The Steampunk Librarian

somewhere, it is always perpetual oyster standard time

2008-07-01T17:54:18Z

One of my spam messages yesterday had the subject line of "oyster perpetual cosmograph." Sounds vaguely steampunkish, doesn't it? And off we go...

I was reading details of William Gibson's induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and noticed that steampunk was mentioned as a literary genre. I poked around a bit and found that the Hall even lists a steampunk bibliography. I guess the term really has made it! However, the genre discussions continue, as detailed in this post on Futurismic. An excerpt that caught my eye:

For example, Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) might be dismissed as needlessly fantastical if seen as a detective story, but if seen as a work of steampunk cinema, it takes on a whole new set of meanings - despite the fact that it is rather unlikely that the writer or director had even heard of the term at the time.

11-Young_sherlock_holmes

(I have a deep and abiding love for this film, as anyone who knows me can attest, and seeing it listed as "steampunk cinema" delights me no end.)

The steampunk portals are arriving, slowly but surely! The Steampunk Feed is open for business, and the brand new SteamList aims to catalog the steampunky stuff available on Etsy. Another source of inspiration is the Steampunk Lab, which shows off items from all over the web. And Coilhouse, which has all sorts of great bits to it, has a steampunk category.

From Cassandra: Gogbot looks like a steampunk-oriented festival taking place this fall in the Netherlands. The site is in Dutch, but I did see that one of the bands performing is named Singing Tesla Coils, so you know it's going to be an interesting time!

Marconi News specializes in collages of "visual fabrications, chronological confusion and technological deception." Of course, I love it.

I also love the Process Indicator. It's for indicating processes, it is!

And lastly, space westerns may be a bit of a tangential interest, but many a steampunk story has a space and/or a western angle to it. It's a great site, regardless of your leanings.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

a quick summing-up today...

2008-06-24T17:48:52Z

How popular is steampunk these days among the DIY crowd? Just take a look at the results for "steampunk" on Instructables. It's inspiring. There's even a first volume of steampunky fonts out there now!

Mechanicrawl takes place July 12 in San Francisco. Go, crawl, and learn.

Recent arrivals: check out the Anachronaughts Guild as they gear up to celebrate Tesla's birthday, and join me in waiting with bated breath for the Airship Academy shirts at Got-Steam.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Singular links and images

2008-06-17T18:13:07Z

The literary wave continues! Ekaterina Sedia has a new book coming out soon titled The Alchemy of Stone, which looks really interesting. You have to love a story that includes a literal key to a heart.

Brendan sent a great site about the Singularity - is it coming? When will it happen? What will happen if/when it arrives? - as I was reading another article about how we haven't got time to wait around for the Singularity. I'm always of the opinion that the steampunk concept needs more punk in its steam, so I'm fascinated by this sort of thing.

If you've got a modern photo that would look even better aged, the Bakumatsu Koshashin Generator can work magic. To wit:

Me, driving in a parade last weekend.

Me, driving a hundred years ago!

Silly fun is what you find at Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre. I especially like the Victoran DeLorean.

Russell Stutler is currently in Japan, but his annotated drawing of 221b Baker Street is completely British and completely wonderful. (The rest of his site is fantastic too!)

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

shared worlds, shared links

2008-06-10T18:11:47Z

Over on my other weblog, Fridays are dedicated to "links from others," which means I post all the stuff people have sent me over the week. Suddenly I'm getting an influx of fantastic links that are steampunk-related...so we start with the links from others! Many thanks to everyone - I appreciate it tremendously.

From Danny: the work of Art Donovan (who, serendipitously, left a message here last week) and some gorgeous imagery from Sergey Skachkov. Danny reports that he found these through playing PMOG, which we've talked about here before, but haven't investigated first-hand....yet!

From Jase: behold, here is a beautiful rolling library ladder from 1890, a mere snip at $35,000. (I can't even imagine.) More information is on the item's (PDF) page.

For slightly less expensive steampunky works of art, the crafter known as burrowburrow has some fantastic creatures for sale - the ram and the antelope are especially great, and now there's a jellyfish as well!

Still in the concept stage: a lovely pocketwatch/personal assistant thingamabob. I admit, I'd get one.

I almost never wish I was a kid again (I liked life a lot better as I got older!), but it would almost be worth going back in time to high school if it meant I could participate in the Shared Worlds program at Wofford College this summer. On the faculty is Jeff VanderMeer, who was last mentioned on here as he was busily autographing steampunk anthologies and drawing blimps.

Speaking of time, the neo-victorians are fascinated with it. If you, too, wish you had a time machine, you can dive into this article from Scientific American about the nature of time, and the possibility of it acting differently in other universes.

Weta makes amazing rayguns, among other amazing things, and now you can actually visit them in their natural habitat at Weta Cave in New Zealand.

And finally...steampunk goths have officially arrived. What more to say?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

A quick note...

2008-06-09T14:45:16Z

...to point you to the Brooklyn Museum's Flickr page, and, more specifically, their photographs of the 1900 Paris Exposition. Gorgeous.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

high-end steampunk

2008-06-03T17:47:20Z

Thanks to our (much appreciated!) UK correspondent Julie, we have additional Telectroscope information! There are tiny "minumentals" available for purchase, as well as souvenir boxes. Also, there's a weblog documenting the experience!

If you've got the sort of money to spend on minumentals, you might very well be interested in Datamancer's auction for his amazing monitor.

If you're trying to answer the question "so what's this steampunk stuff all about, anyway?" from various people, you can direct them to this 25-page illustrated article on the idea! It may not answer their questions, but at least it'll keep them busy for a while.

For those of us who love Mateusz Skutnik's Flash games, it's an exciting time, for Daymare Town 2 is out and available to play! This one even has hot air balloons!

And finally, for the wealthy interior designers among us (?), the room divider and sticker options at dVider have great potential. There are jellyfish designs for your Nautilus theme! And ironwork designs for your Victorian study! And trains for, um, whatever you like!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Look! Through that Telectroscope! I bet there's oil on Mars!

2008-05-27T16:37:18Z

Judging from the buzz it's created, the Telectroscope seems to be quite the hit on both sides of the Atlantic. There are over 1,000 photos so far on Flickr!

Not only are giant pseudo-telescopes garnering attention, but also a man's flying over the Alps with a jetpack ,we can keep up with the latest Mars landing via Twitter (when Twitter is up, anyway; it's been a bit overtaxed lately), and some enterprising soul has created a steampunk-themed USB drive.

Once upon a time, zeppelins flew over Europe and mechanical elephants marched around Britain. It's true! Nowadays, we can decorate our home in Victorian manner (very stylishly, too), and restore the automata of the past, in honor of what once was. But watch out, because you know what the next trend's going to be? Oilpunk!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I can see the Victorian era from here...

2008-05-20T17:39:16Z

Confession time: I am always surprised (and a little thrilled) when I see Steampunk Librarian mentioned on a weblog, or linked in someone's sidebar. Thanks, all. It's appreciated!

Steam, once the energy source of the past, may become the energy source of the future! Now it's referred to as "solar thermal technology," and Google is helping to fund the concept. I love the idea of huge mirrors creating electricity via steam.

I also love the idea of the Telectroscope, too. The Club Creatures are going to be visiting Brooklyn soon and I am going to insist they check out the New York location.

Greystone Court is near NYC and looks like all sorts of awesome, and it was created in a DIY kind of way. Check out the observatory!

Even the Penny Arcade guys are getting into the steampunk mindset, with an upcoming game called "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness." It's a bit more Lovecraft than steampunk, but hey, all the boundaries are blurring together these days, anyway.

For the paper-folders among us: make your own little papery steam tank!

And finally, from Danny (thanks, Danny!): the weirdness of Fubbs.net. Click away merrily and be entertained!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

if steampunk jumps the shark, it'll be a narwhal instead

2008-05-13T18:44:05Z

Well, the reaction to the New York Times article on steampunk has swept around the web, and it seems almost evenly divided between the "wow, that's so cool" group and the "oh, that is SO lame" crowd. Metafilter has a discussion thread that was up to 211 comments when I last looked at it, for example. (It's a bit of a relief to be considered lame again. I was kind of nervous about being among the cool.) However, the Times had originally worked up an article last year, then scrapped it for unknown reasons. But the author's decided to put it online, so now we can all read it and see how the state of the steampunk world was a year ago!

Meanwhile, the Mechanicrawl will be traipsing along the San Francisco coastline this July, regardless of whether or not the masses consider it cool. If you're in the area, go!

Etsy has been championing the steampunk DIY aesthetic for some time, and now they have an official Steampunk Street Team.

What would you have if Helen Keller teamed up with Alexander Graham Bell and got her senses back, plus some weaponry? You'd have the basis for one crazy graphic novel series, that's what you'd have!

I now have a hand-drawn steampunk city of my very own. Thanks, Jeff! This means that we have an extra copy of the steampunk anthology here at headquarters; we're trying to dream up some sort of contest so we can give it away as a prize. Stay tuned.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

steampunk contest and more

2008-05-06T16:02:37Z

Look, a fun LEGO steampunker! This can be yours if you enter the contest that Buy Steampunk is holding in conjunction with Jamie Spencer; send in your own artistic effort that incorporates Jamie's Kriegerhund and/or Dardenbahst LEGO mechas. Oh, and the winner also gets this:

The deadline has been extended to Friday, so send in your artistic renditions fast!

The Maker Faire has come and gone, but it looks like it was a fantastic time for all, especially the steampunk types.

For me, there's a connection between Rube Goldberg machines and steampunk. Maybe it's all the intricate detail involved in both. At any rate, Gawker has put together a list of the best Rube Goldberg machine videos out there at the moment.

Has anyone tried out PMOG, otherwise known as the Passively Multiplayer Online Game? It looks really fun, but I have no real spare time right now...

One of the stranger remakings I've seen lately transforms pistols into porcelain art. Soon porcelain rayguns will probably appear on the scene.

Not punk, but quite Victorian, this treehouse looks perfect for the post-oil abode. In the meantime, you can still wear funky cufflinks and enjoy the air conditioning while you can!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend