January is coming.  Yes, I know, it’s only July, but January creeps up on us, nonetheless, and you know what that means: Sherlock Holmes’s Birthday weekend  in New York City, January 8-11, 2009. Master-blogger Scott Monty even has a countdown clock on his website, and as I write this, it tells me there are “178 days until the BSI Weekend.” Are you going? I’m not.  And it’s time we did something about that.

I just blew my travel budget for 2008 and part of 2009 on back-to-back vacations to Colorado and Disney World.  Nobody’s fault but my own (and a pair of very young ladies, who were responsible for the two trips). I have a horrible track record for non-attendance of  the New York weekend for similar reasons every year. Too many places to go! As a result, I wind up celebrating Sherlock Holmes’s birthday sitting at home, occasionally checking the internet for some update on what the people who did go are doing. How sad is that?

Air fares are on the rise. Gas prices are on the rise. Every other thing in America that costs money will probably also be on the rise very soon. Not to be a pessimist, but I’m guessing this may be a year that a lot of Sherlockians decide to save a few bucks and join those of us who were  going to be staying home anyway.  In fact, by January,  a lot of folks may be finding it harder to part  with their hard-earned cash on a lot of things Sherlockian as they have in previous years. Just listen to the “news” networks! Gloom! Doom! Despair! Agoney! Deep, dark depression, excessive misery!  (Yes, that’s a “Hee-haw” reference.)

Well, here’s what I say to that: Let’s make this January the year we party harder than ever on Sherlock Holmes’s birthday . . . for free.

Instead of sitting at home wondering what people are doing in New York City, maybe the rest of us should make the Sherlockians  in New York City wonder what we’re doing at home.  Here’s the idea:

We hold a Sherlock Holmes birthday festival on the world wide web.  I’m not talking about building a single site for a single virtual party, I’m talking about taking all the sites we already have and featuring brand new content all through the Sherlock Holmes birthday weekend.   Instead of speakers, we can put brand new essays out there and brand new podcasts.  New features on old websites.  Special chatrooms set up for just the weekend.  New video on Youtube.  As Sherlockians, we take this old internet and make it ours for a single weekend.

It’s not like there isn’t precedent.  When the female half of the Sherlockian world couldn’t get into the Baker Street Irregulars dinner, they started their own alternate dinner. And even though the alternate dinner has changed names over the years, it’s still there for those who can’t go to the BSI dinner, male or female. So why not take the concept a step further and create an event for those who can’t even go to New York? Thanks to the web, we can now put an event in homes  anywhere.

Is the time ripe for such a thing? All it takes is a few links under a common birthday banner,  letting people know which sites are featuring special content for Holmes’s birthday weekend . . . well, that an dthe content itself. But like I said, it’s July.

Time to start thinking about  it.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver