|
|
From
The Surrey Shore . .
.
The Newsletter of the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore Vol. 2, No. 3, June 2003
****A Scion
Society for All Who Enjoy Sherlock Holmes in All His Manifestations!****
What? You don’t say it’s
your birthday — because it’s not? No problem. For the Hated Rivals on the
Surrey Shore have officially designated July 12 as Barker’s birthday
(see below) — and you are all invited to celebrate it with Sherlock Holmes’
illustrious rival at our next meeting, on Saturday, July 12, from 1 to around 4
p.m., at Lord Ashley’s Pub & Eatery, at the southwest corner of Pendleton
Pike and Oaklandon Road, in northeast Indianapolis. (We’ll be meeting in one of
the pub’s two meeting rooms, so when you arrive, ask for the Hated Rivals
party.) Attendees can order off the medium-priced menu (as little or as much as
they like) or just attend for the meeting portion. The program will include a
talk on the state of archeology in the Victorian Age (not to imply that Barker
is getting a bit long in the tooth) by our own vice president, Russell (Mimi
DeMore), as well as a short survey of the Amelia Peabody stories about a feisty
Victorian Egyptologist, presented by (who else?) our own Amelia Peabody
(Recorder/Historian), Suzanne Snyder. A dash of Sherlockian music and part 2 of
Bill Barton’s paper on the Victorian railroad (see this issue’s “Meeting
Notes”), as well as Canonical toasts and a short business meeting, round out the
day’s festivities. The meeting itself ends when all are fully sated. For anyone
who simply can’t get enough Sherlockian fellowship (or Victorian atmosphere),
however, after the meeting, those who wish to may join us at a local theater in
viewing the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, starring Sean
Connery as H. Rider Haggard’s Victorian adventurer Allan Quatemain (with
Mycroft Holmes as head of the British Secret Service), which opens on July 11
(provided, of course, that a local cinema close enough is showing the film at a
time that’s convenient for us to attend). In any event, please plan to join us
for our very first celebration of the birthday of the very first Hated Rival on
the Surrey Shore: Barker! (For directions and other details, see the “Coming
Meetings” section of this newsletter.)
***
Well, it’s summer already, and
we’ve successfully passed the year and a half mark in the lifetime of the Hated
Rivals on the Surrey Shore, still Indianapolis’ newest — and, I daresay, most
original — of Sherlockian scions. (And if you question the “most original”
moniker, just check out our past newsletters, available on our Web site, for
details about the wide variety in our meetings.) Of course, just because we are
still new and fresh and try not to get stuck into rigid patterns in our meeting
locations and programs doesn’t mean that we at all adverse to tradition. In
fact, looking back at our past year and a half’s meetings, we see at least a
couple that may become traditional — our Victorian Tea/Holmes Birthday
celebration this year, for example. We see that as a viable tradition to
establish for the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore in the future — just as we
see our Barker Birthday celebration likely becoming a similar tradition. Other
than those two, however, and perhaps their locations, we do plan on keeping our
meeting content and location as varied as we can for the foreseeable future.
(Of course, we’ll eventually run out of new Victorian locations to host our
gatherings and need to return to former spots, but we’ll cross that viaduct
when we come to it.)
Anyway, as we’ve mentioned before, we’re very open
to any suggestions that you may have as to meeting locations and content. So
make sure that you make your voices known to us so that we can remain as
responsive as we can to your wishes. After all, we believe that a Sherlockian
scion should always remain focused on the needs of its membership, both current
and future, and never be turned into merely a private playground for its
officers. We’re here for you, not just for us — and we hope you’ll be here,
too.
Now, on to the “meat” of this
month’s letter (having already covered its “meet”) . . .
Barker’s Birthday
Considering that fact that the
Canon gives not even a hint of the date of birth of Mr. Barker — not in “The
Retired Colourman” nor elsewhere — the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore do
hereby declare July 12 to be the birthday of Barker, Holmes’ own Hated Rival
upon the Surrey Shore. And by what authority do we make said declaration, you
may ask? On what do we base our decision? (No, not on the frequency of
occurrences of the name of any Shakespearean play — nor any other literary
reference — in the story; and most certainly not on the basis of any
astrological relationship between Barker and his sparsely described personality
— a notion at which we’re certain Doyle, despite his quite sad lapse into the
equally untenable deception of spiritualism, would have scoffed heartily.) Why,
on no authority at all, of course. Just as the eminent Sherlockian Christopher
Morely declared, by fiat, that January 6 was Holmes’ birthday, we’re following
in that tradition by simply declaring July 12 to be Barker’s birthday. (Or
course, as noted in Vol. 1, No. 3, of our newsletter, we’ve decided that
January 5 is the correct date for Holmes’ birthday, based on later rationales
for the January 6 date that weren’t quite on target, but that’s beside the
point for now.)
As we know of no other such
declaration of date (and wouldn’t necessarily be at all beholden to it in any
event), we feel secure in setting July 12 as Mr. Barker’s birthday — after all,
no evidence exists to the contrary. (And the fact that your humble
correspondent’s birthday happens to fall on the same date has, of course, nothing
whatsoever to do with our decision.) So we hope that you’ll join us in this
year’s first annual Barker Birthday celebration, as noted above, and in at
least saluting Barker in future years on what is now his (un)official birthday
— July 12 (which also happens to be Bill Cosby’s birthday, as any of you who
remember his frozen snowball skit will know, although that, too, is quite
beside the point.)
As most Sherlockians are aware,
John H. Watson, M.D., biographer of Sherlock Holmes, was a prolific chronicler
of the tales of the Master Sleuth of Baker Street. Unfortunately, as we also
are aware, Watson was quite prone to errors in his stories (or was he .
. . ?). For example, in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson misidentified Mrs.
Hudson, his and Holmes’ landlady, as “Mrs. Turner.” In other stories, he gave
dates that were impossible, as he’d already recorded other cases or events that
occurred at the same time, making one (or both) dates obviously incorrect. And he
describes certain recorded cases in other stories in terms that fail to match
how the same case appeared in the actual published tale. Sherlockians, clever
sort that we are, have devised all sorts of explanations for these errors: In
“Scandal,” perhaps, Mrs. Turner was merely filling in for an absent Mrs.
Hudson, off on holiday or away for other reasons. The dating issue? Oh, Watson
was merely being forgetful or misread his own notes or deliberately gave a
false date, possibly to protect an important client or something of that
nature. As for the differing case descriptions, well, Holmes may very well have
worked on more than one case of the same basic name, hence the differences.
(Eminent Sherlockian William S. Baring-Gould even postulated that Holmes worked
on as many as three different “Second Stain” cases in his classic Annotated
Sherlock Holmes.)
But what if none of these theories were actually the
case? What if, in fact, Watson made no errors at all in his writings,
but reported each case exactly as it occurred, when it occurred? But how could
that be, you may ask? Well, what if there were more than one John H.
Watson, M.D., reporting the cases of more than one Sherlock
Holmes? An impossibility? Not if you subscribe to the Alternate World theory,
which postulates the existence of many Earths, each with its own Holmes and
Watson, and every one existing simultaneously at the same time and spatial
location, but in different dimensions (or planes, if you will — especially for
those who share Conan Doyle’s misguided belief in spiritualism), separated,
perhaps, only by different vibratory frequencies (or other mechanisms — this
is, after all, a theoretical construct).
Impossible, you may claim! Mere
science fiction, you may attest! Ah, but not anymore. For what was once
found merely in the speculative realm of science fiction is now on the cutting
edge of quantum physics. Many physicists now believe that the alternate or
multiple universe concept may, in fact, be very real. No less a personality
than the famed theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has postulated that
the now accepted phenomenon of black holes may have a corresponding phenomenon,
dubbed the white hole — which is actually an entry point into our
reality from another universe (just as black holes may be exit points from our
universe into another). Hawking has suggested that, eventually, almost anything
that you can imagine — from benign visitors to H.P. Lovecraft’s dread Cthulhu —
may emerge from a white hole and into our universe. Whether this is true or not
may be debated among physicists, but most today do believe that, just as our
universe was created in the theoretical “big bang,” at the very same time,
multiple other universes may also have been created, ranging from universes
that are very similar to ours to those that are quite alien. Another theory
says that, with each decision any of us makes, a new universe is formed — one
(ours) branches off from that point as we perceive it, and another one branches
off in the opposite direction, taking the path that we (in our own universe)
did not choose. So, if these theories are at all true, literally billions of
universes could have been formed since the beginning of time, some of them
nearly identical to ours, except for the slightest of variations . . . as in
what a certain individual was doing on a certain date or who his landlady is.
(This idea relates, of course, to the Schroedinger’s Cat theory, for those
Sherlockians who are both physicists and cat lovers.)
All right, but what has all this
theorizing to do with the subject at hand: Watson’s errors? Well, as already
suggested, what if Watson made no errors at all. What if these supposed errors
were the result of the Holmes tales being written by not just one John H.
Watson, M.D., but by two or three . . . or an infinite number of Watsons on
infinite earths along the continuum of multiple universes — or a multi-verse?
How could this be, even if the theory is correct? Two possibilities, depending
on whether you accept that Watson was the actual author of the Holmes tales and
Doyle the literary agent or that Doyle was the actual writer and Watson merely
a character in the Canon (blasphemy, I know, but we must allow for the
possibility, especially if we’re talking multiple alternate worlds, in some of
which Watson was the actual author and, in others, Doyle). Those who’ve
dealt with the alternate world theories (especially in the field of Fortean
Phenomena) have also postulated that certain people, from time to time, have
managed to slip from one universe to another — a theory to explain the many
disappearances annually (for example, the crew of the Marie Celeste) or
the appearance of strange people who don’t quite seem to fit in our world (such
as the odd Casper Hauser). So what if — quite by chance — our own John H.
Watson were one of these gifted individuals who can slip from one universe to
the other, probably not even realizing it (especially if the two are
particularly close in most events)? In fact, what if many Watsons
throughout the multi-verse were able to do so? And so the Watson bringing a
particular tale to his literary agent, Doyle, may not necessarily have been the
same Watson who brought the tale or tales before . . .
Such a possibility would readily
explain why certain cases occurred on impossibly overlapping dates — the two
cases were written by different Watsons following different Holmeses on
different cases at the same time . . . in separate universes. Mrs. Turner? The
Watson who wrote “A Scandal in Bohemia” was from a different earth than the one
(or ones) who wrote the other tales in the Canon. And different Second Stains?
Different cases of the same name . . . but in different universes. (And how
about all those wives of Watson . . . or maybe I should say of the Watsons?)
But what if Watson really is
merely a fictional character in a series of fictional stories about a fictional
detective written by the very real Arthur Conan Doyle? Was Doyle merely
careless in his writings, jotting down dates and descriptions for what he considered
literary potboilers, without an eye to or care for continuity? Perhaps. But
what if, in another universe (or, more properly, several other universes), John
H. Watson, M.D., was a real person who chronicled the very real adventures of
the real Sherlock Holmes? A number of writers have claimed that their stories
often came to them in dreams or out of the blue, as if they were simply writing
down what was happening to other, real people . . . somewhere else. Although
Doyle did not, to my knowledge, make such claims, perhaps he actually was
zeroing in on actual deeds occurring in a parallel reality — where a very real
Watson was writing up the actual cases of Sherlock Holmes in his dimension.
Doyle, somehow, “tuned in” to Watson, converting the good doctor’s case reports
into fiction — perhaps not even aware of what he was doing. (Although, if he
were, that may explain his later lapse of judgment in believing in
spiritualism, fairies, and the like — because he’d experienced a real
phenomenon that he could not explain by the science of the day.) And if this
were true, perhaps Doyle was tuning in on more than one Watson in more
than one parallel reality. If so, that, too, would explain the discrepancies in
detail in so many of Watson’s tales, just as if alternate Watsons were actually
visiting Doyle with the latest Holmes adventure. (Ah, but the adventure of which
Holmes?)
Well, of course, this is all
merely speculation. Not being a theoretical physicist (nor even a science
fiction writer — other than, perhaps, in such ramblings as this), I cannot
really comment on the validity of such theories or theoretical constructs. For
now, they must be left in the realms of fiction and of quantum mechanics . . .
and, of course, as we all know, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were very
real people in a very real Victorian Age, where it is always 1895 . . .
Last issue, in the Holmes/Batman segment of my
letter, I mentioned without any explanation two figures who, although
undoubtedly well-known to followers of Victorian sensational literature, may
not be as well-known to all readers: Spring-Heeled Jack and Sexton Blake. For
the run-down on these fictional (and, in Jack’s case, semi-fictional)
Victorians (as well as the very real Charles Babbage), see this issue’s
“Victorian Trivia” section.
Regarding the relationship between Holmes and Batman, Hated Rival Bruce Coleman alerted me to yet another instance in which the two mythos (mythoses?) crossed paths. Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Joker, apparently had his own comic book for a brief run (titled, of course, The Joker), and it seems that Sherlock Holmes appeared in one issue of the book before its demise. Bruce didn’t recall the details of the encounter (which must have been quite bizarre), so if anyone else can fill us in, please do, and we’ll report on it in a future newsletter.
Looks as though that’s all for now. Hope to see you
at our next meeting! (Note: Birthday presents are absolutely unnecessary,
although your own presence will be greatly appreciated.) And don’t
forget to check our Web site for several newly posted items! Till then, I
remain, as always, ever yours . . .
—C.
Barker, Esq.
***
Another dark and cloudy day failed
to dampen the spirits of the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore as we gathered at
the Indiana Transportation Museum, in Noblesville, for our May meeting. (In
fact, except for the lack of fog, the cool, slightly breezy weather resembled
nothing so much as Barker’s own England, as viewed from London’s Surrey Shore —
quite refreshing and bracing.) After congregating in the park across the road
from the museum, all in attendance voted to go ahead and enter its grounds,
even for the nontour portion of the meeting, which we held at a picnic table
within the facility. Because of additional opportunities opened up for us by
our own VP, Mimi, we abbreviated that part of the meeting. Instead of his
entire paper, “The Train-ing of Sherlock Holmes: The Railway in Victorian
England,” Bill Barton read only part one, covering the railway history of
England as a whole, leaving part two, covering London, as an addition to our
next meeting. But any minor disappointment for the attendees was more than
compensated for in our tour of the museum, as Mimi — a past volunteer worker at
the site — secured admission for us into areas of the museum not normally open
to the public. We got to view an old Pullman car owned by Tony George (of
Indianapolis 500 fame), which was stored away in one of the site’s sheds, as
well as the main work area, where volunteers were cutting apart an old,
burnt-out train car for salvage and to make room to renovate an old steam
locomotive (much like those that pulled the trains that Holmes and Barker rode
in the 19th century). In addition to our exclusive sights, we also
journeyed through the regular exhibits, getting just a taste of what life was
like on the old railroads, even up until the mid-20th century. Those
who chose to take the train ride to Atlanta, Indiana, got another special
treat: Thanks to Mimi’s connections, we were privileged to ride up in the
engine, along with the engineer and flagman, on the trip out! Returning to the
museum, we checked out a few more exhibits and even climbed up and into several
open cabooses on a side track. On leaving the museum grounds, those still
hungering for more Sherlockian fellowship (as well as food) adjourned to
Eddie’s Café, in central Noblesville, for further gastronomical and social
edification. All in all, another successful soirée for the Hated Rivals on the
Surrey Shore.
***
As noted in this issue’s “Letter
from Barker,” in our last issue, I made a couple references that fall under the
category of Victorian trivia. As not all readers may be familiar with them, I
thought I’d take this issue’s “Victorian Trivia” section to elucidate. So who
(or what?), you may wonder, were Spring-Heeled Jack and Sexton Blake? Read on
(for an extended tour of Victorian trivia) . . .
Starting in 1837 and running at
irregular intervals throughout the 19th century, various people in
and around London (and elsewhere) were assaulted by a strange, cloaked (and
some say masked) figure who spit flames from his mouth and leaped over high walls
and onto roofs to escape. A few women were also attacked with some kind of
claws that the figure wore (or bore), and some testified that the man (or
demon, as some thought him) had oddly protruding, almost hypnotic, eyes as
well. The sensational press of the day began first referring to the assailant
as a “springald,” meaning a jumping-jack, a term that evolved into the name by
which this figure is generally still know today: Spring-Heeled Jack. (The
latter from the supposition that the culprit used powerful springs in the heels
of his boot to enable his superhuman leaps.) Like his later namesake, Jack the
Ripper, this Jack was never caught, and after his last assumed appearance in
Liverpool, in 1904, vanished into history. Peter Haining, in his book The
Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring-Heeled Jack, postulates for numerous
reasons that the original Jack was probably the Marquis of Waterford (who had
protruding eyes, just as in Jack’s early appearances, and who wore a crest with
a W, which one witness claimed to have seen on Jack). As the Marquis
died in the 1850s, however, others must have carried on the tradition afterward
(assuming, of course, that some of Jack’s later sightings weren’t just the
result of suggestion or hysteria). Spring-Heeled Jack’s legacy lived on in the penny
dreadfuls of the era (crude bound broadsheets that sold for a penny and
provided lurid accounts of popular characters from both fiction and real-life —
equivalent to the dime novels of 19th century America). These
serials portrayed Jack variously as a monster, a clever villain, and sometimes
even as an early superhero. (In some drawings, Jack was even portrayed as
having batwings — or wearing a cloak that resembled them; hence his mention in
the Batman/Holmes essay in the last issue of our newsletter.)
Sexton Blake, on the other hand,
was purely fictional. He began his literary career as a mostly unremarkable
London detective in a series of stories that appeared in the 1890s. Sometime
before the turn of the century, however, Blake began to evolve into a somewhat
different character than he started out as. He moved to Baker Street, for one
thing, became much more cerebral in his methods, and physically began to bear a
startling resemblance to another Baker Street detective that we all know and
love. And yet, Blake was more than a rip-off of Sherlock Holmes. His adventures
were quite unique — often far more fantastical than those of Holmes — and his
rogues’ gallery grew into one of the most impressive in all popular fiction.
Blake’s adventures continued well into the 20th century, and he
became quite a well-known hero of the pulp fiction of the day — in fact,
perhaps only Nick Carter had a more varied and lengthy career than did Blake.
Sadly, none of Blake’s adventures remain in print today (at least as far as I
could find), and although he could in some ways be considered a “poor man’s
Sherlock Holmes,” Sexton Blake remains one of the most colorful detectives in
literature. (For much more info about Blake, check out The Sexton Blake Page on
the Web, at www.geocities.com/jessnevins/blake.html.)
The reference to Charles Babbage’s analytical engine may also have thrown some readers not so familiar with early Victorian engineering. Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was an English inventor who, in 1821, invented a device for compiling mathematical tables that he called the Difference Engine — although he didn’t complete it until 1832, at which time he conceived an idea for an even better calculating machine, the Analytical Engine, the plans for which he finished in 1856. Babbage built a prototype of his Difference Engine, but funding for the device was withdrawn by the British government in 1842. Babbage never did manage to construct a prototype Analytical Engine, but in 1854, a Swedish printer named George Scheutz, using Babbage’s designs, constructed a Difference Engine that was subsequently used by both the British and American governments. Babbage’s calculating engines are now recognized as the genesis of today’s computers. (Interestingly, a relatively recent science-fiction genre, known as steampunk, frequently uses Babbage’s devices as a jumping-off point for postulating the addition of post-19th century technology into the Victorian era.) For more information, type “Charles Babbage” into your favorite Internet search engine.
Bonus trivia: Wax vestas
were what waterproof matches were called in Victorian England. See the first
entry below in “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere!” for the connection.
***
I Hear of Sherlock
Everywhere!
Out for a few years, but only recently obtained, is
the excellent Canonical Compendium, by Stephen Clarkson (and the late
Bill Fleischauer), published by Canada’s Calabash Press in 1999. (So, in spite
of recent international relations, some good still has come out of Canada ….) I
did detect some typos (the page number for the Topical Category of Games is
missing in the TOC) and a few odd choices for some of the listings. (“Wax
vestas,” for example, is listed as an occupation, whereas “Seller of wax
vestas” was the actual occupation of Hugh Boone, the alter ego of Neville St.
Clair, in “The Man With the Twisted Lip.”) But otherwise, I heartily recommend
the book for all Sherlockians who can afford its $45 price tag.
Those looking for reruns of the John Doe TV
series with the Sherlockian/Victorian references that we’ve mentioned in past
newsletters may, sadly, be out of luck. The series was indeed canceled (and
after a cliff-hanger season finale!), and so far, the Fox network has been
running movies and reruns of other series in its time slot rather than reruns
of Doe. If the situation changes, however, we’ll let you know.
Sadly, Sherlock Holmes was not named as one
of the top 50 screen heroes of all time (nor was Moriarty named as one of the
top 50 villains) in the American Film Institute’s TV special, AFI’s 100
Years …100 Heroes and Villains, which aired on CBS in early June. On
the other hand, actor Basil Rathbone (who, of course, played Holmes in the
films of the late ’30s, early ’40s) did appear as the villain in film clips
of The Mark of Zorro and The Adventures of Robin Hood for those
two heroes, so the show wasn’t a total loss for Sherlockians.
According to a press release, the East Haddam
Historical Society is celebrating the second season of its exhibit, “Honoring
William Gillette,” at its museum on Route 82 in Connecticut, not far from the
site of Gillette’s renovated castle. Gillette was, of course, the actor and
playwright who wrote and starred in the play Sherlock Holmes early last
century. The exhibit reopened on May 30 and continues till October 13. A nearby
theatre will also present Gillette’s play from July 2 to 19. So if you are
planning a trip to the New England area this summer or early autumn, you may
want to stop by. For information, contact the society at P.O. Box 27, East
Haddam, CT 06423-0027; 860-873-3944; for the play, call 860-767-8348. (Or send
us a SASE for a photocopy or, if you’re local, your fax number for a fax of the
info.)
Closer to home — but not lasting as long — is an
exhibit at the Newberry Library in Chicago, “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond
Sherlock Holmes,” which runs through July 12. Hours are 8:15 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.,
Monday, Friday, and Saturday, and 8:15 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday, and admission is free. (The Library is closed July 4.) For more
information, contact the library at 60 W. Walton St., Chicago, IL 60610-7324;
312-255-3700; or check its Web site at www.newberry.org.
Those who enjoy Victorian-era gaming, especially
games with Sherlockian ties, whether role-playing, board games, or miniatures,
have much to look forward to in this year’s GenCon Game Fest, one of the
country’s two major annual game conventions. For the first time ever, GenCon is
being held right here in Indianapolis this year, at the Convention Center
downtown, July 24-27. Among the games with a Victorian theme being run at this
year’s convention is a four-hour role-playing event called “Cool Zulus By
Gaslight,” run by our own Bill Barton, which plunks players from our time down
in Victorian London — where they must attempt to find their way back through
time on their own. The event uses Bill’s easy-to-learn (and play) role-playing
system from his So Ya Wanna Be A Rock ’N’ Roll Star! A Rock ’N’ Role-Playing
Game, and runs the Friday evening of the convention, from 5 to 9 p.m. For
registration and event information, go to www.gencon.com. For info about Bill’s
game itself, check out Bill’s Web site, which is at
http://bill-barton-games.iwarp.com. (Admission for one day, by the way, is $23
at the door.)
For fans of fantastical Victorian literature in
general and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in particular: Jess
Nevin’s Heroes & Monsters: The Unofficial Companion to the League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen, a 232-page trade paperback ($18.95) published by
Monkeybrain, Inc., and due in July. Not only does it include Nevin’s analysis
of Volume 1 of the series, identifying all the embedded Victorian and other
references, but also an introduction by author Alan Moore, commentary by artist
Kevin 0’Neill, and essays about the main characters and their creators.
Available from www.monkeybrainbooks.com, Amazon.com, and most bookstores. And
check out Nevin’s Web site for notes on Volume 2 and related LEG items,
at www.geocities.com/athens/olympus/7160/league1.html.
***
Coming Meetings!
Following are the details of our
upcoming meeting, plus the dates and tentative information about our remaining
meetings for 2003. (Check our Web site or our Indianapolis Star Web page
for updates.) So set these dates aside to join the Hated Rivals at the
following soirées:
A Barker Birthday Party!
Saturday, July 12, 2003,
starting at 1:30 p.m.
Lord Ashley’s Pub &
Eatery
Corner of Pendleton Pike and
Oaklandon Road
Indianapolis, Indiana
Directions
and Details: Take
I-465 to the Pendleton Pike exit on the east side of Indianapolis. Go north on
Pendleton Pike, past German Church Road (a stoplight, just past the new
Wal-Mart on the right). Continue on until you see the next stoplight, which is
Oaklandon Road. Just before you reach the stoplight, turn right into the corner
mall, where you’ll find Lord Ashley’s facing the northeast. Plan on arriving
between 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. and ordering at 1:30 (from the menu and separate
checks). On arrival, just ask for the Hated Rivals party, or, if no one is at
the door, turn immediately to the left and continue until you reach our room.
Following the meal, which is sure to include lively discussions, the program
will feature talks on Victorian archeology and about the Amelia Peabody
stories, part 2 of the Victorian railway talk, Sherlockian music, Canonical
toasts, and more great Sherlockian fellowship. (Note: Please let us know
via e-mail or snail mail by Wednesday, July 9, if you plan to attend, because
seating in the restaurant’s meeting room that we’ve reserved is limited,
and if we exceed that number, we’ll need to request its larger room for the
meeting.)
And mark your calendar for
these great upcoming meetings . . .
Saturday, September 13: A Canonical Cookout
Saturday, November 8: Mayhem, Menace, and
Moriarty!
Sunday, January 4, 2004
(tentative):
A Victorian Tea, Reprised!
For
more information, contact us at P.O. Box 26290, Indianapolis, IN 46226-0290; or
send us e-mail at postmaster@surrey-shore.freeservers.com or at rivalrussell@hotmail.com.
(And don’t forget to venture online to check out our Hated Rivals Web site at
http://surrey-shore.freeservers.com or our Indy Star Web page at
http://community.indystar.com/928/ for recent updates.) See you again in two
months, back on the ol’ Surrey Shore, where the game’s always afoot!