Sailing the Aether on Clockwork Wings

I was lucky enough over the past week to attend a course at Rare Book School in Baltimore, centering on the holdings at the Walters Art Museum. I’ll talk about that more over on my academic blog in the next few days (and as always, livejournal and facebook folks will have them aggregated to them so they may get some repeats this time), but I wanted to post some pictures I took of various architectural features at the museum and the surrounding area that might provide inspiration for folks looking to renovate or build something in a generally gothic revival/Victorian flavor. Unfortunately, I don’t know the functions of all the buildings, so some of this is going to end up as a giant photo dump.

On Sunday, I walked around the area between Mt. Vernon Place and Charles Village, just taking pictures of buildings. My end goal was some of the used/antiquarian bookshops there, but unfortunately they were closed. Nevertheless, it was not a wasted trip, since I got to take a lot of building shots:

I also stopped in at their Pennsylvania Station and got some nice interior shots. It’s really a lovely building inside:

Lastly, I took some pictures of buildings on the way back. I especially liked some of the decorative elements:

Although this coffee maker is very cool, I’d be worried about making coffee with leaded glass.

So my calling cards finally arrived today:



They’re not linepress, unfortunately, but still pretty cool.

Here they are with the Evans cigarette case I got as a card holder, for comparison:

Here they are in the case:

I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to use them, since I’m pretty much a pseudo-hermit out here, but now at least I’ll have a card the two times a year I’m asked for one, and I can do all the various card codes when I drop by someone’s office and they aren’t in.

So I just bought myself a vintage printing press with the last of my birthday money. A small one, suitable for making, amongst other things, calling cards.

I’ll have to wait a bit for it to get here and see if the history of the book folks at the Cushing Library would be willing to take a look at it for me and tell me if I need to do any maitenance. Then eventually get a couple of cases of type and be ready the next time I run out of calling cards.

My particular favorite Victorian architecture is the Gothic Revival.  The Gothic Revival was not only a architectural style, however — it’s also a style of furniture.  The reason I mention this is that I really like this computer case, done in a Gothic Revival style.  I would like a bit less stained glass and a bit more wood, but since I don’t have the skills to do this myself I think I’ll just shut up.  If someone wanted to buy it for me, I wouldn’t complain, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll just keep it in mind.

For those that are interested in airships and other things of a mechanical bent:

This is an interesting article about the camouflage schemes used to circumvent optical rangefinders in World War I. I wonder if such techniques could be modified to make sense for aerial or aether combat, or for that matter for uniforms if exotic weaponry is part of your particular steampunk worldview.

Well, the Steampunk Soiree was last night, and I have to say that for a first attempt things went well. I only had a couple of no shows, and everyone made an attempt at a costume. We stayed in persona for a while, but things devolved into dropping out of it and just chatting, which is fine. I figure at the next one people will have more to say, and it’ll just get better every time.

I went down to my folks earlier that day and took my East German military overcoat. While I ran the general party errands, my mom was nice enough to swap the buttons out and put brass epelettes on it. I have pictures of most of the details, but I don’t want to overwhelm people with pictures of things that are just interesting to me, so I’m going to put up some pictures of everyone and if anyone is interested I’ll share the details of various costumes if I have them. I’m waiting a bit to get the proper spelling of names from people, so this post will change and more pictures will be added once I have details.

This is me as Ätherkapitän Matthias Von Halbrach of Silesia — first with my greatcoat, then just in the uniform:

My passengers, such as they were: electro-chemical cattle baron “Big” Bill Crawford and his awful wife Tuhlulah.

Other guests at the Soiree:

Herr Doktor Friedlander and his machina, Ada:

Most of the mechanics for Ada were in a small gearbox, but you can see the control mechanism in the above picture.

Wine enthusiast and airship adventurer Martin Beor:

:

The New Mexican cowboy Little Bill and his boy, who was quite quiet and seemed a bit peckish throughout:

I was not able to get a picture of Lady Arabella Feathersmythe, mostly because she insisted on manning the camera and I was unaware of the fact she’d escaped notice. It may be that in accompanying her late husband in his explorations she came to believe the heathen notions regarding cameras and the soul. The English do tend to go native quite easily, I’ve found.

The coat and pants I wanted to have done for tonight won’t be, unfortunately. My sewing machine is apparently balking (I had made a deal with my mom that I would babysit for her if she would sew the coat and pants for me) and so I’m going to have to go with my backup coat. Which will be hotter than what I had planned because it’s quilted. The totenkampf that I was going to make with the winged skull pieces won’t go on there anyway because it doesn’t have a mandarin collar. That said, I’ll have something put together. I’ll probably buy some khaki cargo pants and the accessories are done, at least.

If, as I’m hoping, this becomes a semi-monthly sort of thing, I can always break out the other coat then.

So I made a medal bar this weekend — I will show it here later in the week. I may, time permitting, modify my less-odd set of goggles to be more brass and leather, but grading comes first.

I’m also trying to decide something regarding music.

I have a pretty decent stereo system. Said stereo system now lives in my library, which is where the restroom for the public is as well. The speakers are up on stands, and look decidedly modern (black-painted wood with a fabric mesh over the face). I am, for many reasons, not willing to modify said speakers to make them look more steampunk. There are three things I could see doing with them (and the computer, as a side note):

1. leave everything as-is and just count on suspension of disbelief.

2. throw cloths over them and make them look like pedestals for various objects of art.

3. do the same thing as 2. but move them out into the living room and use them.

Of the three, 3. is the most attractive option, but with a lot of people in an already crowded space having cables strewn about and free-standing speakers seems a recipe for disaster. If I don’t go with 3, I have this:

Which has nowhere near the sound quality and is more 1930’s and late 1800’s, but has the benefit of being a single contained unit.

I’ll have to give this some thought.

The trailer is here. I’ll wait until you get back.

My initial thoughts on this is that Sam Eillot is an excellent choice for the Texan, even if the Texan in the books is younger. I also wonder if we’re going to get any of the other, non-Lyra’s world characters in this movie, or if they’re just playing up that aspect to attract audiences.

In other news, I’ve been contemplating doing a casemod for the pc in my library. I’m not willing to play around with modding my speakers (unless I can figure out a way to replicate the mesh fronts on them in such a way that I could swap them out and not harm the speakers and retain the old ones) but I would like to give the library a bit more of a neo-victorian/steampunk feel, insofar as my budget allows. Mr. Von Slatt mentioned an excellent casemod from overseas, and it has inspired me. Maybe once the slate of mundane concerns is closer to being abated, during the holidays.

In other news, this weekend is the time I’ve set to finish up my outfit for the soiree. I have an excellent set of boots and if I can find a place that sells rectangular patch blanks I’ll have the collar tabs done. I will put pictures up once I’m finished with the whole thing.