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May 12, 2008
Sort of a dream
Steampunk makes the New York Times. Which admittedly would have been a bigger deal in gaslight days but still suggests our bit of fun has gone mainstream. Such are the perils of popularity.
Quite right. Though this is Robert Brown, lead singer for Abney Park. I am not certain if he is on my cad list. Best post a picture of Magdalene Veen, sort of a dream herself.
Related: A new age of steam... Bruce Crower's six-stroke Steam-O-Lene Engine is so powerful "the exhaust blasted paint chips off the ceiling." Just the thing for getting some extra oomph out of my zeppelin-mounted bovine catapult array.
Crower calculates that the Steam-o-Lene boosts the work it gets from a gallon of gas by 40 percent over conventional engines. Diesels, which are already more efficient, might get another 5 percent. And his engine does it with hardware that already exists, so there's no waiting for technologies to mature, as with electric cars or fuel cells.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 12, 2008 06:37 AM
Comments
Does my ever increasing obsession with three piece suits and pocket watches indicate a disposition toward steampunk? Where can one find quality brass implements these days? Everything is so...black and silver. Uggh. And why did they stop making televisions look like art deco furniture? Is a pocketknife gauche in steampunk? What about a discreet bone handled penknife? A million questions...
Posted by: Occam's Carbuncle at May 12, 2008 10:35 AM
The bone handled pen knife sounds like a plan. I think smoking a proper pipe or even cloves or cigarellos by preference to mass market cigarettes is a good idea.
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at May 12, 2008 11:03 AM
I was about to quit, but the cloves may be an option (provided they don't taste like a ham or mulled cider).
Posted by: Occam's Carbuncle at May 12, 2008 12:24 PM
They are the bomb. I recommend Djarum Black. Maximum goth and a carminative and therefore good for the body.
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at May 12, 2008 12:36 PM
Is this a good time to confess my girl-crush?
Posted by: agent bedhead at May 14, 2008 02:24 AM
She is exquisite. Also a most excellent dancer. A rather dear friend of the Flea - also an excellent dancer - appears on the right hand side of the field at seconds 12 and 13 of this clip, as do I very briefly and in a blur.
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at May 14, 2008 09:21 AM
The black gentlemen in the article look damn fine in those outfits. The redheads in the park...meh.
And I'm afraid that no matter how you dress up a computer or TV, it's hopelessly a child of its own age. The steampunky ones look great when they're off, but turn them on and you're back in the real world.
Perhaps you need a steampunkifier, an application which will convert the content of any website into lead type and lithographs, for proper display on your 19th-century monitor.
Do not neglect the possibility of mother-of-pearl in the handles of your knives.
I caught part of the movie The Wild, Wild West and thought to myself, "The Flea must worship this movie." But I don't remember you mentioning it. Too undignified, perhaps.
Myself, I'm waiting for a literary/social movement centered around Moderne.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at May 14, 2008 10:40 AM
I love the corsets it's true. But please to consider this. Well worth twenty minutes to get to the punchline.
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at May 14, 2008 10:57 AM
Assuming I have linked the right video... cubicle-bound just this moment.
Posted by: Ghost of a flea at May 14, 2008 10:59 AM
"And I'm afraid that no matter how you dress up a computer or TV, it's hopelessly a child of its own age. The steampunky ones look great when they're off, but turn them on and you're back in the real world."
I'm afraid that Angie is correct about that, Sir Flea.
Posted by: agent bedhead at May 14, 2008 09:40 PM
True, and I like the old idea of period font emulations and so forth. But I think it is somewhat to miss the point of steampunk, a form of retro-futurism, not reenactment. Otherwise one might just as well say there is no point in dressing up in Victorian outfits unless we contaminate the ice in our whiskey with cholera.