An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 35: Sherlock Holmes
My partner and I like to read to each other. She reads when her North American accent lends itself well to a story, and I read the silly English stuff.
Lately, I’ve handled the majority of the reading because we’ve been munching our way through the canon of Sherlock Holmes.
We recently passed the halfway point, a fact that leaves me slightly melancholy: what to do when it’s all over? Should we cut the remainder with Solar Pons to make it last longer?
Reading Holmes together is extremely entertaining and I can’t recommend it enough. If nothing else, you can have fun with your range of character voices. I challenge any man not to be seduced by my staccato ‘lady’ voice, and not to shrink into submission upon hearing my Terry Jones-style ‘harridan’ voice, used exclusively for elder housekeepers and Mrs Hudson.
My vocal showboating is sometimes punished: I’ll invest a character with an impressive but difficult-to-maintain accent only discover he has five pages of solid dialogue.
There are times when a reading becomes positively theatrical, such as when one Mr Cyril Overton punctuates his telling of The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter by repeatedly slapping his knee. I’ve also experimented with adding soundtracks in the form of ‘Victorian street noise’ and ‘crackling fireplace’ tracks from YouTube, though it tends to distract.
I’m the proud owner of the best Sherlock Holmes edition ever published, but it’s rather too bulky for cozy reading and the intriguing marginal notes compete with the story, so we’ve been using the lighter-weight versions for free from the library. Trips to the library to choose the next volume is part of the fun (only a fool would read them in order – start with Adventures and then Hound).
Holmes is riddled with jokes and uproarious humour. There are tropes that make us laugh because we’ve learned to recognize them as portentous. Our favourite is the hubris displayed by police officers, immediately plowed down by Holmes and followed by a sartorial insult from bitchy Watson. For example, this description of Lestrade:
The official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance.
Out of context, this doesn’t sound like much but take it from me that it’s a bloody brilliant joke.
The stories are also told with howlingly wonderful innuendo, verging on a kind of polari. Holmes and Watson are clearly a couple: another good reason for reading this as a couple.
Why you might also like to take up reading the Sherlock Holmes books aloud:
– It’s free (and one should always be on the lookout for free hobbies);
– A completely ‘unplugged’ activity, it takes you away from the TV and computer screens (unless you choose to use an e-reader, in which case you lose again);
– A Holmes short story or a chapter from one of the novels fits neatly into an hour;
– It’s a communal event, prompting you to savour something together instead of in isolation;
– By the time you’re finished, you’ll be an expert on Sherlock Holmes and can kick arse in the quiz at your local Sherlock Holmes society;
– As an Escapologist, Holmes’ lifestyle can inspire you to live by your wits as he does.
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Money Is…
One thing you will hear if you adopt an extreme savings program is the popular refrain “It’s only money”, “There are more important things than money”, etc. I agree with the last statement, but it is NOT just money. It is what money represents that matters.
In preparation for our upcoming money-themed issue, I enjoyed this vintage post from the Early Retirement Extreme website.
ERE’s Jacob Lund Fisker will appear in the aforementioned money issue of New Escapologist, writing about how money is a system of government akin to an electric fence designed to keep dogs in.
Here’s a tiny excerpt from his new article to tickle your fancy:
Metaphorically speaking, in the 1950s, a person would take his paycheck and buy an ice cream cone, eat it, and then walk home and be happy. Today, thanks to increased productivity, a person takes his paycheck, buys four ice cream cones, eats one and gets happy, drops the other one on the ground while getting into his car, has another one melt on the way home, and puts the last one in the fridge at home and forgets about it.
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Bullshit Jobs
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more.
This essay about “Bullshit Jobs” by David Graeber from LSE has been doing the rounds on Facebook. It explains why (or is at least a good take on why) we are yet to have a Keynesian 15-hour workweek as standard.
The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.
If you’re interested in the phenomenon of wage slavery being pointless in the age of productive technology, I’d also recommend Productivity and the Workweek (referenced by Jacob Lund Fisker in our upcoming ninth issue) and also a book called How Much is Enough? by Robert and Edward Skidelsky.
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You can’t get an app for that!
Fans of “But I need It!” will want to hear about the latest catchphrase to evolve in our house.
It is mainly used in moments that witness human ingenuity.
For example, instead of eating pistachios from the bag like some kind of hooligan, I’ve taken to eating them from a cup-and-saucer. I fill the saucer with the salty nuts and, as I eat them, flippantly discard the shells into the waiting cup.
This little system prevents me from eating too many pistachios and helps to perpetuate my reputation as an eccentric Englishman. It’s also good if you enjoy slightly salty tea.
Amazed at my improvisational genius at inventing this neat little technique, I smugly announced: “You can’t get an app for that!”
It was met with much amusement. In my house, I am the king of comedy.
Of course, the joke works even better when you use it for something for which there’s obviously an app. Scheduling, say, or goal motivation.
I like the new catchphrase. It’s a slight rebellion against iPad culture and, at the same time, recognises the futility of rebelling against it.
I’m not very fond of iPads or other forms of “jabscreen”. At worst, they remind me of the game. At best, they remind me of Fisher Price Activity Centres (pictured above).
The word ‘app’ (can it even be described as a word?) ruffles my feathers slightly. It’s not a cause of great stress: it’s a similar level of irritation one might feel when receiving an unsolicited pizza menu in the post. My new catchphrase lambasts it, while admitting that I’m silly to even care.
Anyway. A toast, ladies and gentlemen, for those things which might prompt you to say “You can’t get an app for that!”
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Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount.
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An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 34.
I’m about to break my own first rule of blogging and apologise for the hiatus in my posting for a while.
(Why apologise? You owe nothing. No vows of regularity were promised. Nobody loses money. Maybe the world is even better off without your usual twopence worth!)
But it’s been two weeks: it’s all I can do not to fall to the floor and initiate a full-blown grovel-a-thon.
I feel guilty. Especially as there are so many new readers since my recent blossover with the prolific Mr Money Mustache. Why, they must be baffled, kicking at the dust in this blogless void, shrugging at each other and saying, “The mustachioed one is usually right about these things! We’ll wait a while longer.”
Do not worry. Godot arrives after all and the hiatus can be explained with ease. My companion and I have been travelling. Specifically, we made a two-week journey across Canada by train.
It was beautiful! We saw the Rocky Mountains; paddled in the Athabaska River; photographed an elk and a grizzly bear; went for a ride in a cable car; visited some old X-Files shooting locations; met the thoughtful David Caine of Raptitude; went hiking and generally saw sights. More than anything, we were humbled by the stupendous scale of this humongous country.
But this isn’t a travel blog, my good friends. I won’t bore you with the slideshow. (Though if you’re into that, please go ahead and enjoy the slideshow).
Travel by train is a most Escapological way to go. The journey is more leisurely, more fun, more scenic, more communal, more impressively gentle than air flight. You’re more likely to clap your eyes on a grazing moose and less likely to end up with chapped lips and a migraine. Want to escape the strong force? Try the train.
Some of you are likely wondering where the upcoming Issue Nine of New Escapologist has got to. We’re still working on it! Despite travel, we have not taken our eyes off it for a moment. We’re trying to fulfill our promise of an August release, but we may run a week or so late. Time to close this diary entry in precisely the same way it opened: “Sorry”.
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The story of death machines
Reader Richard directs our attention to Lucy Kellaway’s History of Office Life on BBC Radio 4.
It looks good: entertaining and sufficiently critical for Escapologists. There’s a review here.
It’s an ongoing series, some episodes of which are currently live and some of which are either expired or pending. Enjoy!
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Modernist
A prospective reader asks:
Is New Escapologist a Modernist publication?
Ah! In as much as Modernism is a reaction against the Victorian penchant for clutter and decoration and empire, I suppose we are.
We favour a lean, simple, fine-tuned good life.
But we kept some of the 19th-Century ideas about manners, action, and comfort. It’s in our DNA.
I suppose New Escapologist takes influences from all over the spectrum: from the ancient world, the medieval, the Victorian and the present-day.
We’re a philosophical and aesthetic mash-up. Does this make us postmodern? Post-postmodern? I don’t know.
Simon Munnery: “Don’t worry about being modern. It’s the one thing you can’t avoid.”
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Hermits
From a review of Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson:
[H]ermits are the true radicals of our age. To retreat is to reject government bureaucracy and consumerism. Whereas those who dynamite the citadel need the citadel, the recluse simply opts out: “A repast of grilled fish and blueberries gathered in the forest is more anti-statist than a protest demonstration bristling with black flags.” Yes, the hermit may be slow and woolly-minded but he “gains in poetry what is lost in agility”.
It’s a similar stance to the one we adopt in our eighth issue, Staying In.
Why do it? To fulfil a seven-year-old dream of going to ground in a forest. To surround himself in silence. To escape ugliness, traffic and the telephone. To catch up on his reading. To see if immobility can bring the peace that travel used to. To sample an existence reduced to bare essentials. To become a hermit and find out whether he has an inner life.
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Plan A
A letter to The Guardian‘s career advice column asks for help with the safety/risk dilemma:
All my life I seem to have gone for second best – I have had dreams and ambitions but end up going for Plan B, because Plan A is scarier. Plan A is a dream of being an artist, or film-maker; but I know I am missing a lot of skills which you need in order to succeed at these kinds of jobs.
I will be job hunting soon and I am scared I will just do what I always seem to, which is panic and take some Plan B job to support myself , which ultimately I don’t like and can’t do, and which once again will take up all my time and leave me no freedom to do the things I love. I want to do what I love and get paid for it.
Doesn’t this just sum up the “employment versus life” problem? It’s the quintessential fork in the roads in choosing to become a wage slave or a free radical.
Here’s the thing. Plan B isn’t safe at all. A lifetime of servitude and dream-squelching is a far higher cost than living in a modest apartment or riding around on a rusty bicycle (if those are indeed the material fears). If you’re reporting to someone else’s office every morning and hating yourself, you’ve already failed, even if your house in the suburbs has four bedrooms in it. Plan B isn’t safe. It’s the most dangerous option, leading as it does to a life of misery.
Moreover, this particular person’s Plan A isn’t particularly risky at all. “Artist” and “Film Maker” are both real jobs. It’s not like he wants to become a professional chocolate-eater or freelance boob-squeezer.
This being said, he probably needs a firmer idea of his Plan A. He wants to become an artist and/or film maker. But what kind of artist? What kind of film maker? And is he confusing a desire to eat cake with a desire to open a bakery?
My feeling is that we shouldn’t fear this kind of risk but mitigate against it by developing a clear and flexible plan. Also, visualise the worst-case scenario: how bad would it really be to live in a modest apartment or ride around on a rusty bicycle, even for the rest of your life? Is it any worse than never, ever, doing what you want?
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Endless Goliaths
At New Escapologist, we use Escapology as a metaphor. There are others we could have used, but it just so happens I was reading about Houdini five years ago in parallel to books about Bohemia and liberty. Ah, how it all came together!
I liked how Houdini’s combination of snazzy showmanship and chiding didacticism stood in for a wider parable. That’s what I wanted to do too.
I noticed that Houdini’s performance transcended conjuring and went into the world of allegory. The restraints from which he’d escape were often topical. For example, his icebox escapes referred to the up and coming frozen food industry. The idea was that modern conveniences that posed as liberating could in fact be traps. The person on the street had observed this and Houdini appealed to her/his sense of entrapment by theatricalising the escape fantasy.
Today, I came across an expert confirmation of my thesis. Jim Steinmeyer is a designer of theatrical illusions and historian of magic. In his book Hiding the Elephant: how magicians invented the impossible and learned to disappear, Steinmeyer writes:
It wasn’t really conjuring at all, even if his novel act had been derived from the world of magicians. Houdini created his own product. The drama of his performances was the sight of the little man challenged, playing David to society’s endless Goliaths, the archetypal victim who, within the strict confines of the vaudeville turn, rose to the victor.
So there we have it. That is part of what I hope is the appeal of New Escapologist, that we show through theory, example, and good humour how these “endless Goliaths” are toppled.
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