A few weeks ago, one of my co-columnists here at Sherlock Peoria asked the question that's not so uncommon these days: "Is the game played out?" And after a few days of going completely brain-dead as far as anything Sherlockian for my own contribution to the site, one would suspect that I would be going to agree with that sentiment. What I've seen in my own case, however, is not a dearth of possibilities for playing the grand game of Sherlockiana, but an overflowing wealth of diversions to pull one away from this great old hobby of ours.

In the 1940s, the 1960s, and even the 1980s, the amount of information/entertainment available to the average American brain was fairly limited. With only a few television networks and limited programming, a mail system carrying our words to each other with a lag time of days (or even a week) between the writing and the reading, and uncommon bookshops the size of any other specialty shop,  it was always easy to empathize with Sherlock Holmes's protestations of boredom. There were periods when nothing new seemed to occur under the sun, when sitting at home in the evening with the windows open, listening to the crickets chirp outside, and wondering what to do did not seem that strange. And with nothing else going on, why not pick up those wonderful old Sherlock Holmes stories and give them a re-read?

Last night, after doing some shopping on the way home from work, the good Carter and I headed out to the gym down the street, where six flat-screen televisions tuned to six different channels hung over a row of treadmills, each with its own little flat-screen TV with about a hundred channels available. Coming home and finishing the necessary household chores, I found my choices spread out between a run of Hourman comics recently discovered and recommended by my buddy in Phoenix, the next volume in the Harry Dresden novels, the ever-present online battling of the World of Warcraft, watching the previous evening's episode of "House" on fox.com, watching a future episode of "Dr. Who" that some generous British pirate put on YouTube, looking over the blogs and  post-lists  of friends, writing e-mails to friends that don’t have blogs and post-lists . . . and that’s just the surface level of the “sheer entertainment” category. Add in a couple of avocational research projects, a fiction or two that needs work,  and life suddenly contains enough tokeep even my most A.D.D. moment from boredom.

So where does Sherlock Holmes fall in all of this?

Well, that’s the thing. As much as we love the old guy, he’s inreal danger of getting pushed out of the life of any truly modern Sherlock Holmes fan.  The competition for our time is a lot rougher than it was back in “the good old days.”  The grand Sherlockian  game may not be played out . . . in fact, it may never be played out at this rate, simply because there are a lot more games on the shelf to choose from.  Being a Sherlockian becomes a question of focus. Where once,  we didn’t even have to think about paying attention to Holmes, as he drew it from the humdrum of normal life so easily, things have changed. When life isn’t so humdrum,  one actually has to remember that  looking Holmes’s way is worthwhile and do so.

Yes, I’m sure there are monomaniacs out there who will go, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Holmes holds my interest as well as he ever did.” Good for you, I say. May it always be so. But this old world, she’s a’changing. And I’ve got a feeling, we’re going to be changing as well. Paying attention to those changes could be what keeps our game being played, in whatever form it takes.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver