Awright mates! Thee Bluebeard here to give you the bitter end of the recap for Gearbox Fantastique II. It was a rainy night in April at Reggies Rock Club in Chicago. The year was 2012. I brought my hat. I looked amazing mates! V for Villain was there and they were so damn pumped with bad guy energy, loud music and sinister fanciness I thought I would melt with jealousy! They even wear masks! Who DOES that?!! Check them out mates. You’ll be glad. Then you’ll understand.

So we also had Hellblinki. How does one describe this trio of ‘dear-gods-what-is-that?!’ as they perform their signature tunes? I will say bouncy and light while driving a sad funeral march mosh pit sound into your day. Listen to them. You’ll understand and you’re welcome.

Now then mates we had freaks. Not the fellas at the wharf talking to themselves about wales in the middle of the night but really funky looking folks with some physical anomolies and talents. Let’s just START with The Squidling Brothers Circus Side Show. They have a sword swallowing hottie called Betty Bloomerz who also eats fire and smiles like a beautiful broken toy. Matters Squidling himself puts mouse traps on his tongue and plays the trombone while the Illustrated penguin(you have to see him…) hung weights from his head. Their performance was hosted by Jellyboy The Clown who loved the joy of dance and the ease of surgical tubing passing through orifices. AND THAT WASN’T ALL! The show leaves you crying for . . . well probably just crying.

And a fella goes by the name Sir Pinkerton Xyloma brought out his band o’ misfits and musicians all the way from Milwaukee. A strongman aptly named Titano. He was a mountain of a man with a bit of ink done TO HIS FACE! A half man that did things that defy gravity and my understanding of upper body strength. Sir Pinkerton himself had one of the most gorgeous mustaches I’ve ever had the pleasure to put my own mustache next to! It was not epic, it was not boss, it was not amazing, it was Xylomic. Yes, I said it.

But now you think to yourself, “I missed that?! Damn my shift at Starbucks! I should have quit to go see that show!” And I answer you a loud resounding YES! You really should have if you did not. The Lord Barron Vourteque, mast head of Steampunk Chicago and looking fantastique (even though he has no mustache), Jellyboy and myself, Thee Bluebeard, all had a wonderful time introducing the acts to the beautiful chaos that was Gearbox Fantastique II. If you missed it you are not to despair but rather wait . . . patiently. There is more to come.

Did you see the video?! The girlie with the camera, Daria Melnikova, who filmed it just gave you a visual made of shooting stars and awesome! What the hedge-row are you reading this for?!! WATCH!!

My terribly clever wife Liz circumvented my impending mid-life crisis when she bought me a penny-farthing bike for my 40^th birthday. She knew that it would be an affordable substitute for a Ferrari or Porsche.  As the Chicago seasons rapidly change, the time for bringing the hiwheel out of winter storage is nigh.

She bought it from Rideable Bicycle Replicas. They shipped the pieces to her at work and she had the good staff at Rapid Transit Cylceshop assemble it. I have been informed that pretty much all of the staff took it out for a test ride, you know, just to be sure everything worked.

It’s great fun to ride! Passers-by wave and announce, “Hey! Bike guy!” with a jolly gleam in the eye. The public reaction is one of merriment, to which I carefully tip my hat and offer, “Good day!”

However, there are certain details that separate it from the usual bike ride. It is fixed-gear, with the pedals directly connected to the wheel. You can’t break and you can’t coast. On a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo, I had to walk the bike over the Chicago River along Webster. The hilliness on either side of Ashland was unpedalable. I’ve avoided Damen north of the Vienna Beef Hot Dog factory for fear of a coronary on the bridge. My choice of destinations tends to be limited.

I also have to accessorize for my rides. Of course, I enjoy being steampunked out for the occasion. Unfortunately, I tend to throw caution to the wind. As much as I know that I should wear a helmet, it just doesn’t match. A bowler looks much better, but it doesn’t offer the same sort of cranial protection.  For security, I also use a Fabric Horse u-lock holster, but this necessitates trousers with a belt. My Frontier Classics with suspenders or morning suit with the adjustable waist do not allow the convenience.

My apologies, but if you see me riding, I will not let you try it. You will break it. This happens every time. Accustomed to standard bikes, you will try to start pedaling. The wheel will not move and you will wrench the handlebars out of place. I will have to take it to Rapid Transit to have it readjusted (again). To take off, it is necessary to glide along the bike and let your feet to catch up with the moving pedals.  Maneuvering will be odd. You will use a lot more upper body strength for steering. My shoulders usually ache a bit after the first few seasonal trips. Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy offers excellent advice on riding a penny farthing in The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Volume One.

Now I must tip my hat to you. Good day!

Yikes! Pothole!

This article first appeared as Steam Erotica and Other Things I’ve Been Reading for Work at Liz’s Masonic Lodge Blog.

This revised version was printed in Caboose #8 reDraft Picks.

Maybe you’ve jokingly looked at someone’s clothes and announced, “I am drooling over that accessory.” You want to own it and wear it, which to some degree means you want to consume it. Maybe if you’re being silly you might even say “Oh my god,  I totally want to have sex with those clothes.” You’re not serious about wanting to actually literally have intercourse with the items. But in “lusting” after some garment or accessory, there is a desire to in some way own and therefore use the item for one’s own liking, whether to wear or to decorate. Steampunk lends itself to playful genre-specific fetishization. People get really into the clothes, the accessories, the gadgets, the gears. So it makes sense that within the steampunk fiction genre there’s erotica. Bionics, opticals, a heart made of a time piece, machine arms in place of real arms — all of these things are various levels of robotics or cyborg-like devices that in costume or real-life, create a steampunk-identified identity which is created by consuming of fetishizing.

On a symbolic level, in customizing the accessories and machine parts to one’s costume, it’s as if devoted steampunk enthusiasts want to “consume” the gear, the clothes, all that – in a way, to “customize” the old to create something new. The term for the process food undergoes after you consume it, when it becomes part of your body, is called assimilation. This seems like a symbolically effective term to label what happens when you customize something steampunk-esque to work into your own appearance. Maybe there’s a welded piece of jewelry. Maybe there’s multiple jewelers lenses screwed onto frames. Maybe there’s multiple broken timepieces dangling. These are all modified objects that are customized, consumed, assimilated. These are all activities that can to some degree also describe “consumption” in ways that are sexual. Think about the word “consume” in any way you want. And also consider that when one reads something, they can also “devour.”

And so that brings us to the anthology of short, sexy steampunk stories edited by D.L. King entitled Carnal Machines: Steampunk Erotica. Some notable items of interest: A woman visits a doctor about sexually based ailment. There is a Doctor Watson. There might have been at least one monocle. There are varieties of sexual preferences. As true with any anthology, some stories are more compelling then others. “Human Powered” by Teresa Noelle Roberts is the most compelling in terms of narrative, which is probably why the anthology starts with this story about two scientists working on a lust-powered machine. Some of the stories subvert cultural traditions, such as “Mutiny On the Danika Blue” by Poe Von Page, wherein a woman on deck of the ship has no rights, but in the bedroom quarters below, she is the captain, a bossy dom who demands the ship’s captain call her “sir.”

There are a few moments where some of the stories feel like McDonald’s Drive Through Steampunk Porn. That is to say, some of the pieces have a tang of erotica with steampunk machines and images name-checked in it. Make a list of steampunk things: goggles, a dirigible, gears, experiments, British accents and so on. Now open this book to any random page. You will probably find something on that list mentioned. On one hand, genre pieces belong to that genre because they each share certain characteristics. On the other hand, if a story is merely name-checking conventions or motifs of the genre, they become less compelling. How do you write something genre-specific without sounding like you’re using a genre cookie cutter?

Let’s say that you wished to perform improvisational sex steampunk comedy (you know, in the event that you happen to be in that situation). You could use this book; open to any page and you will probably find images that are totally steampunk genre-specific. For example (and for laughs), I just opened to page 170 and my finger landed on this:

“Of course, the amount of electricity harvested depended on each boy’s stamina and level of sexual voracity. Some subjects produced almost twice the amount of electrical energy as others.”

I kind of want to take these random quotes and preposterously act them out for an audience. Has anybody done steampunk comedy yet? I have seen elements of humor incorporated into the genre, like music, literature, music videos etc. Would that type of performance get old quickly though? Punchlines are funny if they’re short. Is steampunk humor better as a passing reference rather than in its totality? Hopefully it would be backed up with good writing.

And then I got to thinking about the steampunk genre in general, issues that occurred to me: Should genre-specific stuff regarding certain details of physical objects and conventions of literature be incidental more than pronounced? Should the story exist first or the conventions of the genre exist first? Do the references to goggles and dirigibles get tired fast? Is that why some of these stories feel like someone wrote a sexy story but then their work was solicited by the editors who were like “Here’s what steampunk is! Now go write one of your sexy stories and add in these genre-specific details!”?

When I was done with the book, I noticed in the back of the book an ad for a book called Steamlust. The subtitle on it was “Erotic Romance,” whereas Carnal Machines is “Steampunk Erotica.” Is there a difference? Does it go back to distinguishing the difference between erotica and romance? Or porn and erotica. Whatever. Or was it just that there’s a lot of steampunky material out there and not all of it would fit in one book? I noticed the books each have different editors.  I’m curious to know, how did both books come to be? Or maybe both of the editors were both really knowledgeable and know lots of people who write these types of stories and the publisher (Cleis) was like, “We cannot fit all this in one book?! Let not all of this go to waste! Let’s just do more than one book!” Or perhaps Cleis was like, “Steampunk is super big right now! And sex is always big! Sex and machines! Like a David Cronenberg movie but without shitty special effects and way more optical devices! And with much better behaved characters who also happen to be better dressed!”

But most importantly, my priority above all else, was doing a Google search to see if somebody got to the clever before I did. That is, had anybody coined steampunk porny stuff as being “SPUNK?” Because really, all anybody really wants is to get credit for making up a clever turn of phrase, myself included. So I found some stuff. Sort of. There was one reference to “steamspunk” but it wasn’t quite regarding sex, on regretsy.com on their “Not Remotely Steampunk” section, but what was particularly funny is that they found all this hilarious stuff where the crafters mistyped it (I assume) because sometimes they label stuff as “streampunk” or “stempunk” and so on, which I found hilarious. Streampunk? (Like it’s fish! Is that like steamed fish? To eat?). Also there was at least one spelling “staempunk.” In case you’re curious, it was a vender selling a “Staempunk (sic) accessory Greek Sheild (sic) Tassle” which I thought was hilarious. Anyway, there are a lot of sexy steampunk toys that come up when you google “Steampunk sex SPUNK.” My sexy computer is getting a virus as we speak. Also what comes up with a google search of that nature are all manner of steampunk sex toys like a death ray vibrator or a “steamvibe” (which, I noticed when looking at the picture of it, an ad solicited me for a “Spyware Remover Download,” which I thought was humorously poetic on a variety of levels.) But! So! Considering that the google search for “Steampunk sex SPUNK” pulled up 160,000 hits and I don’t want to spend a whole day looking to see if someone was more clever than me, I abandoned the investigation. If someone hasn’t used the term “spunk” in reference to porny steampunk then they can use it now. I found lots of hits that were just people calling steampunk “spunk” but not any in my immediate search that used “spunk” as being sexy steampunk.

more writing by Liz Mason can be found at lizsmasoniclodge.blogspot.com

My my what a week ahead of us we have!  With the ever broadening array of things to do both vintage, retro, and steampunk, how can one decide?  Well, we’re here to help you!

The Classic Remastered “A Trip To The Moon” at The Gene Siskel

For those few who are still unfamiliar with George Melies he is one of the first true film auteurs who took full advantage of the art of cinema to create worlds and effects that people are still trying to figure out today.  Also, he was played by Ben Kingsly in Hugo.  For those in the know do grab your less educated friends and try to make one of the last three screenings of Melies’s best known film “A Trip to the Moon” at The Gene Siskel Film Center in downtown Chicago.

For anyone who spent a single waking minute in the 1990s, you’ll likely recognize it as the blueprint for the music video “Tonight, Tonight” by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Tickets are about $13 on TicketMaster and the showings end this Thursday.  Do check it out now and don’t miss this momentous occasion to get in touch with your cinematic roots!

Dead Roots at Delilah’s with Mr. Vourteque (yes, that’s me).

I’m not that great at promoting some of my more subtle events, but should you be looking for a calmer event of whiskey and beer and hard punk blues and Gothic Americana country (and a bit of off kilter circus music), please stop by Delilah’s this Wednesday.  I’ll be DJing a wide array of music (and it often seems to overlap with Mr. Bodewell’s playlists) that centers on the dark, strange and over all country-esque.  And when I say “country” we’re not talking about that stuff Nashville produces, we’re talking a whiskey fueled BBQ in an post apocalyptic abandoned landscape (at least I like to think that’s what I’m talking about).

Did I mention that Delilah’s has one of the largest selections of whiskey in the world?

There is also $2 Old Crow Bourbon and $2 PBR, it’s free to get in, you just have to be 21+.  See Delilah’s for more information.

C2E2 is Back?!  Why, yes! It is.

Yup!  It’s that time again, time for C2E2!  And there are FAR too many guests and people of merit attending to mention (though to mention one, John Cusack will be there promoting his new, somewhat steampunkish movie, The Raven).  What we should mention is it launches this Friday and finishes this Sunday and should fulfill most any pop-culture geeks various misaligned fantasies (I say that with love).

What you’re probably asking is why a comicon is being promoted in a Steampunk blog? We at Steampunk Chicago are hosting a panel, entitled “Steampunk as a Culture” where we’ll be discussing exactly what the title of the panel says we will be.  It’s from 3pm to 4pm on Saturday, April 14th.

Tickets for C2E2 vary but can be purchased here.

Of course, once you’re finished geeking out on Saturday please catch the Reggie’s bus from McCormick place and join us for…

THE GEARBOX FANTASTIQUE II!

A year ago we brought you our huge spring spectacular with a variety of sideshow, burlesque and musical acts!  Now we bring it back, even bigger and better!

We first welcome the return of The Squidling Brothers with Jellyboy T. Clown himself as the Master of Ceremonies.  We’ll also be welcoming Hellblinki for another show, guaranteed to boggle your mind!  There will also be Pinkerton Xyloma and Titano the Strongman from The Dead Man’s Carnival as well as local rockers V is for Villains.  Thee Bluebeard will do a bit of comedy and ensure you dance a bit to DJ Shawn Gaston from The Begger’s Carnival as well as The Lords & Ladies DJs.

Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door, you can also purchase the $40 VIP package sponsored by our friends at Tipton spirits.  There will also be outfit and costume contests, photographers, videographers, general madness as well as, of course, amazing fashion.  We can’t wait to see you there!

And once you’ve woken up on Sunday wondering what the hell happened to you last night, do join us for…

Watch Chains & Lace Returns to Pleasant Home

This Sunday, April 15th, we return to Pleasant Home with Watch Chains & Lace.  This is our summer-time afternoon monthly soiree featuring tea, small shows, lawn games, cocktailing, a bit of dancing and a ton of fun.

We do invite you to join us for tea from 4 to 5 and then continue on the evening relaxing on the veranda, watching our friends The Squidlings, do some decidedly toned down magic and shows, enjoy a cocktail or glass of wine, or a glass of lemonade and play a bit of croquet or lawn tennis.

It is a lovely time indeed and tickets are only $5 for those 13 and over.  This is an all ages event, so feel free to bring the family. Click on the image above to buy tickets to the tea at 4 p.m for $10, or to buy tickets for general admission for $5 in advance.

What more?  60% of all profits go to support Pleasant Home and future events there.

The tea is 4 – 5 with the soiree from 5 – 9 at Pleasant Home, 210 Home Avenue in Oak Park.  It’s a short three blocks from (the very safe) Harlem (it’s the last stop on the line) on the Green-line El or you can get off at the Harlem Ave stop on the UP-W Metra.

Phew!  What a week!  Hope to see your shining faces out and about, as we’ll certainly be there!

Best,

-The Lord Baron

Go to Steampunk Chicago events or local cons and you will undoubtedly see the merchandise table of Jeff Platt and Dawn Przybylski, Highwind Steamworks. They craft jewelry, leatherwork, goggles and other steampunk gear. You can also visit their Etsy Shop.

To find out a little more about them, I e-mailed them questions separately and have fashioned together their answers.

SPC: What is your role at Highwind Steamworks?

Jeff: “I do the leatherwork, prop pieces, and the more industrial looking pieces as well as the men’s accessories.”

Dawn: “I design and make most of the jewelry and handknits and set up for shows. I give my input on Jeff’s leather creations, and he on mine, our stuff is really a collaboration between the two of us.”

Jeff: “When we go to a show or convention, we’re both right there, usually taking turns selling or “hawking” in the aisle.”

SPC: Where do you find inspiration?

Jeff: “I find inspiration all over the place. Movies, art, literature, television, video games, antiques, whatever. Just taking a new bit of machinery apart to see its guts sometime inspires me to a new vision for a piece. I find if I try to hard to come up with something new, it’s usually a failed process. I let my eyes unfocus and try to imagine what something could be as I look at it, or let me brain storm over the pieces we have and see what things naturally want to be.”

Dawn: “I am unable to sit down to make one thing at a time. I will often take over the whole dining room table and spread out and there will be partially finished pieces of jewelry all around me. I love to play with all the parts putting them together and taking them apart again, when suddenly I will get an idea to combine different colors and shapes and I will drop what I’m working on to start something else. I always finish everything around me, but it might take me a while! The knitting is a little different, I love to use vintage Victorian knitting patterns and I am partial to patterns from nature such as leaves, trees and plants- I’m really excited because I recently discovered some gorgeous shawl patterns that have intricate roses and daffodils incorporated into them- like nothing I have ever seen before!”

SPC: How do you balance business and marriage?

Dawn: “Easy, the work room is the living room, when one of us is making things the other is usually in the room and we can talk and hang out. We know we can’t really work at the same table so when he is doing leather goods I sit on the couch and knit (or what have you). The only issue I have is when he forgets to warn me when he is about to hit rivets with the hammer- its REALLY loud, I jump every time!”

Jeff: “It’s actually a lot easier than some would think. We like spending time around the living room designing and building and making items together. We like to show off our pieces to each other first and get feedback from each other. Even though we have incredibly different creative processes, Dawn’s a planner and I’m a little more haphazard, we have learned when to not bother each other about our ideas and when to ask for help. On the business side, since I usually have more time, I usually handle the details after we’ve discussed what we want to do.”

SPC: Have you had a favorite piece (or one of great pride) that you were reluctant to sell?

Jeff: “I’ve had a number of pieces, large and small that I’ve thought, ‘if that doesn’t sell in a month, it’s mine!’ Sadly, or fortunately, those pieces always seem to go quickly. I had a particular pair of goggles that I fell in love with when I made them, and the gears I used for embellishment were truly one of a kind. Of course they sold, and I won’t be able to make them again. Usually though, if something is truly a favorite I must have, we call it a prototype and keep it, to be used as a basis for other pieces.”

Dawn: “There was one necklace that I made back when we first started, It was a long necklace that had a huge pennyfarthing pendant and rose quartz elements to it. I loved this necklace and would often wear it while at shows… you know… to ‘advertize.’ LOL. I was very close to just keeping it when we sold it at a show. Sad. But not really. Now if there is something I really like, I just make more than one!”

SPC: What separates Highwind Steamworks from other vendors?

Dawn: “Us! I think that our natural friendliness and forthrightness makes us stand apart as well as the fact that we are more than just vendors in the scene. We are socially part of it, too. People come to our booth sometime just to talk and hang out with us and we go out to events that we aren’t vending because we genuinely enjoy the scene and the people in it!”

Jeff: “Truly, everything we make is something that comes out of our own minds and hands. We may purchase some new parts and findings, but the rest has been found, scrounged, and searched to find unique bits that we can make things from. Nothing we do or sell is outsourced or purchased in bulk. When you stop by our booth, or find our Etsy site, you are dealing with us, not with a third-party. And we truly feel a part of the community. If there’s an event we can attend, we do, vending or not. There’s an old joke, “Never trust a bald barber”, which goes along with my belief that you just shouldn’t by steampunk goods from someone who isn’t a steampunk.”

SPC: Where does the “Highwind” come from?

Jeff: “I traced my early appreciation for the aesthetic to the Final Fantasy video game series, I wanted to pay homage to that in our name. So Highwind come directly from Final Fantasy 7.”

Dawn: “The Highwind is Cid’s airship, of course! Cid is a character out of the Final Fantasy game franchise. Every game has had a Cid and every Cid has had an airship. The day I told Jeff that Final Fantasy has stylistic elements of steampunk (and he subsequently decided steampunk was the best thing he had ever heard of), he became Dr. Cid and I became Madame Lockheart of the Highwind.”

SPC: Bonus Question: When did you know it was love?

Dawn: “From first sight. However, I would have to say staying up all night three days after we had met to watch the entirety of The Stand (the made for TV mini series). Don’t know why but we clicked from the very start.”

Jeff: “I knew it the moment I saw her, sitting in my then girlfriend’s dorm room playing cards. I remember opening the door, walking in and seeing Dawn sitting there, and the first words in my head were ‘Oh crap, this is going to be a problem.’ Of course it wasn’t in the long run, and we have been together ever since!”

Look for this delightful couple to be vending at our next event: Gearbox Fantastique II, April 14th, at Reggie’s Rock Club. See the calendar for more information!