll have a great time. Anyway, I'll see you next time (on here), and as always...thanks for reading.
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