Poster for Sherlock Holmes preferred to Segeltorps library
Yesterday, I held a one-hour lecture on Sherlock Holmes on Segeltorps library in Huddinge. It was so incredibly fun to do that! I can hardly remember when I last held public lecture on star detective, there must be at least ten years ago. I may be mistaken, a hint at that point, but anyway, it's insanely long time ago. The Holmes Lectures I have been in recent years has instead been to various Sherlock Holmes societies, where the audience was very familiar with it and thus have become preferred the more specialized and also more scripted.
But this time, more than twenty people in the audience, from those who never read a Holmes History of the few that was actually quite well versed even in small details. Age-wise ranging audience from around 12 years to closer to 80th I had put together a little slide show of about 25 images, which served as background to my talk. A little loose so I knew what I had to take up aspects of Sherlock Holmes. Then it was just to talk to. I am not a specialist in to talk without a script, but Sherlock Holmes is really my absolute special subject, no two ways about it, and I feel that I basically can talk about Sherlock Holmes indefinitely. Until the voice takes over. Especially when I talk to a audience that can be amused by what I say - and see how much I am passionate about the topic. To just feel the fire within himself, it is a wonderful experience!
My interest in Sherlock Holmes goes back to the mid-teens, and of course it has gone in waves. Nowadays, I have not the same fanatical interest. Note that it is how I experience it - the environment may very well believe that I still can definitely be classed as a fanatic. As Sherlock Holmes is always in my immediate neighborhood. It is, of course, I look around me in the bookshelves. But still, I experienced something new yesterday in preferred. It was so incredibly fun to tell others about Holmes! I noticed myself how uppeldad I was. I've really missed the sensation of myself on the Holmes front in recent years. I have taken Holmes for granted and not realize how much I really love to talk about him.
I'd love to talk more about Holmes in different contexts. Thanks to my stand-up of the past year I have also learned how I can laugh just by way of saying things. Humor is not always the joke. Stand-up creation has also allowed me to enjoy even more of standing in front of an audience. It is fair to say that I have become dependent on the latter.
Premiere viewed one of the vests - with matching bow tie - which I bought recently at the wonderful West Favourbrook shop in London.
Now it's probably time for Sherlock Holmes to give something back to my stand-up spirit. I often feel an uncertainty in the stand-up process in terms of going beyond the script. I have a little experiment started to wander freely, among others, I tried it when I acted in Gävle last week, but I would like to have that rod as it is rehearsed script. But in the case of Sherlock Holmes, it feels just silly to have a script. I can that! And that's exactly what I want to know the stand-up scene. The fact that I have mastered it so well that I will like to throw myself headlong out - just for pleasure.
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How nice it sounds! Both of Sherlock Holmes, in itself, and your interest in him. I'm so curious what it is you talk about Holmes - the angles of the topic? Telling you about Conan Doyle's life? Historiernas action? Doyle's style and narrative technique? Sherlock trait? Curiosity?
I have lectured a great deal about Povel Ramel and I like to angle the "subject" in different ways - would therefore be great to hear how you're doing. You obviously can not account for all your talk, but maybe a few points or how you present preferred.
I am the way, is also a great enthusiast for the year 1900 in terms of everything - music, art, architecture, literature, fashion, new ideas and inventions that came. What a time!
Hi Johanna! Glad you found us. I think it was by my friends Martin and Trampe as I heard about you for a few years ago - and it would have been great to hear you lecture on Povel Ramel sometime. He was my musical guiding light when I was a child and his influence on my sense of humor and my pun spirit has been enormous. I have blogged a bit about it on previous occasions, including just after Martin Heather passed away: http://www.mattiasbostrom.se/2010/10/02/humorister-som-hade-stor-povelkan-pa-mina -ljungdomsar /
Just hours after I wrote that post I was persuaded by a friend to invest in stand-up, a comedy genre that I have ever had enormous prejudices. Among others in this http://www.mattiasbostrom.se/2009/09/13/har-ar-ditt-liv-mattias-bostrom/
In my lecture on Sherlock Holmes so I chose this time to concentrate a lot on the right figure, Holmes and how he has grown bigger than just the literary figure who he was from the beginning. Now know the majority him rather from film and television than from the books, so I posted the beginning of the lecture as a reverse timeline, where I took up the modern versions of the detective and slowly looked me further and further back in time to the original 1887th In this way, I got everyone in the audience (which consisted of so mixed ages) to identify with at least one before I started talking about how Holmes was created. Then I went rather than chronologically forwards to describe Conan Doyle's forty years Sherlock Holmes-writing. Otherwise, I told only a few things about Conan Doyle himself - even if his life of course is very fascinating. But there was enough simply to hours. It was a pretty long question and answer session towards the end, so I pulled over anyway with twenty minutes.
Next time I give lectures about Sherlock Holmes, it may well be different. It depends on what kind of audience it is and how they react to different things I tell of. The backbone of about 20 pictures are great, although I of course can do about it to some extent if I for example, asked to talk more about the author or the sherlockianska world or to be Sherlock Holmes-gatherers.
Glad you are fond of the century! I was still only interested in the Sherlock Holmes world, that is London in the 1890s, but during the last decade I have developed a great passion for Stockholm at the turn of the century. Or rather, about the years 1880-1914 - it is turn of the century period for me, then when all the innovations created such confidence - and then suddenly being snatched away in the next world war. I amuse myself any time to read contemporary texts on the city, to get a feel for the details. For example, I'm very fond of the three volumes of Stockholm as a city council (or similar) published in 1897, where directors and management in the city had to describe their field. From this book I blogged about
And not least, I grottat me down in that time more light-hearted entertainment, especially variety entertainment but also the traveling theater societies. At the latter, there is very little written about, but I have gathered a lot of memoirs, books, etc. that actually describes the life of thespiskärran really in depth. In two areas of expertise, I have tried to collect on my every word written: Swedish Panopticon (which I also used that name on my previous blog) and Hammerska shack. While Sigge Wulff, I'm a little more intrigued by. And as a hobby I graduate since 7-8 years back about the actor Emil Bergendorff (1864-1921). I have been through extensive archive searching and contact with his contemporary relatives managed to puzzle over almost his entire life. Some pieces are lacking. Among others, I used now and then sit down in the Library's basement and roll microfilm to haphazardly attempt to follow the tour he did with various theater companies around the country. No tour plans appear to be preserved, so I have to guess at how societies went. It is an incredibly time consuming, but very satisfying when I find the slightest evidence. I expect that at some time compiling a summary of my research in book form. Probably it can be interesting about 5-6 people.
What fun it is to enthusiasts like you! Many questions will be ... What is it that fascinates with Emil Bergendorff I wonder first? And do you know the three volumes of "Little Sweden" published by Nature and Culture 1948, which is a collection of articles about the festivities and entertainment from "the good old days"? As you probably know, Emil Norlander also written on this era in other articles and books, but as you suggest, these kinds of later impairments often euphemisms or pure error (but that could mean on the other contemporary writings also be).
Fun idea with the reverse time axis as you did when Holmes delivered! What did you think of the way, if the British TV series with Holmes in the present day? I thought it had its points - I always find it interesting when contemporary writer / filmmaker takes on the classics and make something of their own or spin on the story.
Who would you say you are most like - Holmes or Watson? (Or Moriarty?) Read by the way in the novel "One Day" by Nicholls of an old parlor game where you have been blindfolded and trying to beat the other party with a weapon after asking: "Are you there, Moriarty?" Does not seem to be really enjoying playing .
Johanna: Thanks for the tip on "Little Sweden"! I was a tour to Uppsala today and took the opportunity to purchase second-hand bookshops, the three volumes. Did not know them already. Sitting here and looking at them right now, especially the third part which is of course the time period that interests me most. And gee, what this was useful reading!
As for Emil Bergendorff it's absolutely detective work that attracts me the most. The starting point does not have anything to go by, beyond the actor's last name, and some years later have mapped much of his life. It is probably the major attraction. But also to Emil Bergendorff largely lived a life in various contexts were documented or at least listed in the press or otherwise stored in the archives. So that it even goes to research such information overload, I have succeeded so far. And perhaps the most important component of the attraction is that the topic is narrow and had never been explored. Such things I get started on. Originally I just wanted to have some additional information on his Sherlock Holmes actor, but the more I dug up about him, the more interesting it was to get an insight into the early 1900s all the family's fortunes. And especially the demanding life of the touring theater societies.
Emil Norlander has written one of the most important books that provide detailed insight into contemporary simpler pleasures, "Little Stockholm". Other books by him, I have had great pleasure, purely scientific terms.
BBC series "Sherlock" I love, especially the first episode in season 1, but even third section. And I think the second season will be even better. The beauty of the series is that Holmes portrait is one of the best in television history and that the friendship between Holmes and Watson are depicted as good, and that the actors are so young. I am terribly tired of seeing them painted portraits of old men, when in fact they were only between 30 and 40 when they were most active.
I myself developed enough, more and more into a Holmes - I'm doing a little as I want in life - but I, fortunately, many of Watson's redeeming feature.