Brazilian Steampunk

What could be better?

Neo-Victorians

Kids these days. It used to be that you'd get your velvet frock coat and welder's goggles on and fly your homemade airship down to the corner pub like a proper steampunk. Now they've gone and taken the punk (and most of the steam) out of the movement, and are dressing like great granddad, with bowlers and whiskers and whatnot.

Now, where did I put my tophat & spats?

House Porn 12: The New Antiquarians

Brooklynites use taxidermy, silversmithing, sculling equipment and old cabinetry to feather their nests. My house looks like this, but not on purpose, so I don't get an NYT article.

I am, however, finally reading Against Nature, which provides some really great decorating ideas. Now, I'm off to encrust my toroise in jewels.

Frankenfurniture

Remixed furniture by Courtney Smith.

(via boingboing)

Tom Sepe

Tom Sepe is a chef, actor, welder, steampunk bike creator, graphic designer, comedian, Burning Man dragon car instantiator, industrial arts instructor, and man much about town. In short, he's a classic Bay Area Renaissance Dude.



(via Jake von Slatt)

The Illuminated Astrolabe/ Shiva Mandala

Art Donovan built this great steampunk sculpture. It looks like it's partially under the influence of Paul Laffoley, and partially under the influence of the Chronophage.

The Corpus Clock, aka The Chronophage

It's Made of Tubes

In the "everyone's linking to this today" category, here's some of Molly Wright Steenson's work on pneumatic tubes, part of her forthcoming dissertation. Part II here. The impetus for tubes? Encoding and decoding Morse codes, plus high urban and economic density.

Why did it make sense to send a telegram via pneumatic tube? It was a set of factors related to urban conditions in the 19th century. Cities with high population, heavy commerce and finance and urban congestion made good candidates for pneumatic tube networks. Moreover, in Europe, the pneumatic tube mostly relieved a communication boom caused by inexpensive telegraphy and saturated telegraph networks. Devised as an auxiliary to the telegraph, a medium that could only transmit 40-50 messages of 20 words per hour in 1860, the pneumatic tube network addressed the issue of rapid, reliable communication within the city (though telegraphy still made sense for messages sent over longer distances).

The accompanying images give me shorpy envy.

(via Cory, via Bruce)

Steampunk Item Lust

Deliciously designed items for your Jules Verne-inspired life.

1. The aptly named Studley tool chest, designed and built by a 19th century organ repairman of the same name. Currently part of the Smithsonian collection.

2. Absinthe delivery apparatus, including this lovely spoon.






3. MAKE magazine's Christmas for Steampunks guide, featuring these inexpensive but elegant looking brass instruments.

The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello

An elegant steampunk animation: