Many thanks to everyone who voted in last week's survey about the future of the Steampunk Librarian. The overwhelming majority told me to keep everything as is, and so it shall be!
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I took this last summer and was a Gadgeteer. Apparently my tastes have changed a bit.
Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...
The Ragamuffin
18% Elegant, 55% Technological, 13% Historical, 48% Adventurous and 60% Playful!
You are the Ragamuffin, the embodiment of steampunk playfulness. Chances are, you approach the genre from a much more casual and lighthearted standpoint than most other fans. To you, there is always an element of play inherent in the genre, and you may very well enjoy fashion as much for the opportunity to dress up as for the style itself. You probably wear goggles as an accessory, and rarely as actual eye-protection. Your outfits are likely to incorporate a lot of brown or cream, and combine large boots, Victorian corsets or vests, aviator caps or bowler hats, and gypsy skirts or slacks, simply because you like them all.
Anyway! Steampunk Month continues over at Tor.com, with all sorts of neat posts and book excerpts. As for books, has anyone read Kage Baker's stories? They look intriguing.
Also intriguing: the web production titled Riese: The Series. The costuming alone looks awesome!
Steampunky websites with fabulous names: Strange Undisciplined Dreams of Great Things and the Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator 2000.
The artist known as Tin does quite beautiful art with robotic overtones.
And finally, a poster that could serve as the Steampunk Manifesto!
We interrupt our regular schedule to ask you, the reader, about...regular schedules. I recently discovered that there are more readers out there than I thought, which is thrilling and surprising and has led to me thinking about what to do in the future with this. Should I move away from Vox? Should I post more often? Should I leave well enough alone?
As a result, I post a poll, where you can weigh in with your (anonymous) opinion!
I was sort of hoping that we would uncover an intricate design in the center of the room, which would be a mysterious coded message to a secret treasure in a faraway land...but, um, there wasn't anything. Still, we are pretty excited about the corners.
Other recent discoveries include the collection of Richard Balzer, who has a treasure trove of objects made before movie cameras, such as thaumatropes, myrioramas, and other optical toys, with flash galleries and tons of information.
Disney is planning a movie titled John Carter of Mars, and the casting has begun. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. Tentatively optimistic, perhaps?
Steampunk must now be truly mainstream, as it's an actual party theme this season. (Some good ideas in there, regardless!)
More examples of the steampunk mindset infiltrating regular life: The Clockwork Man is one of those "hidden object" games that may or may not be a guilty pleasure when whiling away winter evenings. If you prefer your games to be a bit more action-packed, keep your eyes peeled for The Guns of Icarus -- it was originally scheduled to debut online yesterday, but has been pushed back a bit.
Speaking of guns...dieselpunk, a sibling of steampunk, is growing in popularity and web presence, hooray! It's darker and grittier and more mechanized in general; think 1930s rather than 1890s. The dieselpunks.org website just keeps getting better and better.
Punks and geeks of all sorts may be interested in an iPhone app called The Universe Splitter, which does just what it says. Sort of. (I am not well versed in the world of apps, as my cell phone looks like it's from 1989 and behaves accordingly, but this looks like fun.)
The good people at Tor.com have dedicated October to steampunk, so you should get over there and immerse yourself in some good writing. On the graphic novel side, io9 has a great article on François Schuiten -- his website, although mostly in French, is definitely worth a visit for the art of it all.
A Brooklyn bar named the Way Station is to open soon, and promises to bring steampunk to the neighborhood. They have a page on Facebook listing events and more information; I may check it out when I'm in town next!
More stuff coming out that may interest steampunky types: Boilerplate in book format and Rotor'Scope, a "fiendishly difficult" computer game. And for the retro gamers, take a gander at the Frankencade Machine!
(As a postcript, I will mention that I list steampunk-type events over on the Steampunk Empire as I find them; if you have an event, please feel free to hop over there and list it as well! We're going for a comprehensive calendar!)
Last week we adventured to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. It's a place any steampunk would love, and we highly recommend that you visit!
The first day was the trip to the museum. You may think that the Ford Museum would feature a great many cars...
...and you would be right. But there was much, much more! One of the first exhibits you encounter upon entering the museum is Thomas Edison's last breath, preserved in a test tube.
There were also homages to the Industrial Revolution...
historic fire engines...
...and locomotives, all under one roof.
For the futurists among us, there was also the Dymaxion House, designed by Buckminster Fuller for the family of 1946 and an abode that we would happily live in today:
The second day we went to Greenfield Village, and my mind was promptly blown when I learned that Thomas Edison's laboratory from Menlo Park had been moved to Dearborn and reassembled, as closely to the original arrangement as could be.
It really must be seen to be believed.
Also, there were locomotives and Model Ts to ride around in!
There was also an amazing clock tower, originally located in London's Cheapside district and moved to Greenfield Village in the early 1930s:
...and a working, gorgeously detailed carousel constructed in 1913.
Really, we can't recommend it enough. Go and visit history!
Recent Comments
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Anna said:
Oooh, I love old carousels... the creatures are just so interesting. :) read more
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wdwd said:
[this is good]Which kind of woman do you want to be?Do u have these ten secret weapons?IT bag: yves saint laurent,christian louboutin... read more
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AnachroLush said:
Thanks for the plug, Librarian. Nice to see other Tesla fans :D read more
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Dan said:
[this is good]Uh-oh. Mechanism is dangerously addictive. It may be my downfall. :) read more
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