the center of the earth and the corner of the web

nobody@vox.com(Steampunk Librarian) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:03:46 -0700

Long time, no writing. However, we went on an expedition to Mammoth Cave, which Jules Verne wrote about in Journey to the Center of the Earth, and it was suitably spooky. I can understand how the Hollow Earth theory can seem plausible.

The Frozen Niagara

The Parthenon and me

We also saw the full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, which was built for the 1897 Centennial Exposition. They liked it so much they decided to keep it, and rebuilt it with stronger materials in the 1920s.

We've been working on a Lovecraftian table mosaic (photos to follow soon!), which has been great fun. Of course, Lovecraft is not, technically, steampunk. After reading a few dozen arguments in various places online about what is and is not steampunk, and how you can possibly label XYZ steampunk when XYZ is clearly DieselAtomicPunkyPulp or whatever, I went on a bit of a hiatus while trying to decide what I wanted to write about on The Steampunk Librarian.

My decision: I'm going to write about and link to what I think is cool. This is not necessarily always within the (rigid?) confines of what people think steampunk is. I admit that my own version of steampunk tends to run along the lines of "I know it when I see it," and that mentality does not sit well with a lot of others out there.

But if you have seen Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, for example, and if you found yourself awestruck by that first shot -- the Hindenberg III docking at the mooring mast of the Empire State Building in a snowstorm -- then you understand. The movie is robots and technology and dirigibles. It also takes place in a 1939 that never existed. It is, apparently, DieselPulp and not steampunk. In some minds, the two are mutually exclusive ideas and can never associate with each other, for fear of a rip in the idealized continuum. But here, the worlds are going to blend. Lovecraft will meet Victoria and things that run on steam may bang up against things that go beep. It's my little evil villain's corner of the web, and anything may happen. Muhahaha!

Hindenburg III

Read and post comments | Send to a friend