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Hi! I am still lacking energy to do anything serious online, but here are some things anyway:

Signal boost via

zvi: If, like me, you recently got weird malware on your system that tried to get you to install anti-virus software, and couldn't figure out where from because you'd only been on trustworthy sites, you probably got it from an ad running on Livejournal. Just so you know. ETA: a thread about it on lj news - if you think you got hit, drop in and leave a comment, it might help.

(I think I got my system clean - I have Spybot running to stop unauthorized registry changes, and cleared out a bunch of suspicious files - but will probably be doing a format + reinstall as soon as I have time to think anyway.) When is DW going to be able to syndicate flocked lj posts so I never have to go back there again? Plz?

*****

I am one of those boring old fans who's been around long enough that the slash-misogyny argument just seems tired; yes it's important, but it's the same thing I read about in 2003. And 2005. And 2007... So instead, here are some awesome Sherlock Holmes stories about women:

Commonplaces, by Astolat. Irene Adler goes to visit Holmes after "The Final Problem."

Thoughts Without Words by Katie Forsythe. Holmes goes to visit Irene, and a conversation is had. (If you've been reading Holmes fic, surely you've found Katie Forsythe's work already, but this one is just *amazing*. It's full-on unreliable narrator - SCAN is given an entirely new interpretation, as is Holmes' history - yet the Holmes and Adler here are so amazing that I get it confused with canon. And I almost suspect the naked!Adler scene in the movie was based on this story.)

Five Times John Watson Quite Unintentionally Saw Irene Adler Naked, by flowers4ophelia. Irene and Holmes carry on together and annoy Watson a lot. Movieverse, though not necessarily contradictory to bookverse.

An Ideal Husband by Irene Adler. Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes both receive the same visitor. (this is also heavy on the Violet Hunter, who was in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" and seems to be the third-most-loved-by-fandom female from a case.)

Enclosed by Recessional. Mary Morstan receives a visit from Sherlock Holmes. Recessional has been writing a lot of really excellent Mary Morstan fic of late: you should read.

Blood Shift by Toft. Mary Morstan and Watson find something necessary in each other.

five times Mary suspected Holmes and Watson were more than friends and one time she knew it to be so., by Lady Paperclip. Mary Morstan is visited by certain inescapable deductions. And also Irene Adler, which is sometimes the same thing.

Leaving, by Telanu. Holmes visits Watson and Mary.

Congenital Defects, by Branwyn. Mary Russell is visited by a series of increasingly wodehousian mishaps as the result of an inconvenient aunt.

Honeycomb Series, by LizBee. Lizbee has written most of the Mary Russell fic that I actually liked; this series deals with Russell's Jewish identity and her marriage to Holmes.

Suppressed, by Jane Turenne. Mrs. Hudson visits Watson.

Miss Madelyn Mack, Murderess, by Flourish. Miss Madelyn Mack is visited by sudden and unexpected violence.

...in other words, Holmes fandom and its subsidiaries are full of amazing female characters, and people should be writing more stories about them. Especially Mrs. Hudson, who I suspect has a lot of unplumbed depths. (I know there's a published series where she solves the cases and secretly feeds the clues to Holmes - it even sounds sort of good; I'm keeping my eyes out for it - but I am suddenly convinced that Mrs. H has been in the employ of Mycroft - aka M of what will eventually be MI-6 - for a very, very long time. Pre-dating the time at which she was assigned to keep an eye on his brother.)

****

And on that note, I just picked up the first Irene Adler novel (well, okay, the second, because why read a series in publishing order when you can read it in the order you find it at the public library). I'm only about ten pages in, and I'm provisionally liking it. But I can't get past the fact that this Adler is apparently a soprano. Adler's a contralto, isn't she? This is actually very important to her backstory, considering the different expectations of a contralto and soprano in classical opera!

Did I in vain spend all that time looking for pieces for contralto and violin solo? (Well, no, it wasn't in vain, because I found Yehudi Menuhin playing Erbarme Dich, which I fell in love with instantly and only wish he had a better contralto to play for. I want Madelyn's secret recording of Holmes and Alder performing that to exist in RL. Please.)

****

While I'm asking about minor canon points, here's some more, in various fandoms:

So a veteran of the second Anglo-Afghan war naming his dog "Gladstone" is roughly the equivalent of a veteran of the *current* Afghan war naming his dog "Gordon", right? People who know more about Victorian politics than me: What statement exactly is that making?

I only know as much about Gladstone and Disraeli as anyone who's read "The Annotated Alice" far too many times, but the longer I watch Holmes-movie-fandom without *anyone* mentioning that the dog's named after the PM, the more I notice its absence.

Sarah Jane Smith currently drives a lime green Nissan Figaro, and used to own a bright red Volkswagen Beetle named Ethel. Does anybody know what model Volkswagen she was driving in "School Reunion"? And did she have a car during her Old Who appearances, and if so, what was it?

Can anybody get access to a copy of the article "A Pocket Telephone," Literary Digest, Vol. 44 (March 30, 1912) p. 639 ? I can't, not even after stealing my sister's JSTOR login, but I would really really really like to read it!

Is there anything anywhere in primary or secondary Star Trek canon about the cultural significance of male Vulcan hairstyles and/or beards? (Other than the obvious.)

I swear that within the last several years there was a find somewhere in England of items related to witchcraft that included what was probably a prosthetic phallus: does anybody else remember this? For obvious reasons it is difficult to google. Or any citable links to archeological finds of life-sized false phalli in England in the last century?

***

And on the off-chance you haven't found it yet:

asexual_fandom now exists! And I didn't even have to be the one to start it!

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Yes, I noticed that Gladstone is named after the PM. I have decided, given how many times he winds up paralyzed on the rug, that it is probably some subspecies of irony. Or at least, in my movie-ish fic set in 1882, they have a dog named after the current PM.

*hugs links to self*

...you haven't posted said fic somewhere that I missed it, have you??

And yes, there was clearly intentional irony there: if this was a modern-day AU produced by the BBC and he was named Gordon, I might even know what it meant, but this is a period piece put together by Hollywood people! It's obvious they did & used their research, and I am sure a lot of people noticed because it's not like Gladstone is a particularly obscure bit of history, I am just unable to get the subtlety of all the possible layers of that one. And nobody is discussing it.

WIP!

Given that I'm assuming the movie is set in 1890, and Gladstone was in opposition at the time…I'm not sure. He was big on Home Rule for Ireland, as well as anti-colonialist to some extent and anti-demagoguery, so I guess we can read into that what we want to see. I think in one way it also signals (though not like we didn't realize it already) that movie Holmes is a bit more clued in to politics than he likes to pretend in the book canon.

I'll now curse at livejournal...I totally got that malware.

I think a RL friend of mine got it, too. And me. It's not the first time LJ ads have ended up with malware, but I think it's the worst infestation. (And LJ haven't posted anything public about it that I can find, which, blech.)

And LJ haven't posted anything public about it that I can find, which, blech.

There's a thread in news now care of

rydra_wong (unlinked URI is in the comments on the OP) where LJ is taking a "caps or it didn't happen" sort of stance. Albeit a friendly, helpful sort of one.

I... can't quite decide whether I could be bothered to continue to help LJ further on the issue or not. It's not like they're going to get rid of the source of the vulnerability, so... meh. Any "fix" would be a temporary one (and a false sense of security) at best. :\

I ... don't actually care enough to help LJ fix it, because I currently have a support request in that consists of "why can I no longer log in to my account using Opera" and until they answer me on that LJ is dead to me anyway. (It was pretty much dead to me once the pop-up ads started, but people I care about still post locked only there, so for now I endure the scent of rotting flesh.)

I wish they'd at least post a warning to news, though. Even though I was on LJ when the pop-ups hit, I stupidly assumed it couldn't possibly have been by way of LJ, because I think of them as malware-trustworthy even if not in other ways. Apparently not any more.

Thank you for making that post! I wonder how many other people got hit & didn't make the connection. Maybe I'll at go least post a me-too in that comment thread. If I can manage to log in.

but people I care about still post locked only there, so for now I endure the scent of rotting flesh.

Thank the gods for Socialite/Mail.app/Thunderbird, I say.

Sadly doesn't help with the commenting, however. :(

OTish: LJ's API is pretty good, considering its age. You really could combine it with something like cURL to make a "commenting once removed" sort of app (i.e. like accessing Twitter or Facebook through the iPhone app or whatever), but... who has the time, really?

Plus I bet LJ would hate it...

I stupidly assumed it couldn't possibly have been by way of LJ

Yer. That's social engineering/phishing 101, really. Find an existing trust relationship and exploit it.

The fact that LJ makes it easy for third parties to do that (even if they only get a limited number of "hits" before being found out)... tssch.

Thank you for making that post!

Thank you for listening. ^^"

Thread-jacking quickly to ask: So you're using Socialite to access your LJ flist, including flocked posts? I bought the app recently but had to discontinue because it kept crashing and taking my laptop with it (ie. no force quit). Maybe I should move from Mailplane to Thunderbird...

Correct! And, actually, I use Mailplane for email as well. I've never had any problems with either, though I don't use it for Facebook/etc.; just authenticated RSS feeds.

What version of OS X and Socialite are/were you using?

In the process of setting up Thunderbird - a Google search actually led me pretty quickly to the tutorial on your site. :)

I'm using OSX 10.5.8 with Socialite 1.0.2 on a MacBook 2,1. In the Socialite support forum I saw that I'm not the only one with the crash issue and that they haven't fixed it yet because they weren't able to replicate the error. (It did get rarer when I switched from Mail.app to Mailplane, but it still happened and I don't want to ruin my laptop.) :/

In the process of setting up Thunderbird - a Google search actually led me pretty quickly to the tutorial on your site.

Well, I hope it was easy-enough to follow. ^^"

In the Socialite support forum I saw that I'm not the only one with the crash issue and that they haven't fixed it yet because they weren't able to replicate the error.

Hrm. That's interesting. I hope they manage to track it down; I quite like Socialite (the only reason I haven't yet bought it is my husband is currently on a "zomg lifestyle creep!" jag, so we're pretending like we're not middle-class hipster DINKs for the next few months... #firstworldproblems, I know I know ^^").

Nothing worse than not being able to replicate an error your users are telling you they're getting in your app, though. D:

Here via the Dreamwidth network function -- thanks for the recs! They were great! Also, I'm going to be at a research library tomorrow that happens to have a set of "Literary Digest" spanning 1890 to 1930. It doesn't seem to be digitized (my JSTOR access also pulled up zip), but I'll see if it's easily scannable.

Oh, thank you so much for offering! (The kindness of internet strangers still amazes me sometimes.)

Hi,

I'm bringing this to the table _embarrasingly late_, but in case you still need it, here's "Pocket Telephone" from the 1912 edition (vol 44) of Literary Digest.

I can also email you the jpg, if you'd prefer.

The words cut off at the bottom are "a great deal."

Sorry for the lateness -- I'm rarely at the library where most of the set is, and when I managed to get there, I found out that they'd classified the journal as "rare," which meant that only the library staff could retrieve it, and only they could photocopy or scan it - for a fee - and that no, it wasn't okay for me to take a digital photo, not even if I promised not to use flash.

Fortunately, it turns out that vol 44 was also at another U of T library, without such silly rules.

Hope it's still useful - if not, I'm awful sorry for being tardy with my promise.

Mmmm, recs. Thank you!

(And I'm sure this was rhetorical, but Irene is most definitely a contralto; it's like the second thing Holmes says about her in "Scandal".)

Watson has been known to contradict himself, so I was wondering if perhaps she was called a soprano elsewhere and I missed it; but it doesn't seem *likely*, does it? Hmmm.

I just searched all the stories in which she's mentioned, and Watson indeed does not contradict himself. In fact, her singing isn't mentioned again.

(Yay late night research.)

Although it does appear that the Irene Adler novels aren't the only post-canonical books to make this mistake. Nicholas Meyer has Irene fill in for a soprano who falls ill in The Canary Trainer. Looks like it came out just a year or two after the Carole Nelson Douglas series began.

Huh, okay, I've found a Carole Nelson Douglas interview where she say the contradiction was that Doyle called her both a contralto and a prima donna, and there were no contralto prima donnas*, so she made her a soprano (instead of just making her so awesome that she was a prima donna anyway.)

I'm not sure what I think of that - I'd rather have made the prima donna bit the incorrect one, because Irene being contralto makes so much sense, and it seems more likely that an English paper would have exaggerated her position than got her voice wrong - but at least she had a reason?

*quick late-night research is telling me that not all prima donnas are soprano, just nearly all. So. Maybe.

Hmmm, I understand why Douglas gave that as a reason, but I personally think she's wrong. This page on Irene is quite interesting, and the opera buff who wrote treats being a contralto prima donna as being completely possible, and even picks out possible roles she could have performed. (He even gives a fascinating theory for why her opera career ended so early that further reinforces the idea that she was just not a soprano.)

Seeing as Doyle was quite up to date on music of the time, I tend to side with him rather than Douglas.

I just picked up a few of the Irene Adler books at the used bookshop because I heard a few good things about them.

Also, thanks for the recs!

Great recs!

And does your browser have the option of doing ad-block, flash-block, or no-scripts either under the tool settings or as add-ons? That'll not only stop the ads, but the malware too.

<3 !

So a veteran of the second Anglo-Afghan war naming his dog "Gladstone" is roughly the equivalent of a veteran of the *current* Afghan war naming his dog "Gordon", right? People who know more about Victorian politics than me: What statement exactly is that making?

The analogy is not quite right. Gordon Brown is far more linked to the current war in Afghanistan than Gladstone was. Among other things, Gladstone does not actually seem to have been PM during the Second Anglo-Afghan War.

What sort of political statement the scriptwriters thought they were making with the name, I'm not sure. As for why Holmes would have chosen the name, I would have to speculate more about his political leanings.

oooh. Ima have to go through those links later.

I dunno what it would mean to Guy Ritchie (or his scriptwriters) having a dog called Gladstone, but if I named an animal Gladstone I'd be planning for something really, really nasty to happen to it and for everyone to be perfectly happy and relaxed about that. My reasons for detesting the historical Gladstone are multiple, but if we start with the fact that his opposition to women's suffrage was so implacable that he told Liberal MPs that if they voted in favour or even abstained they'd be kicked out of the Party even when there was a paper majority in favour of women's suffrage in the house, that his maiden speech was in opposition to Wilberforce's 1988 Emancipation Bill (his father owned upwards of 10,000 slaves and when slavery was abolished in the British Empire he sneakily tried to replace them with a system of bringing in Indian indentured servants to the West Indies) and he intrigued throughout the American Civil War to have the British Empire recognise the Confederacy as a separate nation you might get a flavour of things.

1833 Emancipation Bill, even. Gah!!

Oooh, shiny recs - thank you! (Also, once more I'm glad I'm on a Mac. Gah, LJfail!)

About Irene Adler: I'm sure the real answer was a widespread belief that nobody cares about *opera* so you can say anything. But to fanwank: "prima donna" is used fairly broadly like "diva" today, both in the positive sense ("you are a goddess!") and a negative sense ("you raise hell if there are no hand-painted purple M&Ms in your dressing room").

And Irene Adler could have had a wide-ranging voice, so she could, at a pinch, sing a soprano role but her securest range was as a contralto.

When is DW going to be able to syndicate flocked lj posts so I never have to go back there again? Plz?

Right there with you.

Here via metafandom for the bit about malware (argh), and pleasantly surprised by bonus Sherlock Holmes links. Thanks for those! They look great. :)

Here via metafandom, and fascinated by the meta. I've subscribed to your journal and granted you access in return (fair is fair even if it's bound to be unimpressive and uninteresting), just thought I'd let you know.

Also: Was it you who posted a poll re: the sexual orientation of fans? I'm not talking about the lovely number-crunching, but a poll of your own... thought it was you but can't seem to find it anymore.

Thank you so much for this list of fics!

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