I have been giving some thought on how the upcoming Robert Downey, Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes can accomplish more than make money for Warner Bros.

We have a little more than a month to take advantage of this. The film provides an opportunity for the scion societies to build membership, a chance to plan Holmes-themed events, and, I hope, a chance to sell some books. (For those who don't already know, I wrote "Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula.")

It is unfortunate that Warner Bros. has chosen Christmas Day to release the film, but let's not forget the significance of Jan. 6, just twelve days later. There is adequate planning time for both Christmas and the New Year.

I am willing to appear at events within driving distance of Springfield, Vt., (for me, a radius of 50 to 100 miles). For those clubs willing to buy "Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula" directly from Mountainside Press (www.mountainsidepress.com), I will sign them for use any way they wish. I would also like to know which theatres are showing the Downey film as soon as you know, just in case I can schedule signings there. (If they've booked the film, they should be running the trailer by now.)

Among the things clubs could do:

-- Sponsor special matinees by buying a block of tickets. Maybe high school or college English classes might be interested.

-- Buy up a bunch of tickets as special prizes for a contest.

-- See if the theatres would be interested in allowing panel discussions after showings of the film. Most theatres will schedule special performances if they have a guaranteed number of seats sold.

-- Set up booths at the theatres and bookstores for curious new fans.

-- Piggyback onto whatever the bookstores are doing. (Those of us who are authors should be doing that anyway.)

I'd like to pool ideas, so please share your thoughts.

Opportunities like this seldom come along; we should not let this pass us by. Let's try to work together for the good of the Master, and for ourselves.

Steve

P.S. Some of you may get more than one copy of this; my apologies. It would take me more than an hour to edit the duplicates out.

For those of you following my friend Wally on Facebook, here's the arson story, which happened when I was in college.

My girlfriend, myself, and some of her friends had planned to spend an evening pub crawling and see a local band. However, one of the girls got roped into bringing her cousin. He'd recently been released from the Vermont state mental hospital because he was a pathological firebug and had burned down the main Catholic church in Burlington several years before, in the late sixties or early seventies. (For some reason, the diocese replaced it with a hideous mud-colored Pizza Hut-type structure with a crucifix on top.)

Needless to say, everyone was a bit nervous, especially the smokers. This guy couldn't stop staring at the candle sticking out of the old chianti bottle at the center of our table. People got themselves away from him as quickly as possible; the girls, as they tend to do, went to the bathroom in a pack and the guys fearlessly went prowling for alternatives the dance floor. That left me alone with a convicted arsonist who looked on the tiny candle frame with longing, love and memory glowing in his eyes.

Finally, he asked me where I was from, and I told him, "Brattleboro."

"Really?" He came back to reality. "Do you know Ray Jablonski?"

It would figure that I did. Raymond was a classmate and petty thief who missed graduation due to a badly bungled break-in and burglary, not that he would have gotten as far as graduation anyway. Apparently these two were cellmates for a while and had the gift for getting caught in common. So we spent a good portion of the evening discussing Raymond and Brattleboro's other contributions to Vermont's correctional system.

(To digress a moment: Why does it take so long for women to get back from the bathroom? Or would we rather not know what goes on in there?)

I prefer to think I defused a potentially ugly situation; to the others in our group, however, I was some sort of minor pariah because I had the temerity to talk to this guy as if he were a human being. So much for doing the decent thing. Some day I will understand why so many people are like this.
 

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