Soviet Star

| July 31, 2012

For once, here is something that hasn’t (completely) popped out my twisted imagination: this somehow funny looking, cartoonish train is based on a real train, a passengers DMU (Diesel Multi Unit) class ДП, which in russian is short for Дизель поезд (Diesel train). Built during WWII by the company Ganz Mavag in Hungary, a company known for building all kinds of trains, trams, ships and of course war technology during both wars, the train was aimed to Nazi Germany, where it was never to be used.

According to some other sources though, it was used in wartime Lithuania, which could explain how it ended up in the Soviet Union after the end of WWII. The company Ganz Mavag made various trains and other technology for the Soviet Union after the war. This is one of the reasons why post war soviet technology is so similar to the technology that was used in the Third Reich: they share the same technological heritage. Ganz Mavag trains are running in Lithuania nowadays, even though they are very old now, still demonstrating the quality and reliability of wartime material.

Don’t you love this photo as much as I do: the controls look so simple and comfortable, but the bars make it look like you are really driving something serious…

Now, for those who wonder how the hell I know about all this since Diesel City isn’t located that far in the East, I hasten to say that I owe my freshly acquired knowledge to my friend Aivaras in Lithuania who is a walking encyclopedia about anything in Eastern Europe that is Diesel or steam powered and runs… or even flies, since Aivaras also provide very helpful information to make my Zephyr picture accurate, a while ago : 

http://www.dieselpunks.org/photo/zephyr-1?context=user

The plane in the picture is famous in Lithuania where it actually shows on banknotes in memoriam of the exploit of its pilot I forgot the name of, an exploit the brave man paid with his own life. With that, I think I will stop dabbling on Lord K.’s territory before it gets me into trouble

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The Voice of Diesel City

| July 3, 2012

Lots of things about Diesel City have seen said and written on these latest weeks, in lots of places, by lots of people. Sure enough, most of them were nice things, making me feel so very proud.

One voice was missing, though, the voice of someone who definitely has something to say about Diesel City. Someone I’m so happy and honored to have the name of bound up with the whole Diesel City project. Someone, though, who was never to give himself the credit for all his hard, wonderful work, would Larry and Johnny hadn’t make his voice heard through their great Diesel Powered Podcast http://dieselpoweredpodcast.wordpress.com/

That someone is no other that our host Tome Wilson and I’m sure you’ll be as thrilled as I was to hear him talk live about his great role in Diesel City: http://bigdaddycoolshows.podomatic.com/

Tome is the voice of Diesel City, the American voice of Diesel City at least and, in more than just one way, Diesel City sure wouldn’t “sound” the way it does without Tome’s literary talent and dedication to the project. By no mean, Tome ever made any servile translation of the original French text. That wouldn’t be doing justice to him, either, to say that he just adaptated it to the American audience and culture. Tome brought to the book his own sensitivity, his extensive, intelligent grasp of the entire Dieselpunk culture (the footnotes of the book are, among other things, an anthology of the noir cinema thank to Tome), his great sense of humor, his knack at writing in the Raymond Chandler’s style (he who has not read a noir story by Tome hasn’t read a noir story at all) and, well… all the amazing, generous personality he puts in everything he does and warmly greats everyone with.

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Diesel City

| June 12, 2012

Over the five plus years that the Steampunk Tribune has been in existence, two of the tenants I’ve endeavored to remain faithful to are: 1) Maintain a focus on the Steampunk genre, and 2) Minimize my review of books.  The first issue is fairly obvious, as it is the “rasion d’etre” for the blog is the genre – people who come to this corner want to read about Steampunk and associated goings on.

The second exists only because RL has been particularly demanding during the past few years, thus reducing the time I have to relax and read.  Though I’ve received numerous generous offers to review Steampunk books, it would be simply wrong to simply accept literature, then not do it justice with a proper review (and the Steampunk Scholar does an yeoman job of Steampunk literature review… and I’d certainly not wish to vex one of Steampunk friendliest academics!)  I always said that it would take something extraordinary to bypass these two dictums – and I have found such a gem with Diesel City.

Diesel City is an endeavor by a Mr. Stefan, (also known as *stefanparis on DeviantArt, for those in the know), is an exceptionally talented multi-media artist who is based out of Paris… but is known for his amazing works regarding the Dieselpunk genre.

I won’t belabor attempting to define “Dieselpunk”, as many who are familiar with Steampunk are certainly aware of this later off shoot of the genre.  (If you are not familiar with Dieselpunk (DP), I would suggest a visit to the online epicenter of Dieselpunk, located at: http://www.dieselpunks.org/).  Though DP has been around for a few years, it has slowly begun emerging and establishing itself apart from its better-known older cousin.



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