A preview of the next episode of Sherlock:
Archive | Uncategorized
Good Night Irene
Just finished watching “A Scandal in Belgravia,” the first episode of Sherlock series 2. It is so, so good, and would be so, so ruined by spoilers that I will say no more about it, except:
- It’s pretty much ruined the Doctor Who Christmas special for me. Apart from some feminist grumblings I quite enjoyed “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe,” but only because I’d forgotten how good Moffat can be when he’s at the top of his game. “Scandal” just blows “Widow” out of the water; it’s a thousand times better. (Exactly a thousand; I measured it with my agathometer.)
- It’s preemptively ruined Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows for me also. “Scandal” is the Sherlock Holmes movie of the present season; whatever the theatrical movie is like, it can’t hope to measure up.
- One of the best moments in the episode is also a Doctor Who reference. But those who know only the 21st century version of Doctor Who won’t get it. (There’s also a Wrath of Khan reference.)
On the down side: given how persnickety Sherlock was about grammar in the opening scene of last season’s “Great Game,” it’s a bit incongruous that he says “you sent John and I” in “Scandal.”
Happy World’s End!
We Daren’t Go A-Hunting For Fear of Little Men
More juvenilia: How Two Hunters Were Discouraged By an Apparition (short story, age 12).
By Heaven, I’ll Know Thy Thoughts
I realise to my surprise that I never got around to posting my APS paper “Shakespeare, Godwin, Kafka, and the Political Problem of Other Minds.” Okay, now I have.
Here’s the abstract:
Colin McGinn maintains that Othello is about the problem of other minds. But Othello’s version of the problem – the inaccessibility of particular others in particular respects, not of other minds per se – might seem to lack the generality needed to count as philosophical. Drawing on examples from Othello, Caleb Williams, and Amerika, I argue that Othello’s problem, while distinct from the traditional problem of other minds, is indeed a genuine philosophical problem, but one produced and sustained by alterable features of human society (specifically, race, gender, and class distinctions) rather than by unalterable features of cognition as such.
And speaking of Shakespeare, check out this neglected masterpiece.
Danger Elsewhere, Part 3
The Danger Number site has been updated with Time to Kill.