That quiet sanctuary for a mental retreat . . . now open for business?

Some days the sheer noise of the Sherlockian internet can be a little much. A little social media over-promotion, a wave of non-information about some trending topic, the perpetual click-bait headline traps, always out there ready for curiosity and a weak moment to deluge you with ads . . . a person can desperately want to find a quiet place to wander off of the electronic byways for a while.

Happily, most of us have just such a place, the good old original Sherlockian Canon.

The sacred sixty. The Complete. That full set of tales that have satisfied so many for nearly a hundred years. The original Sherlock Holmes works that exploded like some crazy multi-media pinata spraying art and commercial products of every sort across the world. There is so much Sherlock shrapnel from that ongoing explosion of entertainment that a person can spend their entire lifetime chasing the bits and pieces that came out of it, but unlike a real explosive device or pinata, we still have the original item in pristine form to go back to.

And that is where you have to go sometimes.

Back in the 1990s, I decided to see what it would be like to share one of my retreats into the Canon with someone else in a sort of written virtual reality form, and the result was The Armchair Baskerville Tour, a book that sits on many a collector's shelf but probably doesn't get too many new readers at this point. Looking back on it now, it seems like a sort of genius loci fan fiction. Instead of writing about Holmes or Watson, I just wanted to write about the place they inhabit in our minds . . . or my mind, at least.

I made a second run in September 2013, in this very blog, reading The Hound  of the Baskervilles during the time of year it first occurred. But I never took such a wandering look at the Canon outside of Hound. Too lazy to put another book together, and I just enjoy blogging too much . . . .

Which is why I had a sort of "duh" moment this week, and realized that a full Canon walkabout is actually the perfect thing for a blog. It would take a little bit away from this particular blog, yes, but it would also give a nice channel for those who'd like to read some Canonical commentary without any elements related to modern Sherlock spin-offs entering in. (Elementary hunting season is coming up again. Oh, yes.) And so, this week I'm adding "The Mind Palace of Sherlockitude" to my blog channels.

Will I make it through the entire Canon on this marathon trek? Will it eventually languish from lack of attention like Action Sherlock Brain Theater?

Well, there's only one way to find out. On we go.