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STEAM PUNK ARTICLE

What is the concept called STEAMPUNK? Is it nostalgia, a fad, a fashion trend, a movement, lost arts, a new way of thinking, or something else?

It may surprise some to find out that the concept has been around as long as the Industrial Revolution began to change Victorian society from the gentile agri-business export-import of royal merchants to the gray, sooty, coal fired gear symphony of the Modern Age of Manufacturing which swept away the naiveté of rural independence into the rapids of intense urbanization.

It has always been part of our collective RNA: to create and re-create things. To mold, change, link the creative elements of the right side of the brain to the practical application of the left side of the brain.

To retrofit, to accessorize, to make old from new: steam punk philosophy. People shaping metal, gears, recycling in wood and brass is the cornerstone of the movement. The prime example of this part of the culture can be found at steampunkworkshop. Another site is steampunklab.

For authors and literary references, from H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, to Kurt Vonnegut, look to steampunk.com.

If you are looking for the art and esthetic movement, parlaying more than brass and watch part reconstruction, go to the steampunkhome.

This is only the tip of the cultural iceberg. Google or Yahoo Search STEAMPUNK, especially under the Images engine, to find thousands of links.

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STEAM PUNK MUSIC EXPERIMENT

There is no distinctive “sound” associated with the Steampunk culture. Some critics have argued that it is part Goth, part Industrial. Many music fans believe that it is has no sound of its own because the concept is more a moving target: like original hard core punk morphed into a more commercial hard rock sound.

But there is a lost “sound” that many generations have forgotten or rarely had the change to hear. There was a time when men and women worked in large factories where the machines themselves created a loud symphony of engineered moving parts; the steam pulse of moving pistons, the squeaks of pulleys, the clanging of glass on metal, the torque of electric engines or the whirling of overhead fans.

So we have created an instrumental on our take on what steampunk music could sound like:

Chicago Ski & the (audio) Real News presents

Steampunk

(mp3/4;14 length)

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STEAM PUNK FASHION COSTUME

Fashion has been described as the recycling past wardrobe failures as nouveau at higher prices. Nostalgia and the consumerism fear of not being hip enough drives a basic human necessity into the luxury class.

In the heyday of Silicon Valley internet start-ups, the business suit and tie culture was thrown away for the casual golf shirt, cargo pants and sandals look of beach wear. The new work place dress standard began to cross all levels of business, including the professions. It even crossed to low points when weekend crude was showing up inappropriately at the office. Critics found that the casual nature of business dress led to a more casual attitude toward work productivity. Some old clients could not get around the concept of a twenty-something wandering into their work place like it was a Van Nuys taco shack on a Saturday afternoon. Image still has value, even in a fashion conscious society.

Steam punk fashion could be described as a retro combination of Dr. Who and Jules Verne mixed with the 1980s punk rock of the Clash. The cue is something gearish: a sprocket watch or chain, and the 1800s style thick driving goggles with Victorian shirts and frock coats. Women often combine frilly shirts, corsets with high heels and tight leggings. Men tend to settle on a Back to the Future style of a tinkering inventor.

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STEAM PUNK PROJECT ski

There is an empty old fashioned ALTOIDS mint tin on my desk. It is a throwback design to when apothecaries and pharmacists packaged their medicines, including peppermints, in tins. As most of the world is aware, Coca-Cola began as a medicinal beverage in an Atlanta pharmacy.

Next to this mint tin, is a brand new 4GB Gizmo high speed USB drive that is the size of a key chain (3 inches by one inch).

In researching the Steampunk story, I found that many new SPs were drawn to the concept of retro-fitting new technology in old shells. The prime example is using an old manual typewriter keyboard and hook it up to a modern computer.

So I was thinking about the new key chain drive and the empty mint can . . . then it struck me to recycle one with the other. Placing the Gizmo inside the tin, I found the dimensions almost perfect to line up two or three of these USB drives in a row. Punch out the connection slots on the side, and solder clips to the bottom of the tin, you can easily cradle the USB drives inside the tin.

From the outside, it would appear to be an iconic peppermint candy tin. But once you open it up, you find that you are holding 8 to 16 GB of computer storage!

All that is left to put this project into motion. Finding the right tools, the finding or more likely cutting on the appropriate drive clips.

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CYBERPUNK FUTURE ESSAY

When General Motors filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, it signaled the end of the American Industrial Age. It became a victim of a societal change that allowed those with the least collective knowledge to run the most important economic engines of the nation. Before the final words are put on the tombstone, it is time to look in the mirror.

America is at an important crossroad. The current economic decline needs to be reviewed in the objective review of the distant past and the character of past American enterprising individuals who changed the course of history to see what our future might hold.

In the final stages of the Bush II administration and the early months of the Obama administration, it is clear that every governmental micro-management decision in regard to the crisis de jour (financial, mortgage, insurance, credit, automobile) was absolutely wrong. The trillions of taxpayer dollars vanished in the dark pit of current financial dogma. Nothing changed. No one had the common sense to realize that the the federal government cannot micro-manage the entire U.S. economy, an economy made up more of individual consumers and small businessmen than multi-national corporations enslaved in the Wall Street quarterly expectation and debt instrument tornado cycles of near sighted MBA executives who have never run a business, except from academic theory classes.

Hunter S. Thompson called it the Generation of Swine. A few 1960s economists warned that the rise of academic-government complex would one day overtake and destroy the military-industrial complex. It is a simple equation forgotten as quickly as medieval Europe forgot the recipe for cement: manufacturing adds tangible value in each step of the process while an academic-professional economy (a service based one) equates to no value added steps - - - and a subsequent lower standard of living. When America took over the title as Industrial Titan, Europe fell back into a second tier-service economy mode. It found itself with limited exports and growing imports. It found itself with rising unemployment and higher social welfare costs to keep the populous from welding pitchforks in the streets of Paris or Berlin.

Maybe it would be more appropriate to call the current leadership elite as the Generation of Arrogant Stupidity. The average person is now coming to realize that the federal, state and local governments are foaming at the mouth like a crack addict looking for more revenue to feed their collective public Beast. The US government total debt obligations is more than $64 trillion: that is more than five times the Gross Domestic Product of the nation. In other words, if every single dollar generated in the private sector for the next five years was taken by the federal government to pay down its debt, we would still be in debt.

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THE WHETHER REPORT

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STATUS

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream