Posted By Steampunk Tribune on May 18, 2013
A tad late on the notification, but this evening the Piermont Landing will host the Return to the Emerald Ball, starting at 6pm, SLT! Ensure you have the opportunity to indulge in the return of the Steamland’s wonderful social season, by heading over to http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wheatstone%20Waterways/72/70/107 – see you there!
Posted By Dieselpunks.org on May 17, 2013
Swiss vehicles are far less famous than Swiss watches, Swiss cheese and Swiss pocket knives. Let’s give some Dieselpunk love to Helvetic omnibuses!
In Switzerland, dozens of Saurer, FBW and Berna buses, as good as new, are the stars of numerous automotive events. Thanks to Elmar (orangevolvobusdriver4u, on Flickr) we can have them in our Garage this Friday. Enjoy!
FBW
Saurer
Saurer
FBW
Berna
Saurer
Saurer
Saurer
Berna
Saurer
Saurer
FBW
Saurer
Berna
Saurer
Saurer
All photos by orangevolvobusdriver4u, on Flickr
Posted By Steampunk Magazine on May 17, 2013
Captain Mobius is just your average everyman: he’s fifty-something, retired with a partial physical disability… and he has a mission: you see, he’s recreating the Nautilus from Walt Disney’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ as a 36-foot, 5 passenger lake-going boat, and doing it single-handedly.
In a recent conversation from an undisclosed location somewhere in Georgia, Captain Mobius explained his manifold motivations for the Nautilus Project.
The seed was planted in 1962, when his father took the then 6-year-old Captain Mobius to see Disney’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’. “I would make believe I was every character in that movie except the giant squid,” he chuckled reflectively. This early experience fostered life-long loves of both science-fiction and the sea. He taught himself to sail by age 30, scratch-building several sailing vessels over the years.
Had ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ movie not been released in 2003, the Nautilus Project might never have happened. The CGI imagining of Nemo’s massive Nautilus in that film was an affront to Captain Mobius. CGI had freed film-makers from respecting physical laws, and Captain Mobius felt that version of the Nautilus was just all wrong. “The great movie model-makers are all gone. At least they made things look like they’d work!” Perhaps we should be thanking them for providing the impetus for the Nautilus Project.
So Captain Mobius started to work, designing with pencil, ruler and paper his homage to the only rightful movie Nautilus, the 1954 masterpiece made by Harper Goff for the Disney production. He spent three years planning every detail and every stage of the construction, using only techniques available to the average, self-educated person (like him).
Concessions had to be made to the techniques used and the scale of the design. The size of the main hatch had to be adjusted, as it would have scaled to only 12 inches wide. He also had to build his Nautilus replica from the outside in, rather than the inside out technique usually employed. This meant building the outer skin to exact alignments and dimensions before adding the interior ribbing and keel; it was the only way he could do it single-handedly, which was a goal central to the project. “I wanted to shake people’s notion that the disabled are feeble. And I wanted to show what an average person can do if they just set their mind to it.”
Posted By Steampunk Workshop on May 16, 2013
Posted By Steampunk Tribune on May 16, 2013
Posted By The Chap on May 15, 2013
The Fitzrovia Radio Hour is 5 years old! To celebrate this joyous occasion, the 1940s radio troupe are performing a special birthday show at Brasserie Zedel – next to Piccadilly Circus tube, London – on Wednesday 29th May to Sat 1st June at 7.30pm. www.fitzroviaradio.com for tickets!
“Absolutely spiffing!” The Daily Telegraph
“Jolly good show!” The Chap
Posted By The Steampunk Librarian on May 14, 2013
It's Ay-leen the Peacemaker's birthday today! Stop by Beyond Victoriana and celebrate!
Posted By Dieselpunks.org on May 14, 2013
Welcome to Two-Fisted Tuesdays, where we throw on our trench coats, don our fedoras, and walk down the mean streets of classic crime fiction.
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a crime drama that ran for over 12 years during the golden age of radio. The main character, Johnny Dollar, was a smart, tough, wisecracking insurance detective who tossed silver-dollar tips to waiters and bellhops. While always a friend of the police, Johnny wasn’t necessarily a stickler for the strictest interpretation of the law. He was willing to let some things slide to satisfy his own sense of justice, as long as his employers were also protected.
Download this week’s episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar:
Special thanks to Scott from Dieselpunk Industries for tipping us to Johnny Dollar’s radio adventures.
Boston Blackie, enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend, was created by pulp author Jack Boyle. He appeared in Boyle’s 1920 novel Boston Blackie, which was a compilation of his short stories “Boston Blackie’s Mary” and “Fred the Count,” published in Red Book Magazine in Nov. 1917 and Jan. 1918, respectively. Originally conceived as a jewel thief and safecracker in Boyle’s stories, Blackie became a “reformed” criminal and private detective in later adaptions. Blackie made the jump to silent films treatments in the late teens and early twenties, eventually scoring big time in 1941 thanks to Columbia’s Boston Blackie series.
In this week’s picture, Confessions of Boston Blackie, Blackie is accused of murdering a man at an art auction, which leads to the uncovering of an art racket. Although the charming detective is suspect number one whenever a daring crime is committed, Boston Blackie’s adventures always find a way to bring the actual culprit to justice.
Watch Boston Blackie in Confessions of Boston Blackie (1941)
Posted By Dieselpunks.org on May 13, 2013
Hello, old sport. Have I seen The Great Gatsby? But of course! It’s simply the talk of the town, and anybody who’s anyone was there at the premiere.
Let me say that Baz Luhrmann, the director of this shindig, really knows how to throw a party. His bombastic style is the perfect technicolor stage for a story about the 1920s. I didn’t want to miss a beat, so I re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of obsession just last week. Like most people, I originally read the story in high school, but I’ve also had the pleasure of reading Trimalchio, Fitzgerald’s first-pass at the Gatsby story, sometime in 2002. If the high school book was the masterpiece, then Trimalchio is the unedited director’s cut. With my brain fully loaded with hype, I was ready to slap on a pair of 3D glasses at my local IMAX.
That’s not entirely true. As a marketing professional, I’m pretty jaded. I know that movies are movies and books are books, and I know that other celebrated directors like Francis Ford Coppola have run this gamut before and failed. That set the bar a little lower for my expectations, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was walking into.
Let me reassure you all that it didn’t disappoint. The movie ran true to the story with the exception of two minor elements that, if anything, enhanced the pacing of the film. The first act introduces us to the narrator, the main characters, and the decadence of a setting that could only be described as a rap video as shot with rich white folks in the ‘20s. The second act drives the suspense with quite a few moving moments, and the third act concludes with a gunshot. I would enjoy seeing it again, and I would recommend the 3D version. It doesn’t add too much to the storytelling, but the movie was shot in 3D (not converted after-the-fact) and there quite a few elements that benefit from the effect that wouldn’t translate well to 2D.
Posted By Mage Ingeneur on May 13, 2013
This is the beginning of a new sound system I am creating. As you can see from the pictures the wooden case is for holding 6 bouilles. This will house a 25 watt amplifier with a brass horn and cradle for an iPhone or iPad. I haven’t decided if I will include bluetooth yet. The original case was thrown out by someone and looks a lot worse for wear than the photograph. I spent the next few days cleaning it up in readiness to make it a desirable and useable artefact.
Posted By Steampunk Tribune on May 12, 2013
Posted By Dieselpunks.org on May 11, 2013
NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You Dry bastards! You dumped it out! Damn you! Damn you to hell!!
Oh, the humanity! The bastards have done it! That damned Russell and his pack of meddling preacher pals and nattering old nannies have, against the will of the majority, pressured through the 18th Amendment, making the production, consumption, and distribution of alcoholoic beverages illegal in these United States.
Yes, an amendment that removes a public right rather than protects a right…think about that precident for a minute.
Now, the Temperance Movement and their firebrand Anti-Saloon League radicals can claim the high moral ground all they want, but remember that these same guys and gals put the Washingtonian movement, an honest and highly-sucessful self-help by drunkards for drunkards group, out of business for having the audacity to be more sucessfull at helping people break their drinking problems than the traditional temperance approach of judgementally berating them as “dirty sinners”. Keep in mind also the company these so-called Temperance folks keep: yep, they’re closely allied to our “old frineds” the Klan. Those same whiskey-swilling murderers in the white robes. No longer content to simply hang colored folks or harass catholics, the KKK was an instrumental ally in the 18th Amendment and the follow-on Volstead Act.
Hooray for American Democracy.
Now the government is going on a booze-dumping spree, disgracefully pouring gallon after gallon into the rivers (lucky fish). Not just the hard stuff neither, but beer and wine, even communion wine – so much for Christian Soldiers. Apparently spilling the blood of the savior is a perfectly acceptable collateral casualty to these hypocrites in their War on Rum.
Meanwhile, you can talk to the Reefer Man right there on the street corner in Harlem or swing by Chinatown and kick the gong any time, but having a beer after a hard day at the factory? Nice try, you filthy sinner!
I hardly know what to play for today’s Cabaret. Some mourning song, perhaps. A down-tempo durge? Or bow to our new white-gowned temperance overlords and play “Not One Drop”.
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