“Is it a fact — or have I dreamt it — that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?” - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Antipodean League of Temporal Voyagers is pleased to confirm that our Year’s End celebration Euchronia will take place again this year. We invite persons of quality and taste to join with us in celebrating the dawn of 2011 in a pageant of sartorial and terpsichorean exuberance.
The managing committee will be delighted to entertain performance proposals suited to the spirit of the event. Interested parties are encouraged to contact admin@euchronia.com. The committee propose to provide additional details concerning the evening’s entertainment, and to make a first tranche of tickets available for sale, on the 27th of September, 2010. (Additionally, League memberships will once again be made available from that date.)
We look forward with anticipation to the privilege of your company.
Very late notice (only found out recently myself) but Gail Carriger of the Parasol Protectorate series will be in Pulp Fiction today (Sat 28th Aug) from 2:30 pm. I’ve rang the shop and they said they welcome people in their Steam Finery.
If you haven’t read the books already I’d recommend them - they have elements of science but it does mostly focus on a paranormal late 1800s.
Tags: book signing, parasol protectorate
Melbourne author Lucy Sussex’s book of 19th Century ship’s diaries, Saltwater in the Ink, will be launched at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival (Federation Square) on 29 August at 11am. The launch will feature a choir performing “For Those in Peril on the Sea”, the hymn sung during the sinking of RMS Titanic. Persons of taste are cordially invited to attend in period attire.
Steampunk-inspired Body Painting (Image via stuff.co.nz)
New Zealander Yolanda Bartram’s steampunk-inspired body painting has tied for first place in the “Special Effects Bodypainting” category at the 2010 World Bodypainting Festival in the Austrian city of Seeboden.
Inspired by a train journey through India, the foam and latex-enhanced body art features a steam engine, veil and a background of subcontinental azure.
The annual bodypainting festival attracted an estimated 30,000 visitors this year.
Title: Relive Dining In the Steam Train Era [NZ]
Location: Silverstream Railway, Upper Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand
Link out: Click here
Description: Step back in time to the golden era of steam train travel with bubbles, canapes and a steam train ride in the heritage carriages at Silverstream Railway Museum. There will be an optional tour of the Engine Sheds. This will be followed by a sumptuous buffet dinner at the adjacent Silverstream Retreat in their Pillars room. There will be great photographic opportunities - so don’t forget your camera.
Date: Sun 22 Aug
Time: 3.30pm
Location: Upper Hutt
Address: Silverstream Railway Museum, Reynolds Drive, Silverstream, Upper Hutt
Price: $50 - $99
Phone: 04 527 2141
Email: upperhutt@i-site.org
Title: Dinner & Tall Tales with Dr Grordbort’s Venusian Hunting Party
Location: Weta Cave & Cafe Polo, Wellington, New Zealand
Link out: Click here
Description: Join Dr Grordbort and his team for tales of Venusian rustics and ray guns in an ‘out of this world’ dining experience. The hunting party will meet at the Weta Cave and be escorted to Cafe Polo for a sumptuous four course dinner in an exclusively themed setting. Share hunting tales with the Weta team and leave armed with a Pomson 6000 Ray Gun collector’s pin. Tickets include a glass of bubbles on arrival at the Weta Cave, four course dinner, tea and coffee after dinner, and collector’s pin. Excludes all other drinks and any purchases from the Weta Cave.
Date: Tues 17 Aug
Time: 6.30pm at Weta Cave
Location: Wellington Suburbs
Address: Meet at Weta Cave, Corner Camperdown Rd and Weka St Miramar Dinner at Cafe Polo, 84 Rotherham Terrace
Price: $50 - $99
Phone: 04 380 7273
Email: cafe@cafepolo.co.nz
Website: www.cafepolo.co.nz
Title: Clockwork Butterfly Steampunk Extravaganza
Location: Thornbury Theatre
Link out: Click here
Description: Step into the world of Clockwork Butterfly, a new alternative Melbourne fashion label, with a night of amazing acts including steamy burlesque, exotic belly dance and the finest musical acts procured at great expense to the management for ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Tickets $30 ($40 at the door)
Ticket Announcement— This is now part of the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival so tickets will be available only through the Fringe Website. Limited tickets, book early!
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2010-10-09
Victorian Railways Institute gathering (c.1910-1915)
The centenary seems to be attracting little mainstream press or official attention from the city, and certainly nothing from Metro, but Jenny Davies, who’s just written a book on the station and publishes flindersstreetstation100.com, is talking up the celebrations for Friday. She has an exhibition entitled “The Station Turns 100″ currently on display in the Degraves Street subway which provides a nice overview of the station’s history. (She should be there most lunchtimes until Saturday selling books, and is keen to talk to anyone interested in the station.) The publicity she’s generated has apparently stirred up the fickle public interest in restoration and preservation, with a new lobby group forming to attempt to effect change — and possibly attract some of the estimated $10M in funding the station will require.
But is this really the Centenary of the station?
Given the apparent lack of newspaper coverage of such an event, it seems likely that there was in fact no official opening for the new building itself. Jenny Davies notes that there is no known foundation stone for the station — an unusual situation for large public buildings of the period — and believes that the idea that the Victorian Railways Institute opening constituted the “official” opening of the building had crept into currency by the time of the Victorian Railways Centenary in 1954. The VRI was a social club and training institute for railways staff. It was also, however, given responsibility for and control over much of the station building — thus the ballroom is actually The VRI Ballroom — so perhaps its inauguration is an appropriate anniversary to celebrate. In any case, the station is around 100 years old about now, and I for one feel it’s something of a shame more of a fuss isn’t being made about it.
[Update: According to a VRI staff member I spoke to this afternoon, their centenary celebrations have been set for May.]
Having watched a number of Sherlock Holmes trailers it’s looking like the current envisioning of the story has quite a few steampunk friendly elements. As such, ROSEA is making noises to organise a Brisbane Steampunk outing to the Dec 26th opening night of Sherlock Holmes. I’m also wondering if other groups around the country are looking to brave the stupid-hot summer weather to do something similar.
This masterful conversion of a non-functional early C20th Elgin pocketwatch casing into a fully functional LED-handed timepiece with vibrating alarm and light-responsive display is a thing of beauty — which one might expect from a project which took two years and cost $1,000 (not including the heirloom watch). Australian maker Paul Pounds (whose recent PhD thesis describes a four-motored flying robot) dedicates the project to master horologist Howard Pounds (1914–2005), who would no doubt have been justly proud of his grandson’s achievement.