Issue 01
May 2010
Issue 01
May 2010
“The World’s Fair: My Secret Steampunk Agenda” by Jeff Mach This is an adaptation of some earlier words. It was a rant, and I wouldn’t claim otherwise-but it’s also the core of something I believe very much, and something I want to convey to others. We have a unique moment in Steampunk; we may have a unique moment in the history of subcultural movements in the West in the past two hundred years. We have the privilege and the opportunity to take this in our hands and mold it, and I, for one, plan to grab the Bos primigenius by the horns and run with it. Let me be specific: Folks, I plan to smash down genre walls with my goddamn face, and I’m going to smash them down so hard that people hundreds of years later will still be finding bits of them and selling bits of broken brick as souvenirs to the fall of unnecessary division between us folks out here on the fringe.
I’ve spent the past ten years trying to create events which would appeal for just about everyone whose tastes go beyond, or outside, the ”mainstream”-whatever the hell that is. I quit my job, lost most of an eye, damaged my wrists, and destroyed my credit; you think I’d give that away todo something which excluded you? As an event developer, I’m in an interesting position. There are still quite few Steampunk events. And a lot of people know me from my otherwork, with, say, Wicked Faire. They come up to me, or write to me, and say,”Jeff, I’m not into Steampunk/I don’t know enough about Steampunk/I don’t have fancy clothes/I’m
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May 2010
“Raising Steam in New Jersey” by Matt DeBlass The weekend of May 14, 15 and 16 marks the start of a whole new type of Steampunk event, the Steampunk World’s Fair, held in Piscataway, New Jersey. What makes this event somewhat unique, said co-organizer Jeff Mach, is that while most Steampunk gatherings are more in the mode of a convention designed to appeal mostly to Steam aficionados, the World’s Fair is a festival, welcoming to all regardless of whether they’ve had any previous retro-futuristic experience. Mr. Mach said he was first clued in to the subculture when folks in neo-Victorian garb began to appear at his other major event, the Wicked Faire. “I was fascinated by the potential in the
movement,” he said, “also, I like mechanical arms.” Mr. Mach joined forces with Josh Marks, formerly of Salon. com, and Whisper and Cap of the Penny Dreadfuls to create what may be one of the biggest Steampunk gatherings on the planet. An exciting prospect, he said, but not nearly as exciting as the chance to create an event that brings together so many elements of the Steampunk, from music to invention to intellectual discourse. Mr. Mach and his compatriots also take a broad view of what is part of the genre. “the only person who’s qualified to decide what is and isn’t Steampunk is Jules Verne,” he said, “and, as anyone who’s ever raised Jules Verne’s ghost knows, whenever you ask him about ‘Steampunk’ he just begins ranting about The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, So it appears that we can never truly say what is and is not Steampunk.” In fact, he says, one of the strengths of the genre is that it
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“Today’s News of Yesterday’s Tomorrow.”
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