This is the single case involving Sherlock Holmes that I pledged never to reveal, not because of its sordidness (one becomes accustomed to that over the years), but rather due to accusations of vanity which I can already imagine being formulated -- that I, Watson, hid this account for so many years because it involved Holmes' arrest for murder, and my own successful investigation that resulted in his acquittal.
If you are reading this then I am most surely dead, as is Holmes, although the simple thought of Holmes somehow gone from this world strikes me as somewhat absurd. (Indeed, the very notion that he was once a stranger to me, and I to him, seems almost illogical.) I have carefully hidden these papers, and I know not where, or even if, they shall be discovered. I cannot even be certain that my present reader even remembers the very name 'Sherlock Holmes', given the precarious resting place of this document, although I would assume that not only his moniker but his brillance still lingers, if not resonates; the aura surrounding a person of the caliber of Holmes does not dim easily, I believe, even given the restless whims of tide and time.
These words are intended for my heirs, and their colleagues and associates, and, should the occasion present itself, for the people of London, who provided me with the sustenance and stamina to endure what we all endure on this mortal coil, until we can endure no more.
I write the following account (and this rather lengthy prelude) not to glorify my own ingenuity, for I have none. Having known Holmes for as long as I have, I cannot even pretend to compare my acuity and intelligence with his. To do so would not only be considered folly by all enlightened citizens, but crass, in my opinion an even greater and less forgivable sin.
Should I begin the narrative as concisely and intriguingly as I have all of my other accounts of Holmes' adventures, you may be misled into believing that this, too, is merely another unfathomable mystery that had the good fortune to be solved, only this time by myself. You may think you are about to be lulled into sleep by the comfort of a tale told well. I aim to deny you that comfort, because Holmes deserves nothing less than the truth, in all its ribald, untidy complexity. Never has a case depleted more from me physically, mentally and spirtually; and never has my respect and admiration for Holmes escalated more.
No, my intent is noble, and my conscience is at rest. There may come a point in time, through circumstances that have yet to be enacted, when the events of this particular winter's eve may come to light, despite the best efforts and assurances of the municipal authorities that they would be as fleeting as the mist that shrouds London each and every fortnight. I trust these gentlemen, I respect them, but nevertheless, one's own diligence and persistence should never be belittled or disparaged, even by oneself; this document will serve as a counterpoint
to any who dare besmirch the good name of my trusted confidant Holmes, a name and a legacy that, in trying to uphold, very nearly cost me my life.
Rumors have the tendency and the means to live long past the expiration point of their instigators; such being the case, I shall douse the flames of such an inferno before they have the chance to ignite.
So let me begin the tale of Holmes' unfortunate imprisonment, and my own efforts at redeeming the reputation of one whose unlikely life was nearly destroyed by the very city he did so much to protect...
************************************************************************************
This was an extract from Dr.Watson's account of Sherlock Holmes' strangest, most unusual case (solved by Watson himself). This document was discovered in a London location (that must remain confidential) by the webmaster of canuckinasia.blogspot.com. Keep checking back periodically for further installments of this unusual tale...
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
IT'S A RIGHT-HANDED WORLD...(FOR NOW)
So you're seven years old, at the blackboard, answering a math equation. Maybe it's 2+2 = 4. Maybe it's 8-3=5. Doesn't matter. The point is, you're writing, and there's another student beside you writing, and you notice something. The side of their hand, the one this kid is writing with. It's clean. And then you look at your hand, at the soft layer of white dust blanketing the side of your hand stretching from your pinky finger to your wrist. (This section of the hand probably has a medical name, but I don't know what it is. I was absent that day in medical school. Actually, come to think of it, I was absent from medical school itself, wasn't I...) As you scribble your equation, your hand gently glides across what you wrote, smudging both the board and your flesh. Why doesn't it happen to the other kid? What's going on, here?
What's going on is left-handedness, and the curse of being a lefty in a righty's world.
(My brother Ted knows all about this. I'm writing this on his behalf, because he's too introverted to attempt a declaration as detailed as this one.)
There's an article in the current issue of that world-affairs-magazine-for-like-smart-people called The Economist, essentially making the argument that left-handedness may be more prominent in violent societies, because it is advantageous, in a fist-fight situation, to be a lefty; nobody knows how to fight a lefty. (It worked for Rocky against Apollo Creed, but then in Rocky II he switched from being a southpaw fighter to a right-handed fighter to confuse Apollo Creed even further, which was a pretty cool strategy, I admit, but I felt then, and feel now, that it betrayed Rocky's essential left-handed nature, but in some ways that was a moot point because by that point in the picture I was already confused, okay, because earlier in the movie Rocky signs an autograph from his hospital bed with his right hand, which made me think, wait a minute, is this guy an authentic lefty, meaning, does he write left or only fight left, or maybe it was an oversight on Stallone's part, a lapse in judgement and realism on the day of shooting, an embarassing insult to lefties the world over and a mistake that the director should have caught, but the director of Rocky II was Stallone himself, so I guess he's got a lot to answer for, is all I'm saying.) The better a fighter you are, the more impressive you are to chicks, so it's in a species favor to be a strongman.
Or something like that. Couldn't quite get the gist of the article, but the point is: Lefties can fight.
We have to. We learn early on that the world is not for us.
First of all, water fountains at school. Where is the switch-nozzle-thingee? On the right.
Next comes left-handed scissors. I always felt like I was mentally disabled in school having to ask the teacher if they had any left-handed scissors, you know, the ones with the green handle. 'Cause they always had scissors available (one or two, anyways), but they were usually for the corrupt, oppressive, right-handed majority. We got 'special' ones with green handles. Ooooooooh. (Actually, I shouldn't complain, because I learned in Japan that they don't have left-handed scissors at all there, so Japanese lefties are screwed, plain and simple, and Japan, like many Asian countries, still, I think, forces small kids to write with their right hand.)
Even gear shifts in cars are designed for righties. (In those countries that drive on the right, anyways.)
Point is, lefties learn early, yo, that it's not our world -- we're just visiting it. So I always notice, in films and on television, who's a lefty. Who writes with their left hand. Who wields a gun, uzi or otherwise, with their left. Who bats left and throws left. (Full disclosure -- I'm ashamed to admit that I was taught to bat like a righty. And golf like a righty. But I don't play either sport now --baseball or golf -- and I always, always throw left. And I bowl left, too. Proudly.)
I had a book as a kid full of famous lefties. A partial list:
Jack the Ripper. George Bush (senior). Marilyn Monroe. James Cameron. Amadeus. Eminem. Thomas Jefferson. Colin Powell. Glenn Gould. Hans Christian Anderson. James Baldwin. Richard Simmons. Jim Henson. Peter Jennings. Bob Dylan. David Letterman and Jay Leno. Franz Kafka. Beethoven. Ringo Starr. Fidel Castro. Jimi Hendrix. H.G.Wells. Phil Collins. James A.Michener. Helen Keller. Paul Simon. Celine Dion. (Uh, okay -- disregard that last one. Maybe we shouldn't be so proud of her, despite her Canadian heritage. My apologies.) John F.Kennedy. Ross Perot. Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton. Spike Lee. Bruce Willis. John Irving. Julia Roberts (I think).
(Okay, maybe Jack the Ripper isn't the best role model for a lefty, but still -- you see what being a lefty can drive otherwise sane men to do?)
I mean, come one -- J.F.K. himself was a lefty. And is it a coincidence that three presidents in a row (Reagan, Bush, Clinton) were lefties? Not to mention the two dominant late-night television hosts (David Letterman and Jay Leno)? Lefties seek lofty heights. Lefties have battled adversity to triumph against all natural known (and unnatural) odds.
Despite the fame and respect lavished upon the above individuals, lefties are still seen as somewhat freakish. Left-handed hitters and pitchers and baseball are a pain in the ass. As are left-handed boxers. They're problems to be conquered, these people are, genetic abnormalities that are perceived, not as people, but as dilemmas.
Another thing: You ever try writing with a pen on a lined sheet of paper with your left hand? Once you write a sentence, that part of your hand between the pinky and the wrist will, inevitably, unavoidably, pass over what you have just written. And if the ink of your pen is the least bit malleable, or wussy-like, it will smudge. So after twenty minutes you will look down at the paper to gaze upon your intellectual ponderings, and you will see smitterings and smatterings and splotches and glotches of blue ink. If you're lucky, a few words are legible. You righties are able to look upon what you have just written in real-time as you glide your pen across the page, marvelling at your exquiste penmanship, at the elegant grace of your thoughts. Us lefties, on the other hand, look only outwards as we write, towards the future, leaving the words and their impact and their resonance behind, a gift for the reader, whoever he (or she) may be. (It's only afterwards that we go back and look, to reflect and consider, and we see that it's all an illegible mess, but hey -- we're forward thinkers, is all...)
Anyway, for all your righties out there, don't think that lefties don't have their act together. We're waiting. We're watching. We're aware when our accomplishments are diminished or disregarded, and we remember these oversights. (After all, Helen Keller was blind, deaf, mute and left-handed -- the last part always being omitted in her biography, and look what she accomplished. I would like to argue that being left-handed was her biggest, most grievious handicap, but in these politically sensitive times, I can't further that argument publicly. I just can't. I'd be put away, or shot, or killed, or worse.)
Just think about it -- that utterly innocuous person you see walking down the street may, in fact, unbeknownest to you, be left-handed. You may notice them nervously glancing at your wrists, both the right and the left, trying to determine exactly which one has a watch attached to it. If it's on your right wrist, you're okay. You're safe. You're one of us.
If it's on your left...
Just remember: We don't always give back those bright and shiny lime-green left-handed scissors. Sometimes we keep them. In our pockets. As we walk the streets.
You've been warned.
What's going on is left-handedness, and the curse of being a lefty in a righty's world.
(My brother Ted knows all about this. I'm writing this on his behalf, because he's too introverted to attempt a declaration as detailed as this one.)
There's an article in the current issue of that world-affairs-magazine-for-like-smart-people called The Economist, essentially making the argument that left-handedness may be more prominent in violent societies, because it is advantageous, in a fist-fight situation, to be a lefty; nobody knows how to fight a lefty. (It worked for Rocky against Apollo Creed, but then in Rocky II he switched from being a southpaw fighter to a right-handed fighter to confuse Apollo Creed even further, which was a pretty cool strategy, I admit, but I felt then, and feel now, that it betrayed Rocky's essential left-handed nature, but in some ways that was a moot point because by that point in the picture I was already confused, okay, because earlier in the movie Rocky signs an autograph from his hospital bed with his right hand, which made me think, wait a minute, is this guy an authentic lefty, meaning, does he write left or only fight left, or maybe it was an oversight on Stallone's part, a lapse in judgement and realism on the day of shooting, an embarassing insult to lefties the world over and a mistake that the director should have caught, but the director of Rocky II was Stallone himself, so I guess he's got a lot to answer for, is all I'm saying.) The better a fighter you are, the more impressive you are to chicks, so it's in a species favor to be a strongman.
Or something like that. Couldn't quite get the gist of the article, but the point is: Lefties can fight.
We have to. We learn early on that the world is not for us.
First of all, water fountains at school. Where is the switch-nozzle-thingee? On the right.
Next comes left-handed scissors. I always felt like I was mentally disabled in school having to ask the teacher if they had any left-handed scissors, you know, the ones with the green handle. 'Cause they always had scissors available (one or two, anyways), but they were usually for the corrupt, oppressive, right-handed majority. We got 'special' ones with green handles. Ooooooooh. (Actually, I shouldn't complain, because I learned in Japan that they don't have left-handed scissors at all there, so Japanese lefties are screwed, plain and simple, and Japan, like many Asian countries, still, I think, forces small kids to write with their right hand.)
Even gear shifts in cars are designed for righties. (In those countries that drive on the right, anyways.)
Point is, lefties learn early, yo, that it's not our world -- we're just visiting it. So I always notice, in films and on television, who's a lefty. Who writes with their left hand. Who wields a gun, uzi or otherwise, with their left. Who bats left and throws left. (Full disclosure -- I'm ashamed to admit that I was taught to bat like a righty. And golf like a righty. But I don't play either sport now --baseball or golf -- and I always, always throw left. And I bowl left, too. Proudly.)
I had a book as a kid full of famous lefties. A partial list:
Jack the Ripper. George Bush (senior). Marilyn Monroe. James Cameron. Amadeus. Eminem. Thomas Jefferson. Colin Powell. Glenn Gould. Hans Christian Anderson. James Baldwin. Richard Simmons. Jim Henson. Peter Jennings. Bob Dylan. David Letterman and Jay Leno. Franz Kafka. Beethoven. Ringo Starr. Fidel Castro. Jimi Hendrix. H.G.Wells. Phil Collins. James A.Michener. Helen Keller. Paul Simon. Celine Dion. (Uh, okay -- disregard that last one. Maybe we shouldn't be so proud of her, despite her Canadian heritage. My apologies.) John F.Kennedy. Ross Perot. Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton. Spike Lee. Bruce Willis. John Irving. Julia Roberts (I think).
(Okay, maybe Jack the Ripper isn't the best role model for a lefty, but still -- you see what being a lefty can drive otherwise sane men to do?)
I mean, come one -- J.F.K. himself was a lefty. And is it a coincidence that three presidents in a row (Reagan, Bush, Clinton) were lefties? Not to mention the two dominant late-night television hosts (David Letterman and Jay Leno)? Lefties seek lofty heights. Lefties have battled adversity to triumph against all natural known (and unnatural) odds.
Despite the fame and respect lavished upon the above individuals, lefties are still seen as somewhat freakish. Left-handed hitters and pitchers and baseball are a pain in the ass. As are left-handed boxers. They're problems to be conquered, these people are, genetic abnormalities that are perceived, not as people, but as dilemmas.
Another thing: You ever try writing with a pen on a lined sheet of paper with your left hand? Once you write a sentence, that part of your hand between the pinky and the wrist will, inevitably, unavoidably, pass over what you have just written. And if the ink of your pen is the least bit malleable, or wussy-like, it will smudge. So after twenty minutes you will look down at the paper to gaze upon your intellectual ponderings, and you will see smitterings and smatterings and splotches and glotches of blue ink. If you're lucky, a few words are legible. You righties are able to look upon what you have just written in real-time as you glide your pen across the page, marvelling at your exquiste penmanship, at the elegant grace of your thoughts. Us lefties, on the other hand, look only outwards as we write, towards the future, leaving the words and their impact and their resonance behind, a gift for the reader, whoever he (or she) may be. (It's only afterwards that we go back and look, to reflect and consider, and we see that it's all an illegible mess, but hey -- we're forward thinkers, is all...)
Anyway, for all your righties out there, don't think that lefties don't have their act together. We're waiting. We're watching. We're aware when our accomplishments are diminished or disregarded, and we remember these oversights. (After all, Helen Keller was blind, deaf, mute and left-handed -- the last part always being omitted in her biography, and look what she accomplished. I would like to argue that being left-handed was her biggest, most grievious handicap, but in these politically sensitive times, I can't further that argument publicly. I just can't. I'd be put away, or shot, or killed, or worse.)
Just think about it -- that utterly innocuous person you see walking down the street may, in fact, unbeknownest to you, be left-handed. You may notice them nervously glancing at your wrists, both the right and the left, trying to determine exactly which one has a watch attached to it. If it's on your right wrist, you're okay. You're safe. You're one of us.
If it's on your left...
Just remember: We don't always give back those bright and shiny lime-green left-handed scissors. Sometimes we keep them. In our pockets. As we walk the streets.
You've been warned.
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