Summer 2022 BSJ

The Summer 2022 Baker Street Journal includes these articles:

The Editor’s Gas-Lamp.

For Christ’s Sake: An Evaluation of Jay Finley Christ
by Nicholas Utechin.

Vincent Starrett and the Mystery of the Missed BSI Dinners
by Ray Betzner.

“A Failure of Sherlock Holmes”: A Newly Discovered Parody
by Leslie S. Klinger.

The Commonplace Book.

Baker Street Inventory.

My First Meeting with Sherlock Holmes (and What It Wrought)
by Aaron M. Rubin.

“Stand with me here upon the terrace . . .”

Whodunit?

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The Editor’s Gas-Lamp

“A little help from my friends”
by Steven Rothman, Editor

Steven Rothman, Editor, The Baker Street Journal

The Sherlockian world runs on an unusual commodity. It doesn’t take cash; it isn’t faith or belief; and it isn’t quite love. No, what it requires is helping hands. Not just any helping hands—willing, helping hands, and lots of them. That is to say, volunteers, whose work takes many forms.

Your local Sherlockian society needs somebody to write a quiz, or to call the restaurant to ask about room for a dozen for dinner (or figure out the check), or to send out a quarterly email (or maintain the email list), or to set up for the meeting or clean up afterwards. Maybe help in writing the newsletter would be appreciated.

Perhaps your involvement is with a larger or national group. Most of the same needs are there, but perhaps on a broader and more finicky level. This work might take a bit more of your time, but it will help you meet and befriend Sherlockians from all over.

The folks who arrange all the things you enjoy don’t do it to get praise or thanks (few activities are more thankless). They do it because these Sherlockian societies are important to them, and they presume, therefore, that those groups are important to others. The work of these volunteers is to increase your enjoyment, not their own self-importance.

If you, like Holmes, “abhor the dull routine of existence” and “crave for mental exaltation,” you know that stimulus can be found with your fellow Sherlockians. So get involved, lend a hand, and grab a keyboard or a broom. And always remember to say thank you to all who do so.

The Editor’s Gas-Lamp, Summer 2022, Vol. 72, No. 2.