Rixosous

Balticon 2011 Schedule

My exciting schedule of events for Balticon this weekend, with official descriptions and my comments:

Friday 10:00pm-midnight, Valley (Ball) Room
Dancing in the Gears Steam Punk Ball
Susan de Guardiola with Irene Urban and Jeff Poretsky (floor managers)
Attention all aeronauts, aethernauts, lady and gentleman adventurers, mad scientists, inventors, and other Steampunks and neo-Victorians! Join us at 10 pm  Friday night at for a time-traveling formal evening at the Steampunk Ball!  Become part of the living clockwork of Victorian and Victorian-inspired set dances and spin madly with your partner to romantic waltzes and lively polkas. No previous experience is needed; all dances will be taught by dance mistress Susan de Guardiola. Music will be an eclectic mix of modern and nineteenth century. Steampunk, neo-Victorian, or Victorian costume encouraged and admired but not required. Airships and time machines should be parked outside the ballroom. No sabers, ray guns, or clanks permitted on the dance floor.

(I wrote this description, so it's accurate!)

Saturday night/Sunday morning midnight-1:30am, Salon A
Eye of Argon - the Play
Susan de Guardiola, Daniel Kimmel, Marty Gear, Walter H. Hunt, Hildy Silverman, Michael A. Ventrella
"One of the genre's most beloved pieces of appalling prose" presented in all its theatrical glory." 

(Actually, we've sort of combined reading the play with a Survivor-style voting-off-the-island system that leaves the rejected readers acting out the story as we keep reading.  Calling this a play is kind of a stretch.  This is the third time out for Hildy, Michael, and I's roving Argon road show.  Maybe we'll read the second half of the story this time!)

Sunday, 11:00am-12:00noon, Valley (Ball) Room     
Martian Parlor Croquet: A Steampunk Diversion
Susan de Guardiola, Jeff Poretsky, Irene Urban
Victorian explorers, adventurers, chrononauts, and aethernauts! Join us in the fine sands of the remote Martian Canal Estates, where the well-dressed 19th-century tourist and all civilized alien entities may indulge in the genteel yet cutthroat Martian pastime of parlor croquet. Portable gravity generators encouraged to prevent loss of croquet balls into the aether.  Tentacular assistance prohibited.

(I wrote this description too.  We have tiny croquet mallets and we are not afraid to use them!)

Sunday, 3:00pm-4:50pm, Parlor 1041
Regency Tea and Games
Susan de Guardiola, Irene Urban, Jeff Poretsky
Come join us for afternoon High Tea and Regency era games.

(That's not what I sent them!  Here's the longer version:  Take a trip back in time to the society of early 19th century England and the games played during the era of Jane Austen, "Master and Commander", and the Napoleonic Wars!  Enjoy the pleasures of whist, the intricacy of picquet, or a cutthroat session of spillikins.  Games will be taught.  Regency costume encouraged (but not required).  Tea and light nibbles will be served!)

Balticon 44 Schedule

I'm off to Balticon this weekend, feeling very sad due a whole lot of bad life things falling on me lately and yet another birthday.  This has negatively affected my planning, so I won't be quite as shiny and well-costumed as I'd hoped, but at least I'll be skinnier (twenty-three pounds lost since mid-February). 

I haven't actually received a formal schedule, but I think I'm just doing three special events in the main ballroom:

Steampunk World's Fair Schedule

I'm going to be scooting home from Kalamazoo very quickly this year to do a couple of things at the Steampunk World's Fair this weekend.  My schedule:

Friday, Embassy Suites Ballroom, 8:00-9:00: Victorian Dance Lesson

Friday, Embassy Suites Ballroom, 9:00-10:00: Victorian Ballroom Dancing

Saturday, Embassy Suites Ballroom, 2:30-3:30: Victorian Dance Etiquette

Yes, there's sort of a theme here. 

For the etiquette class I'll discuss ballroom manners and dance cards and teach people how to bow or curtsy in proper Victorian style.

I'll be around at the Fair in between these and into Saturday evening, but probably will go home that night since I have a million things to do to get ready for Balticon (Steampunk Ball!  Hoopdance!  Martian Croquet!)  I'm hoping to see/hear Professor Elemental perform, but otherwise I have no special plans except enjoying myself.  I will probably be underdressed relative to everyone else.

As usual, I'd love to say hi to any Rixo readers; catch me at the end of one of my sessions for best results.

A Scandalous Ball in Bohemia ~ Saturday, March 27, 2010, New Haven, CT

From the unpublished journals of J____ W______, M.D.

March 1, 188_

...after which unfortunate misadventure I arrived in his well-remembered chambers at a quarter to seven o'clock to find H_____ absent and an envelope to my address upon the mantel containing a  card of invitation for a most unusual ball:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The honor of your presence is requested at

Eight o'clock P.M.
Saturday, March 27th
Pratt Hall

for an evening of Terpsichorean Delights in the company of

The most Bohemian citizens of London town, including 

EXPLORERS, Actors, Mesmerists, Gamblers, INVENTORS,
Artists, Opera-Dancers, WRITERS, Adventuresses,
Military Gentlemen, American Expatriates, and POETS. 

Fancy dress is Requested.

Absolute Discretion is assured to All in attendance.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And which frozen dessert are you?

I had been planning to wear the Fluffy Ostrich Feather Thing to the Technocrat's Ball Saturday night, but it was apparent by about Thursday that it was just not going to happen.  A new plan was needed.  With a dance to run Friday night I didn't actually get around to thinking about it until Saturday morning when it was time to pack for the trip, at which point I was undecided between the Usual Black Bustle Thing with steampunk accessories, the Steampixie outfit, or some variation on the Mad Hatter bit I wore back in January to the Baltimore ball.

Since this was a CVD ball (meaning that I was not in charge of anything and expected to be dancing seriously), I ruled out the Mad Hatter, 'cause the hat is just not ideal for lively polkas and such.  I didn't want to just go with one of the other two outfits because I've worn them a lot for events.  But while I was studying the peach 1904 corset I wear with the Steampixie thing, I suddenly remembered that I had a bustle underskirt and drapery piece in very similar colors.  And I even knew where they were.  Out they came, and they turned out to be a rather good color match, though a 1904 corset does not make for the greatest silhouette with a bustle.  I cackled a little over the whole scheme, since no one expects me to wear pastels other than lavender.  I wouldn't be fabulously steampunk, but at least I'd be unusual.

Mortal Engines

I like Philip Reeve's YA Steampunk novels Larklight and Starcross so much that I am quite happy to give anything else he's written a try.  I finally picked up Mortal Engines (2001), the first book in the quartet known as either the Hungry City Chronicles or simply the Mortal Engines Quartet, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on.  Mortal Engines is once again billed as YA fiction (and even won a couple of awards as YA/children's literature), but it seems aimed at a more mature audience than the Larklight books.

The concept behind this series is grand: in a post-apocalyptic world the descendants of the survivors of the Sixty Minute (nuclear) War live in mobile Traction Cities that survive by city-eat-city Municipal Darwinism, crunching up smaller cities and towns for their raw materials and absorbing or enslaving their citizens.  Opposing them is the Anti-Traction League of non-mobile cities and villages, based primarily in Asia.  Merchant airships and scruffy independent pilots travel between the Traction Cities and the floating city of Airhaven.

Within the great city of London, Third Class Apprentice Historian Tom Natsworthy interrupts an assassination attempt on the great explorer-archeologist Thaddeus Valentine and finds himself unexpectedly left behind on the ground in the company of the prickly and mysterious Hester Shaw.  Fabulous shenanigans ensue as they try to catch up with London while being pursued by the Stalker Grike, a sort of mad cross between a Terminator and a Cyberman, who is weirdly obsessed with Hester.  Encounters with the dashing and dangerous lady adventurer Miss Fang and the comical Peavey, captain of the pirate suburb of Tunbridge Wheels and would-be gentleman, keep things lively.  But back in London, Valentine's daughter Katherine and Apprentice Engineer Bevis Pod discover that London and its Guild of Engineers are playing for much larger stakes than a few munched-up towns with the mysterious MEDUSA device.

Other than the unlikely youthful protagonists who end up at the center of events, Reeve makes no concessions to audience age.  The Stalker is scary.  The body count is high and some of the deaths genuinely painful.  There are plenty of bad puns and other jokes that will entertain adult readers.  And the world of the Traction Cities is terrific, with the simultaneously logical and hilarious concept of Municipal Darwinism and the flag-waving citizens watching on viewing screens as their cities pursue each other across the landscape while fluttering Historians classify Disney characters as "the animal-headed gods of lost America."

I highly recommend Mortal Engines and can't wait to read the rest of the quartet and its prequels.  This is exactly what I like in Steampunk.

See for yourself:

Worse than SteamyPunk?

Not only has Katie MacAlister written what sounds like the worst Steampunk novel ever -- romance/chick-lit with a Steampunk veneer -- she has also stolen a photograph by Tarilyn Quinn of rather more genuine Steampunk author G.D. Falksen to use as the basis for her hero in a YouTube promotional video.

The video is here, at least for the moment:

I can't believe Penguin is going to be all that thrilled about being party to theft, so it may not be up long.  Compare with the photo here.

Even aside from the whole copyright-what-copyright? angle, listening to the breathless narration makes me choke with laughter:

A whirlwind romance that just may cause their airship to combust and ignite in a passion that will forever change the world as she knows it

'Cause, y'know, the Hindenburg disaster is exactly what you want to think about in a moment of passion.

Judging from the promo, this might actually be worse than SteamyPunk, though I'm not willing to sacrifice either time or money enough to find out for myself.

(And a note to Ms. MacAlister: when I think of "igniting passion" and "incredible gadgetry," a punked-up wristwatch is not the first thing that comes to mind.)

(1/30/10 Edited to add:  The video has now been pulled; no surprise.  A screencap is at left; click to enlarge.  A copy of the video has been posted with a record of the multiple thefts of artistic property -- background, watches, etc. -- here.  The author blames it all on the video production company, MyNextDemo, which is supposedly a professional producer.  One has to wonder how many other images they've stolen for their other videos.  You can see MacAlister's failure to apologize or accept any responsibility in the comments here.)

A Clockwork Werewulf Playlist

Several people asked for the names of individual songs or a complete playlist from Saturday's Steampunk Ball.  It was an interesting event to prepare for; "Steampunk music" is a rather vague term, and much of what is labeled as such is useless for doing any sort of historical dance to.  (Left: mid-waltz at the Ball; click to enlarge)

My musical plan for this event was an eclectic mix of nineteenth-century tunes with modern tunes to which you could do Victorian dances.  I'd thought I was overpreparing, but things moved at a pretty snappy pace, so I actually went though everything I'd prepared and then some.

I didn't keep track of the music I was playing before the official start, but here is a list of the tunes, in order, that were the ball itself from when I started calling.  For the most part, I've put in links to where you can purchase either an MP3 of the individual tune or the album on which it is found.  The exceptions are where the album appears to be out of print or is otherwise beyond my ability to find online.

A Clockwork Werewulf: Steampunk Ball in Baltimore (January 23, 2010)

A word to any Maryland-or-vicinity Rixo folks:

I'm going to be precepting a Victorian Steampunk Ball in Baltimore this Saturday, January 23rd, 2010, as a fundraiser for research against Multiple Sclerosis.  Dancing will be creatively Victorian, to a mix of Victorian and modern music.  That means a mix of called set dances (contras and quadrilles) and couple dances (waltzes, polkas, schottisches).  There will be ample instruction and the set dances in particular are very beginner-friendly.  And yes, we will do my "Airship Pirates" quadrille in its beginner-friendly version!

For more information:

Team Greykell's blog.

There's also a Facebook page, but damned if I can figure out how to link to it directly from outside Facebook.  Color me clueless!

Any help spreading the word would be appreciated, and it would be great to see more friends there!

Aetheric Mechanics

I fully meant to read Warren Ellis' graphic novella Aetheric Mechanics (Apparat, 2008; art credits Gianluca Pagliarini, Chris Dreier, Juanmar) before the Hugo nomination deadline so I could see whether I wanted to nominate it in the one-shot Graphic Story category.  I didn't quite manage it due to an oversupply of life the last month.  But I finally sat down with it today and enjoyed the story a great deal, though the art is a little bit busy for my tastes.  At a little under fifty pages, it's quite a fast read.  While it doesn't matter for the Graphic Story category, I wonder if it would even qualify as a [Hugo category] novella by word count alone.

The story begins in March, 1907, with one Captain Doctor Robert Watcham returning to London from the front lines of an unspecified war.  It's quickly clear that this is a Steampunk sort of alternate history: the war is being conducted in space as well as on Earth by the Royal Navy Outer Service, and the enemy is...not what I expected.

"Since Ruritania annexed Grand Fenwick, they've been trying to launch the odd picket overhead.  What with that and American privateers spotted around Mars, it's a busy time."

Steamypunk

Serge recently sent me five miniature 'zines of "steampunk erotica" under the collective label SteamyPunk, which I read while sitting around Darkovercon.  Like Serge, who mentioned them on his LiveJournal back in November, I was disappointed.  The 'zines sell for $1 each and are available at the SteamyPunk website, where you can also just read the stories for free.  I recommend that approach; you can always send the authors money through the website if you find the stories exciting enough to warrant it.  I didn't.  These stories make me wonder if I misunderstand the entire concept of steampunk, since I find it almost entirely missing here.

Warning: I'm going to talk about the stories in some detail, though not gorily explicit detail, below.  Stop reading now if you can't handle this or if for some reason you don't want spoilers.

Airship Pirates!

Steampunk band Abney Park has finished the music video of "Airship Pirate," which I embed here for your viewing pleasure:

While I appreciate a good, thumping beat as much as anyone, I prefer it to be accompanied by lyrics I like as well, and now that I can mostly understand them (not the case at Saloncon with the disastrous sound system) I am suddenly much more into Abney Park than I was before.  I am particularly taken with the chorus:

With a crew of drunken pilots
We're the only Airship Pirates!
We're full of hot air and we're starting to rise
We're the terror of the skies
But a danger to ourselves now

Full lyrics are here.

After watching/listening to/singing along with this repeatedly, a strange, trancelike state came over me, and I moved slowly to one of my bookcases, where stuffed inside the pages of an elderly cookbook was a scrap of paper upon which I found the following:

Saloncon '08 Ramblings

A few thoughts on last weekend's Saloncon, which I spent merrily absorbing the steampunk aesthetic.  Saloncon bills itself as Victoriana for the 21st century, which apparently means sort of Victorian-Goth with a heavy dose of steampunk.  Overall: small con, somewhat underorganized, but I had a great time.  I took too many pictures to intersperse them in this post, so I've put them all into a photo album which has been up for a couple of days but which folks may not have noticed if they aren't reading the pre-Saloncon steampunk thread.  Follow on for my ramblings...

Studyin' Some Steampunk (Saloncon!)

I'm heading down to Saloncon in Somerset, New Jersey this weekend, which will be my first-ever Steampunk event.  I'm going to be teaching a little bit of Victorian dance (ably assisted by Raven) Saturday afternoon, but otherwise will just be hanging out and enjoying guest author Catherynne Valente's program items and generally soaking up the ambiance.  I would love to do a Steampunk ball (Victorian style) sometime or lure some Steampunk folks into historical dancing.  Plus, I find the whole concept fascinating.