Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

SherlockNYC is made of win and awesome, y'all. As thrilled as I am to see that SherlockDC is kicking off (hey, duckyone, their first events are drinks after Frankenstein showings), as long as SherlockNYC keeps coming up with fabulous events like this, I'm going to keep Bolt Bus in business.

So - after Bolt-ing up to NYC and being taken in by the ever-wonderful suricattus on Friday, Saturday I wended my way down to the American Museum of Natural History.

Things didn't *quite* kick off according to plan: the people doing the checking in were a few minutes late and the people to be checked in were sitting just about everywhere *except* the spot marked out on the SherlockNYC emails. In fact, they were sitting on either side of it, so what was to be one group was two with a gap and the resulting "are my teammates over there? How about over here?"

It didn't help that I had never *met* any of my teammates!

However, after initial milling around, teams started checking in. There were a LOT of teams, with a wide variety of names, some Sherlockian - Team Purple Shirt - and others just because: Team Panopticon, Team TARDIS, Team Mutant Ninja Squirrels, Team Helen, etc. (For far more details, see SherlockNYC's twitter feed.)

As I do not yet have permission to use everyone's real names on LJ, I'm going to refer to the rest of Team Purple Shirt as Lalaine (our fearless leader), Becky (justatiltedlamp, and J. Lalaine & J are friends, I was a random assignee, and Becky was a last-minute addition when SherlockNYC opened up the wait list. And a very lucky addition she was - not only did she remember to bring the mandatory pen (I remembered to bring one to the city, but not to the hunt), she had a member courtesy card that got all of the team in for free!

We had an hour and a half to kill - our check in was just after 10, but we weren't to open our packets until 11:30 sharp. (Not only was that in bold on the emails -- twice -- it was written on the seal across the back of the envelope.) I'd wanted to see the bio-luminescence exhibit - I figured there'd be a clue there - but as a special exhibit, it took an extra charge. So instead, we wandered through the museum to get a feel for the layout and to scope out exhibits that we thought would be useful, like human evolution (skulls) and the gem exhibit.

( And then it was 11:30. )

So it's kind of my fault that we went from a potential 2nd place to 3rd. We found out later that at one point 5 teams were in a dead heat, all of them trying to replace one wrong photo! (Not the same one, though. I asked.)

There were prizes. Team Purple Shirts in third each won a Turner print of Sherlock standing at the corner of Ludlow and unreadable, pointing something out to John, who was reading the New York Times.

Team Panopticon was second place and each won a color print of the Turner booklet cover.

Team Cherchez la Chien in first place each won both prints plus a copy of the graphic novel of The Sign of the Four.

Everybody.

After Team Purple Shirt reassured each other that we all came first in our hearts, Becky gave us all skull erasers so that we would have a friend to talk to.

None of us ended up going to the lunch. While I somewhat regret not going - I met some lovely people at the last SherlockNYC luncheon - I just couldn't bring myself to make the main meal of the day burgers and fries. Judging from the picture on SherlockNYC's twitter, plenty of people went and had a good time. I had a quieter but excellent (and huge) feed at Machiavelli.

Remember how I said that I hoped the horrible trip to North Carolina wasn't a foreshadowing of the trip to Connecticut? Well, on the way to hhertzof's place, I got caught up in
1) traffic delays
2) the Bronx
3) epic rain of Biblical fury

Fortunately, I had duckyone to keep me company, which helped a *lot* to keep me focused and awake.

I haven't been to Gillette Castle since I was tiny, so it was a whole new experience. I don't think the park service markets it very well, though. For one thing, the gift shop was meager and full of tat (Seriously, they were selling a $3 pamphlet that was part of a chapter of a book about Sherlock Holmes that's out of print. WTF?) Nor does the service do much to as outreach to three groups that should be fascinated by Gillette - not just Holmes fans, but train enthusiasts (he was one) and engineers, because the work he put into the castle was just fascinating. Not just the doors with all their various locks, but the trick drinks cabinet, the hidden internal fire-fighting system, and the way of checking the heating tank levels from the third floor. Heck, even I have to go into my basement to check the oil tank!

He was also a crazy cat person. Seriously crazy cat person. He had around 15 living ones at any given time, each of which were belled and all of which were trained to come running to the door for a dinner bell. He'd even designed a living room table with little dangly wooden bits for their plaything. In addition to those, there were stone cats on the crenelations, and statues of every shape, size, material, and, frankly, scariness. (There was one huge white china cat that looked both freaky and freaked out; half of the folks on the tour took pictures of it and it's probably the subject of a dozen tumblr posts by now.)

SherlockNYC had a really respectable gathering for this - about 20 people, with one dropping out due to sickness, but another scooting in to join us for the luncheon afterwards. I am seriously impressed by their ability to pull together events. We gathered a bit confusedly at the visitor's center (the confirmation said "meet at the castle" and we didn't know if that meant meet where you get the tickets or at the actual castle, and it didn't help that the lady selling tickets had never heard of our group.) Some of us were very obvious with Sherlock pins or t-shirts, some wore something fannishly related (there was a great Martin Crieff shirt), and some just figured out that the group of young women must be us. Quite a few of us dressed for tea, with some seriously smashing outfits.

Oh, and while Ducky and I thought that we might be the ones who'd come the furthest, we were scooped by Cindy, who'd come from a state further to join the fun!

About 8 of the group were SherlockNYC movers and shakers, and they got us corralled together, sorted out the tickets, and herded us up to the castle. Once there, it was a self-guided tour, so we more or less started splitting up again. Herding fans is, after all, just like herding cats. Only you can't shake a treat can to bring us running.

After a good long while running through the castle, we ended up regrouping outside in a little riverside portcullis thing - the temperature wasn't too bad if you were in the shade, and it was pleasant there. Then it was off to Gelston House, a restaurant down by the water right next to an absolutely stunning late 1800s opera house.

There was a mismatch between the number of people and the entrees ordered, and I'd long since forgotten what the heck it was I'd ordered in the first place. But I cannot repeat how absolutely put together this group is, because Audry whipped out her smart phone, dialed up the records, and sorted it all out promptly.

Lunch conversation ranged all over, from the scion societies through audio to the general wonderfulness of Benedict Cumberbatch. It was good, I think, to have Cindy and I there to wave the scion society flag -- all that's *really* needed for cross-pollination is for more of us to show up at Sherlock stuff the way the new Sherlock fans are showing up at older Holmesian events. Cindy's Red Circle of DC and I'm Watson's Tin Box - both of 'em out of the area, but also a way of showing how we aren't all, well, as ritual-oriented (or expensive) as the BSI. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that SherlockNYC has every right to consider itself a scion - it's already more active than some!

Afterward was a reading of Ken Ludwig's "Postmortem." Not having bothered to click the link before going, I assumed that this was some Sherlock fic, possibly written by a SherlockNYC member. Turns out it's a two-act murder mystery play about William Gillette, set in the castle. (It was, in other words, RPF!) Parts had been shuffled around - at one point one of the actresses was speaking to herself - and parts were sunk into to the point I think anyone who went is going to get the giggles for a long time if they heara thick New York accent calling "BAHW-bee!"

Shoutouts to brewsternorth, laughingacademy, and raxhel, who were at my half of the table along with hhertzof, and duckyone Good to see you again/meet you!

And now I have to go see what two days of being offline hath wrought.

Oh, and due to popular request - Malice, Tin Box, and now SherlockNYC, at some point by the end of the week (tonight if I have energy, but no promises after all that driving) I'm going to make a master post of all the Sherlock Holmes audio out there and where/how to get it.