CaptainShoni’s Neighborhood

Giveaway on Steampunk Empire

Over on the Steampunk Empire, I'm featuring a giveaway from the good people at Chrononaut Mercantile. If you comment on the post over there, you can win a gorgeous Chrononaut Pendant necklace! The drawing will be held on January 15. Go and see! Happy new year!

reading, riding, and retro

Hey, writers interested in steampunk! Steampunk Quarterly is offering $50 for your stories!

From the everything-old-is-new-again department: a hundred years ago, black velvet was the rage. Nowadays, monocles are making a comeback. Neo-Victorians, unite! Also, Thomas Edison's Laboratory Complex in New Jersey has re-opened, better than ever.

Over in Europe, you could theoretically peruse the online archives of Jugend Magazine while riding the Molli steam train down the streets of town (yes, really, on the actual streets!). If you're more interested in the Paris Exposition, the original Eiffel Tower designs are now online, too.

On New Year's Day, we'll be featuring details on a giveaway from the good people at Chrononaut Mercantile, so stay tuned.

tis the steampunk season

Hey, good news! The Steampunk Tree House has found a permanent home at a brewery in Delaware!

The Adventures of the League of Steam have put out a "Fright Before Christmas" episode to celebrate the season. If you're still looking for steampunky gift ideas, there are all sorts of things out there this year, from books to ice cube trays!

There is also (a very limited amount of) time to get excited and make things. For inspiration, I recommend watching the pneumatic system at the New York Public Library, but that might just be me. Happy holidays to all!

seasonal steampunk

Tis the season for Tesla coil Christmas trees! We mentioned this last year, I think, but there's a new version for 2009.

Brass Goggles is also observing the season this month, and there are lots of posts these days.

Sillof is at it again, creating gorgeous steampunk versions of old favorites! Behold the Gaslight Legion of Doom!

Warren Ellis is also at it again, taking the piss out of steampunk with this week's featured design. (Get it while you can; the offer expires this weekend.)

Syzmon Klimek makes beautiful, intricate automatons; the web page may not be all that, but his creations certainly are.

If you're in the market for steampunkish stuff, there's a one-stop website that's been rescued from the ashes of Geocities! And if you're more in the market of making things rather than buying them, check out ConCraft Magazine for ideas and supplies and more.

Some of our local steampunks have discussed moving more toward the realm of Chap Magazine and the art of elegant manliness. In this regard, may I suggest a pinstriped cuirass for outings? Or, for those of us stuck in modern occupations, a rather steampunk-looking bracelet/arm cuff for rationalizing one's emotions. (Ha! This one cracks me up.)

spinning toys and dark nostalgia

'Tis the season for the mainstream media to discover steampunk all over again! The BBC discusses the trend, as does Time. (The BBC's version talks about the impact of Doctor Who, which is an interesting point.)

It's also the season for steampunk-themed Christmas lists and raygun calendars for 2010! The list includes a book I'm dying to see -- Eva Hagberg's Dark Nostalgia. If you're into that sort of thing as well, you will probably want to see this virtual tour of a steampunked house. The list does not include this "flapping push toy," but it should!

Dances of Vice and more

Over the weekend, I will be at the third annual Dances of Vice Festival! You should be there, too. It looks like it's going to be an amazing time. (DOV is also on Facebook, where they are posting additional details.) Related to DOV is Zelda Magazine, which just came out with its premiere issue. Buy it if you can!

Steampunky designers are encouraged to participate in the “Voyage of the Chrononought” Design Contest, running through the end of the year. Have at it!

Amazing steampunk-ish metalwork is at "Sara 013's" Flickr account; check out the FreakAngels choker. Beautiful stuff.

It was once proposed, in the mid-nineteenth centry, that London be zoned into hexagonal shapes. It's true! Strange Maps describes the London that could have been, and points to a book of such things which looks really interesting.

Currently interesting in British transportation: the proposed "road train" technology, in which drivers could link up in a lane and then read, sleep, etc., until they want to get off the road. I have been dreaming about something like this for years, usually during the annual drives to New England.

And lastly, a media update: Disney seems to have put the kibosh on a remake of Captain Nemo's adventures for now.

leviathans and glaciers and salons

We had some local steampunks over to our place last Friday, and it seems like a good time was had by all. There are photos over at the Steampunk Empire as tangible proof!

LA Weekly discovered Clockwork Couture and featured them, and Issue 9 of the Gatehouse Gazette has been published for your viewing pleasure. In even more literature news, Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan has also been published, and he's written a post discussing the illustrations and the book's concept in general.

New amazing steampunky weblogs keep appearing. Two I found this week: Decadent Handbook (specializing in the darker edge of Victorian/Edwardian art and literature) and the Steampunk Family (specializing in all sorts of things).

And finally...A man is building glaciers to stop global warming...and it's working! How wonderfully mad is that?

music and anarchy and loss

Pressed for time today, so here are the week's steampunky bits in quick-time format!

PhonoVault -- your resource for steampunk and seriously retro music.

Machinarium looks like a very cool new game.

MSNBC discovers steampunk and provides a slideshow of the haunted house in New York City.

The Monsterologist should delight any young explorer (or those who still want to grow up to be explorers).

Might the Hadron Collider be under attack from the future? Even the New York Times is discussing the possibility!

Coming Anarchy is a lovely site - how can I resist the slogan "speak Victorian, think Pagan"? Plus, they write about things like "deviant globalization."

The man behind PostHuman Blues, a wonderful website, has died. RIP, Mac Tonnies.

the beautiful people of steam

This week's steampunk entry consists mainly of steampunky people looking pretty. Enjoy and be inspired!

Exhibit 1: The tor.com meetup at Brooklyn's Way Station was well attended, from the looks of it.

Exhibit 2: The Oxford steampunk exhibition brought out the extremely well-dressed!

Exhibit 3: SteamCon in Seattle looks like a great success.

Exhibit 3.5: The poster for the new Sherlock Holmes film is out, and is not exactly steampunk but not really NOT steampunk, either. I am of two minds, obviously.

In more literary matters, a call is out for authors of steampunk romances. You have until next April to send in your masterpiece!

"Technology forecaster" Paul Saffo (who doesn't like the words futurist or futurologist) predicts an increasing divide between the rich and the poor in our technological future. Anyone who has read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age can see the Vicky culture in the making...

Poll results (yours and mine), plus more

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.

Take The Steampunk Style Test

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!