Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Steampunk

Man, one of the beauties of working with younger folk is being exposed to stuff your brain would not normally even know existed.

I am sixty, and as my brain atrophies I don't even know stuff I knew before if I ever even knew it.

That last sentence is a reflection of the after effects of the acid I never took.

Anyway..................

Even if you are open minded and young at heart you just can't be exposed to everything that is out there.

But being open minded and young at heart keeps you receptive to the cool things that decades younger humans are into.

Like steampunk. Never heard of it before E & A at work told me about it. Now I am all in. I love it. Absolutely love it.

It appeals to my twisted nature and deep rooted respect for humans who work hard to express themselves as uniquely as they can. To set themselves apart from the boring automatons who march to work and home again every day, deluding themselves that they are living.

The term steampunk originated in the 1980's when author K.W.Jeter attempted to explain his style of writing (and that of other authors at the time as well) to Locus magazine. He was the first to call it steampunk.

The origins are literary but the concept has mushroomed into a sense of fashion, engineering, music and lifestyle.

People started creating gadgets to  emulate the gadgets described in steampunk novels, like computers, watches, telephones and guitars, to cars, motorcycles and houses. These are things with a Victorian flair and powered by steam.

The concept carried over to fashion and jewelry, and this is what I really dig.

A lot of this stuff is the kind of stuff that most people would say is not functional. Bizarre. Ridiculous.

That is what makes it so cool.

It has been an underground kind of thing but it is beginning to rear it's ugly head in the most unlikeliest of places.

Like the TV show Castle (which my wife and her awesome Aunt love). The episode was called Punked.

I don't know how it was treated on that show, probably not with respect, but the fact that it made it to mainstream TV tells you that there are a lot of people out there who are into this.

From a literary standpoint, people want to link it back to the writing of H.G.Wells and Jules Verne, but steampunk enthusiasts disagree with this analogy. They feel their writing is unique and stands on it's own merit.

I have put a couple of steampunk novels on my Amazon wish list. I shall report back to you after my eyes have devoured the words.

I love the fashion. My ultimate desire is to tinker with my goddamn NHSLC shirt, to steampunk it to express my complete and total lack of respect for the crooks who force me to dress in uniform every day.

"Where is your name tag?"

Up your ass, robot boy.

Could be a weird summer. I think steampunking my T-shirts could be cumbersome.

But I'm up for the challenge.



I would give anything to dress like this for work.





No comments:

Post a Comment