"120 Years in the Making"
May. 30th, 2010 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kleenexwomanOMG SO I WENT TO THE WORLD STEAM EXPO, IT WAS SUPER COOL.
It is a steampunk convention. They held it at the Hyatt in Dearborn--approriately enough, because the whole area is Henry Ford This and Henry Ford That, and they were selling discounted admission to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, which is like the very first word in American retro technology. I went to Mother Fletcher's (a vintage store in Ferndale) and got a dress to wear to it, which was more 20's than anything but hey, retro. I brought with me my friend Jeremy, whom I met through my friend Ben, who I used to date and now play D&D and hang out with. Jeremy is a very cynical person and generally fun to hang around with. So now you have all that background.
Anyway, we got there about 12 and met Ben at the artist's/dealer's room, where we mostly walked around and admired people's outfits and looked at kitted-out goggles. A lot of booths were selling the same old crap--goggles, random crap with gears, injection-molded crap painted bronze, but there were some genuinely cool and inventive booths, most of which were fucking expensive. Which you sort of expect. There were some people in warmed-over Renfaire garb with a few gears slapped on, but there were also people with really cool, inventive outfits--redone Army uniforms, huge shoulder-and-back pieces with dials and air tanks and guns, even one girl who had a working violin she'd painted and put gears on. I bought a few little trinkets for jewelry-making, and tried on some gorgeous and expensive hats and an awesome but expensive ring with a ray gun on it.
Then we went to some panels. We got to see part of a panel about steampunk in the media (which was meh, mostly people showing slides of things vaguely steampunk-esque and talking about why they sucked or didn't).
And then we went to the "Dr. Steel: Building a Utopian Playland" panel. Which was disappointing and sort of odd. I'd seen a couple of Dr. Steel videos and thought they were fairly amusing; he has a very plastic, comedic face. A bunch of "Toy Soldiers" showed up in (some very sharp) uniforms and started giving the whole world domination spiel and showing a video, talking about...well, it was the same kind of stuff I got from HDA back in the day. The system is generically horrible and keeps us all down for no good reason, society is an illusion you're forced to buy into, anyone who has a desk job or really any type of job is having their soul crushed. Dr. Steel was especially into the idea of playing with toys, and added some odd comments about the Alien Illuminati. The "Toy Soldiers" seemed to take it all very seriously. I really thought it was going to segue into something more interesting, but it didn't. Jeremy started making smart-ass comments out loud to keep himself entertained, and he got bored and I started having little mental HDA flashbacks, so we went and got lunch.
(We ended up having lunch in the mall across from the hotel. This was a popular choice for a bunch of congoers. Spotting people gussied up in Victorian gear was incredibly amusing, like a cheesy 80's time travel movie.)
And THEN. We met Terrence Zdunich, the dude behind Repo! The Genetic Opera. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, did the artwork, and also played Graverobber. He is SO NICE in person. I got all flustered when he did the Graverobber voice, and ended up giggling and blurting out, "OMG, you're awesome." "You're awesome!" he responded, and then he told my friend Ben that he looked kinda like an Elfman brother (Ben has very curly red hair). Terence is an Oingo Boingo fan. And he told us a story about going to an artistic salon and reading a piece of what he described as "something totally pornographic. It offended like 80% of the people there" (he mimed folding his arms and looking offended) "but like 25% of the people came up to me later and were like, yeah, that was cool! That was great!" Anyway, "so it was getting awkward, and Richard Elfman was there--he was doing something crazy with his bongos--so I was like, Richard, help me out! And he started playing along to me on his bongos...making an awkward moment that much more awkward."
And then he signed my con program :) And then we went upstairs to see a panel he was on, about the Victorian and older literary influences on Repo! It really is very operatic and has a lot of classic archetypes--the other two people on the panel talked about the "caged bird", the King Lear/dying tyrant, the "clowns" who were characters of pure vice (the Largo children), the Graverobber as narrator/commentor. And then he mentioned that IF they did a Repo! sequel (which would depend on the funding, and on the studio recognizing that there was potential), that it might involve an Iago or "corrupt advisor" type of character.
Then we went to have tea. Some of the con staff had set up a little tea salon, and they were mostly offering Lipton, but they were really nice and very solicitous of our tea needs and chatted with us, and had other people join us so it was like an authentic Victorian teahouse, in the social aspect. We talked about science and movies. And I found out that some of the more involved steampunk people in the area want to march in the Farmington Founder's Day Parade, and that they are opening up a steampunk bookstore in downtown Farmington in September. :D very excited.
The last panel we went to was on the evolution of steampunk, and it had G.D. Falksen talking about the historical and literary aspects of steampunk, and Evelyn Kriete (who seemed very tired) talking about how she'd made friends with a bunch of artists independently doing steampunk stuff back in the early 00's and had organized the first con and gotten the New York Times to pick up the trend. Ms. Kriete had some really interesting rambling stories about the recent evolution of the aesthetic and the difficulty/ease of getting one's artistic movement into the media, and Mr. Falksen talked about the utopian, technophiliac roots of the steampunk aesthetic. Then he fielded a bunch of "Is 'The Golden Compass' steampunk? No, not really. What about H.P. Lovecraft? No, not really. Is my costume steampunk enough? All that matters is that you're having fun and expressing yourself" type questions, and I asked him about if he thought steampunk was colonialist, and he was like, "Well, the movement originally came from Victorian European sci-fi, so that's what most people know, but other countries like Egypt and Japan were industrializing about that time, too, so you can apply that industrialized, technological aesthetic to any culture around that time..." There was more to it, of course, and he gave an interesting mini-lesson on history. The ending question was "What's the next big retro SF thing?" They both decided that it was probably "spy-fi" and the early 1960's mod aesthetic, which should delight the MFU fans on my flist.
That was about it; the only thing going on after that was the Charity Ball, which cost an extra $10, and Jeremy was getting tired. So we hung around in the lobby staring at people's outfits and noting the occasional Chinese businessman looking slightly lost in the midst of the steampunkers (there was a U.S.-China trade thing going on in another room). Really, almost everyone at the con was dressed up, which gave it an extra "time traveler's convention" feel. I want to go back! But I have family stuff going on Sunday and probably Monday. However, I'm seriously planning on attending next year, which will give me time to put together a flapper/Cthulhu cultist outfit (yes, I know it's not steampunk, but it comes next chronologically and I want to be ahead of the curve).
It is a steampunk convention. They held it at the Hyatt in Dearborn--approriately enough, because the whole area is Henry Ford This and Henry Ford That, and they were selling discounted admission to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, which is like the very first word in American retro technology. I went to Mother Fletcher's (a vintage store in Ferndale) and got a dress to wear to it, which was more 20's than anything but hey, retro. I brought with me my friend Jeremy, whom I met through my friend Ben, who I used to date and now play D&D and hang out with. Jeremy is a very cynical person and generally fun to hang around with. So now you have all that background.
Anyway, we got there about 12 and met Ben at the artist's/dealer's room, where we mostly walked around and admired people's outfits and looked at kitted-out goggles. A lot of booths were selling the same old crap--goggles, random crap with gears, injection-molded crap painted bronze, but there were some genuinely cool and inventive booths, most of which were fucking expensive. Which you sort of expect. There were some people in warmed-over Renfaire garb with a few gears slapped on, but there were also people with really cool, inventive outfits--redone Army uniforms, huge shoulder-and-back pieces with dials and air tanks and guns, even one girl who had a working violin she'd painted and put gears on. I bought a few little trinkets for jewelry-making, and tried on some gorgeous and expensive hats and an awesome but expensive ring with a ray gun on it.
Then we went to some panels. We got to see part of a panel about steampunk in the media (which was meh, mostly people showing slides of things vaguely steampunk-esque and talking about why they sucked or didn't).
And then we went to the "Dr. Steel: Building a Utopian Playland" panel. Which was disappointing and sort of odd. I'd seen a couple of Dr. Steel videos and thought they were fairly amusing; he has a very plastic, comedic face. A bunch of "Toy Soldiers" showed up in (some very sharp) uniforms and started giving the whole world domination spiel and showing a video, talking about...well, it was the same kind of stuff I got from HDA back in the day. The system is generically horrible and keeps us all down for no good reason, society is an illusion you're forced to buy into, anyone who has a desk job or really any type of job is having their soul crushed. Dr. Steel was especially into the idea of playing with toys, and added some odd comments about the Alien Illuminati. The "Toy Soldiers" seemed to take it all very seriously. I really thought it was going to segue into something more interesting, but it didn't. Jeremy started making smart-ass comments out loud to keep himself entertained, and he got bored and I started having little mental HDA flashbacks, so we went and got lunch.
(We ended up having lunch in the mall across from the hotel. This was a popular choice for a bunch of congoers. Spotting people gussied up in Victorian gear was incredibly amusing, like a cheesy 80's time travel movie.)
And THEN. We met Terrence Zdunich, the dude behind Repo! The Genetic Opera. He came up with the idea, wrote the script, did the artwork, and also played Graverobber. He is SO NICE in person. I got all flustered when he did the Graverobber voice, and ended up giggling and blurting out, "OMG, you're awesome." "You're awesome!" he responded, and then he told my friend Ben that he looked kinda like an Elfman brother (Ben has very curly red hair). Terence is an Oingo Boingo fan. And he told us a story about going to an artistic salon and reading a piece of what he described as "something totally pornographic. It offended like 80% of the people there" (he mimed folding his arms and looking offended) "but like 25% of the people came up to me later and were like, yeah, that was cool! That was great!" Anyway, "so it was getting awkward, and Richard Elfman was there--he was doing something crazy with his bongos--so I was like, Richard, help me out! And he started playing along to me on his bongos...making an awkward moment that much more awkward."
And then he signed my con program :) And then we went upstairs to see a panel he was on, about the Victorian and older literary influences on Repo! It really is very operatic and has a lot of classic archetypes--the other two people on the panel talked about the "caged bird", the King Lear/dying tyrant, the "clowns" who were characters of pure vice (the Largo children), the Graverobber as narrator/commentor. And then he mentioned that IF they did a Repo! sequel (which would depend on the funding, and on the studio recognizing that there was potential), that it might involve an Iago or "corrupt advisor" type of character.
Then we went to have tea. Some of the con staff had set up a little tea salon, and they were mostly offering Lipton, but they were really nice and very solicitous of our tea needs and chatted with us, and had other people join us so it was like an authentic Victorian teahouse, in the social aspect. We talked about science and movies. And I found out that some of the more involved steampunk people in the area want to march in the Farmington Founder's Day Parade, and that they are opening up a steampunk bookstore in downtown Farmington in September. :D very excited.
The last panel we went to was on the evolution of steampunk, and it had G.D. Falksen talking about the historical and literary aspects of steampunk, and Evelyn Kriete (who seemed very tired) talking about how she'd made friends with a bunch of artists independently doing steampunk stuff back in the early 00's and had organized the first con and gotten the New York Times to pick up the trend. Ms. Kriete had some really interesting rambling stories about the recent evolution of the aesthetic and the difficulty/ease of getting one's artistic movement into the media, and Mr. Falksen talked about the utopian, technophiliac roots of the steampunk aesthetic. Then he fielded a bunch of "Is 'The Golden Compass' steampunk? No, not really. What about H.P. Lovecraft? No, not really. Is my costume steampunk enough? All that matters is that you're having fun and expressing yourself" type questions, and I asked him about if he thought steampunk was colonialist, and he was like, "Well, the movement originally came from Victorian European sci-fi, so that's what most people know, but other countries like Egypt and Japan were industrializing about that time, too, so you can apply that industrialized, technological aesthetic to any culture around that time..." There was more to it, of course, and he gave an interesting mini-lesson on history. The ending question was "What's the next big retro SF thing?" They both decided that it was probably "spy-fi" and the early 1960's mod aesthetic, which should delight the MFU fans on my flist.
That was about it; the only thing going on after that was the Charity Ball, which cost an extra $10, and Jeremy was getting tired. So we hung around in the lobby staring at people's outfits and noting the occasional Chinese businessman looking slightly lost in the midst of the steampunkers (there was a U.S.-China trade thing going on in another room). Really, almost everyone at the con was dressed up, which gave it an extra "time traveler's convention" feel. I want to go back! But I have family stuff going on Sunday and probably Monday. However, I'm seriously planning on attending next year, which will give me time to put together a flapper/Cthulhu cultist outfit (yes, I know it's not steampunk, but it comes next chronologically and I want to be ahead of the curve).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-30 02:47 pm (UTC)A flapper/Cthulhu cultist outfit sounds great to me!
I wish we had steampunk conventions here.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-31 01:38 am (UTC)Man, just see if there are steampunk lovers near where you live (or far; people traveled literally across the country to get to this one) and have a meet-up. This is how cons start!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-31 04:20 am (UTC)1920s steampunk has real possibilities!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-30 06:58 pm (UTC)Anyway.
On my profile friends on Fetlife, you should check out awesomeosaurusrex - he has a steampunk modded wheelchair. You'll fall in love.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-31 01:40 am (UTC)I will have to check him out. :D STEAMPUNK WHEELCHAIR. That's BADASS. ...I saw someone at the con with a steampunk hearing aid. People are so inventive and it makes me happy.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-01 01:24 pm (UTC)How did the steampunk hearing aid work out?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-30 09:29 pm (UTC)That sounds fantastic, I want to go! And I'd love to hear more on the answer to the colonialism question -- that's something a lot of steampunk glosses over, sometimes in angry-making ways. Anyway, envious! The whole convention sounds like so much fun!!
And I look forward to the flapper outfit. :D I may skip ahead and to 1940s "radiopunk" (I just made that up). YAY COSTUMES AND PLAYING DRESS-UP!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-31 01:44 am (UTC)Radiopunk sounds completely awesome! I know there is "dieselpunk" which is supposed to be 40's-ish, but I like your word for it better. You can always make up your own look and movement and have it be new!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-31 01:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-31 01:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-02 03:29 am (UTC)I'm interested in doing more costuming over the summer. Let me know if you want to work on something? I love sewing parties.
If it's in Dearborn next year, we'll likely go -- and in costume. What costume? Well... I haven't decided yet. I may fiddle with this one a bit: <http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31088673&l=6da16fa2e7&id=69500684>. I already have to fix a busted seam in the back where I didn't lace my corset tight enough underneath and laced the over-dress too tightly. I think I'll add pick-ups in the skirt and find an appropriate necklace.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-02 07:14 pm (UTC):D I would love to have a sewing party at some point! Still working on mastering the art of patchwork pillows, but I'm surprised how easy this all is. We will definitely have to get together at some point and talk costuming.