Yesterday, Elizabeth Sandifer posted an essay on Sherlock‘s 2016 Christmas special, “The Abominable Bride,” on the Eruditorum Press blog. One issue raised in her essay is the sudden interest in Sherlock in Sherlock Holmes’ drug addiction, an element of the Arthur Conan Doyle canon that Sherlock hadn’t dealt with. What follows is a comment IContinue reading “Did Elementary Influence Late-Period Sherlock?”
Author Archives: Allyn
Writing My Senator: Judge Brett Kavanaugh
The text of an email I sent this afternoon to Senator Pat Toomey, one of my Senators: I wrote to you a few days ago about Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, raising concerns I had about the accusations leveled against the judge by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez. You wrote inContinue reading “Writing My Senator: Judge Brett Kavanaugh”
Flirting with Historic Futility
The amateur baseball historian in me is perversely excited that the Orioles could make baseball history this year. Last night, the Orioles seized defeat from the jaws of victory and lost for the 108th time this year. This is the most losses in Baltimore major league history, but not in franchise history; the 1939 St.Continue reading “Flirting with Historic Futility”
An Encounter at Big Lots
This afternoon I went to Big Lots. I needed a fan for my apartment; the motor for my fan had seized up and burned out. I pulled into a parking space, and I saw a man of an indeterminate age, dressed mainly in brown, shuffling through the parking lot toward my Beetle, shuffling as thoughContinue reading “An Encounter at Big Lots”
A Mandela Moment
Today is my coworker Lance’s birthday. Had I known, I’d have picked him up a cake on my way into the office. Though we don’t have a “birthday club” in Marketing, no one would say no to a birthday cake. And when I told Lance that he should have told me that today was hisContinue reading “A Mandela Moment”
Leaving Flowers
Friday I took a vacation day. Though long planned, for about five months, I needed the day badly; work has been mentally exhausting and physically draining this year, and with the never-ending publishing cycle of writing and deadlines I have always struggled to even take the minimum required five vacation days each year, and it’sContinue reading “Leaving Flowers”
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Lost Friendships
William Shatner published a new autobiography this week, Live Long and… What I Learned Along the Way. In the book, Shatner reveals that, when Leonard Nimoy died in 2015, he didn’t attend Nimoy’s funeral because of a Red Cross fundraiser in Florida scheduled for the same night as the funeral but because he had beenContinue reading “William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Lost Friendships”
Adventures in a Mudslide
It took two hours to get home last night. One of my coworkers insisted I should leave early, at five, since it was a Friday and a three-day weekend, but I was in the middle of a project I wanted to finish, which I did, and I left at 5:30. The trip home was pleasant…Continue reading “Adventures in a Mudslide”
Christopher Robin
Tonight after work I went to see Christopher Robin. I went into the film with a deep misgiving, and I left the film with a deep misgiving, but the misgiving I had going in was not the misgiving I had coming out. Christopher Robin, the character in the Pooh stories, was based on Christopher RobinContinue reading “Christopher Robin”
A Random Encounter
Something happened on Saturday at Harrisburg Senators game that I’ve been thinking about for the last few days. Not an intensive thinking. A background thinking. I arrived about when the gates opened, and I wandered around the ballpark. I was on the concourse, looking at the food options, when a woman, early twenties, working behindContinue reading “A Random Encounter”