Sherlock, son of Sigerson?

      

Firstly I suppose I should say that the following is mere conjecture, though pretty thoroughly researched as far as it goes. But I don't actually believe a large part of it myself, having even more outlandish theories up my sleeve. I just can't resist starting a few hares.

I suppose the first question we should ask is this: why does Sherlock Holmes never mentions his parents, not even if they are alive or dead? It seems strange, doesn’t it? Here are a few more questions which follow:

1.       Why is Sherlock so distant from his brother Mycroft?
2.       Why are the brothers separated in age by seven years?
3.       Why did neither of the brothers inherit their  father's estate?
4.       Why did he choose the name Sigerson as his alias?

Well, then, what do we know about Holmes’s parents? Very little. We know from The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter that: “My ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class." 

Let’s assume for the moment that his father was one such squire (although it’s interesting the way he phrases it, skirting actual mention of his father). Let’s call him Squire Holmes. Perhaps he is a Sussex landowner, since Holmes elects to retire in Sussex. We’ll come back to him.

We know a little more of Sherlock’s mother, however, since he goes on to mention “my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist.” Vernet, the French artist was a very real person, or rather very real people, a family of artists who mainly married into other artistic families, all quite successful. Let’s take a look at the generations:

• Jean Vernet, d. 1753
• Claude Vernet, d. 1789
• Carle Vernet, d. 1836
•  Horace Vernet, d. 1863

While two of his forebears had sisters (Jean had five, but they lived early enough that Holmes would have referred to them as great or even great-great grandmothers.  Carle's sister Emilie, was guillotined during the Terror. Her daughter Louise-Josephe, was married twice, but neither of her husbands were named Holmes, according to the genealogies. Claude had only brothers.

So it’s almost certainly Horace Vernet that Holmes was referring to. And while the fame of Vernet has been swept away by Manet, Monet, and the rest of the Impressionists, it’s worth noting that he was in his time the most famous of French painters, fabulously successful.

Only Horace’s sister, Camille (b. 1788 d. 1858) therefore, could be his grandmother. Camille wed Hippolyte LeComte, another successful painter, and had three children: Emil (another painter), Fanny (another painter), and Louise. Genealogical records are silent on whether Louise was also a painter (and silent on everything about her other than her name and birthdate), but there can be little doubt she knew her way around an easel. 

Fanny was born in 1809, Louise in 1815. Since Sherlock was born (according to most chronologists) in 1854, that would mean Louise would have had him at the age of 39—a dangerous age to give birth, especially in the Victorian era. Indeed, her first child, Mycroft, would have been born when she was 32. We can eliminate Fanny from our calculations. At 45, she almost certainly would have been too old for childbirth. Even at Louse’s age, childbirth would have been a dangerous proposition.

Perhaps the reason no other siblings are mentioned is that Mrs. Holmes had a number of miscarriages? This would certainly explain the age gap between the two brothers.

But how would this tame English squire and the bohemian French lady ever have met? And why marry? I’m afraid it was not for love, although Louise Vernet-LeComte was probably a fascinating woman, even though, in the parlance, an “old maid.”

Interview with an Angel

Although there is debate whether the credit (or blame) should be given to Oprah Winfrey or Michael Sheen, there is no question that Americans are more concerned than ever with their spiritual sides. And a large part of the phenomenon has been the increasing popularity of angels, spiritual guides who many believe either praise God and play harps, or provide venture capital for Silicon Valley start-ups. We sat down last week with the angel Gabriel, in town for a stone-rolling competition.

Angels seem to be everywhere in the media these days, on the best-seller list, in the movies, on greeting cards. How are you dealing with your new popularity?

Not well. The truth is, we're bitter. A lot of people have made a lot of money on this deal. Do you want to know how big a taste the angels are getting? Not so much as a thin dime. Zilch. But try telling that to the IRS, or the headwaiter at Le Bernardin.

Why haven't you cashed in?

Can't. The company won't allow it. They're very strict. Look, I won't lie, the wages are great, much better than the wages of sin. Health and dental are magnificent. But the non-disclosure agreement makes Diddy's look chatty by comparison. Our union, the International Brotherhood of Winged Messengers, has been fighting this, but the funds are all tied up in escrow, and I'll probably never live to see a cent of it.

So you can't tell us what it's like to be an angel?

No, no, I can't. But I can tell you what it's not like. It's not like a bunch of clouds and harps and choir practice. It's more like Vegas, but without Wayne Newton.

What's a typical day like for you?

We do a lot of praising, a lot of singing. It's not really that different from touring with "Up With People", which I did for a year, by the way. We used to depend very heavily on Bach's Mass in B Minor, but we've really gotten into Amy Grant's back catalogue now, and "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is one of the big guy's favorites. Bobby McFerrin is one of us, in case you didn't know.

But aren't you in constant battle with the forces of evil?

During working hours, yes. But after five, the forces of evil definitely know the best places to party. We don't let our rivalry get down to a personal level.

What's the number one misunderstanding about angels you'd like to clear up?

I'll tell you what bugs me. This whole question about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. You hear ten million, fifty thousand, ninety bajillion. That's not right at all.

So what's the correct figure?

Next: Echoborgs

CYRANO:

Since, by yourself, you fear to chill her heart,
Will you—to kindle all her heart to flame—
Wed into one my phrases and your lips?

CHRISTIAN:
Your eyes flash!

CYRANO:
Will you?

CHRISTIAN:
Will it please you so?
—Give you such pleasure?

CYRANO (madly):
It!. . .
(Then calmly, business-like):
It would amuse me!
It is an enterprise to tempt a poet.
Will you complete me, and let me complete you?
You march victorious,—I go in your shadow;
Let me be wit for you, be you my beauty!

--Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmund Rostand

The deal is sealed. Cyrano will be Christian's voice, Christian will be Cyrano's face. Roxane will, unknowingly, fall in love with both. And tragically, wind up with neither. A tale as old as time.

Let's admit: it would certainly be convenient to have a Cyrano along for those moments when we're tongue-tied or feeling dull, but you can't really drag another human being along, especially one who can provide you with sparkling conversation at a moment's notice.

I may be late to the party. but it appears technology has caught up with Cyrano and Christian. Have humans caught up with technology? We've put our toe in the water. Will we drown? Or drain the pool?

You may have seen the Bruce Willis sci-fi movie Surrogates. In that film, humanoid remote-controlled robots have pretty much taken over the public arena while their human controllers lounge at home in their pajamas vegetating. An alarming prospect, but the reversal is even more spine-chilling: Robots taking over human bodies--with the humans willingly giving up their autonomy, their voice. Writers and artists are rightly indignant about AI muscling in on our territory. That may be just the start.

The first technology used in service of this goal was good old-fasioned radio, used in a number of psychology experiments in the late 1970s. Cyranoids, as they were dubbed (the name an obvious tip of the hat to Cyrano) were the brainchild of Dr. Stanley Milgram, he of the infamous Stanford Experiment and the more benign six degrees of separation. A cyranoid (or "shadower") was a person who did not speak his own words, but rather those transmitted to him via radio from another person, the "source." The underlying idea was simple and elegant: to divorce the originator of the message from its content, setting it adrift, thereby eliminating the biases of the "interactant"--the person receiving the message. 

Any black person having a phone conversayion who has heard the amazingly tone-deaf remark uttered by a white person "But you don't sound black" is familiar with this phenomenon. Racial, gender, and age stereotyping in social interactions would be effectively blunted by this cyranic device. It promised lto peel away the medium from the message, substituting any medium desired. And after all, the medium is the message.

Of course, we encounter cyranoids every day, to a greater or lesser extent. I'm talking about sportscasters, newscasters, all those people with tiny monitors  stuffed in their ears, feeding them their scripts. We can't really measure what part of what we're hearing is coming from the voices in their heads--but that's the point.

"I say it here, it comes out there."

Let's look at a modern Cyrano update. Not Roxanne

--Broadcast News. 

Fie on fie!

Fie on goodness, fie

Fie on goodness, fie

Eight years of kindness to your neighbor
Making sure that the meek are treated well
Eight years of philanthropic labor
Derry down dell
Damn, but it's hell
Oh, fie on goodness, fie

Fie, fie, fie

It's no secret that I've always loved a good fie:

"Fie on ’t, ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed." –Hamlet

"Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman: fie on him!"--Twelfth Night

"Fie, fie, on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and all foul ways!" --The Taming of the Shrew

But the truth is, and I wouldn't want this to get around, I had no idea what a fie was. It's got to be pretty awful, right? Nobody ever fies on the dog when he has an accident in the bedroom. You don't fie on the waitress because she forgot to bring ketchup. Fie is reserved for the absolute bastards of the cosmos.

So finally I looked up fie. And effing eff, it doesn't mean ANYTHING. It's not a blast of lightning, or a bright blade that cleaves a knave from the nave to the chops. It's not even the old fewmets hitting the windmill. It's just an interjection of disgust, like Tchaa! or Tsk! or even Pshaw!

Pshaw!

 This is how curiosity killed the cat. This is the curse of Faust. This is the overweening hubris of Oedipus. This is me wishing I'd never looked up fie. Let fie lie.

But where did the word come from? From French, and Latin (fi!) before that, according to etymologists. Thousands of years ago this monosyllable of disgust hovering just on rebellion bubbled up to the lips of a thoroughly tacked off plebeian and those around him in the forum nodded in agreement. Fie on the patricians, the praetorians, the Vandals and the Goths. When Hamlet uttered it something smelled rotten in the state of Denmark--fie has always been associated with olfactory offensiveness.