Last of the Steam Powered Trains, Pt. 2- MORE STEAMPUNK DORKS!!

I thought I’d take some more time to marvel at some of the “shining stars” of steampunk-dorkdom. Sure, it is possible to look COOL with steampunk, for example:

But, in order to partake in a fantasy fashion, you evidently must have a fantasy figure (they’re both rails!). In common practice most just look like they only belong in a cosplay convention center…

*shudder* 

Last of the Steam Powered Trains- Steampunk? Really?

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I’ve always had a fascination for art or movies that had that old timey, clockwork and brass colored mechanical designs, but only until recently I didn’t pay much attention the fact that it was an actual subgenre and subculture as opposed to just a common design aesthetic.

Essentially, “steam punk” is an aesthetic that is essentially the opposite of cyberpunk, in that technology is retrofitted with the earliest forms of the technological advances formed in the late 19^th century and early 20^th.

As with any movement attached to the word “punk”, “Steampunk” is rebellion. An answer to bland modern dress and technology and is purposely regressive to the extreme. I was fascinated at first by the movement, as more and more I was finding spiffy retrofitted technology. 

The Village Green Preservation Society: Alan Moore’s “League”

1)      “Although Alan Moore’s comic series “The League of Extraordinary Gentlmen” purports to be little more than a super-hero adventure populated by characters of Victorian era fantasy, protecting the British Empire from the famous villains of such stories, because of the graphic sexual and violent actions of such characters it is in part a commentary on how authors of the Victorian era were able to smuggle such uncivil notions clearly against Victorian values into the public through the horror and fantasy genre.”

This is disputable because one could argue that the main motive of the comic series was to make, as Alan Moore described it, a kind of “Justice League” set in Victorian England, or an entertainment. That anything else gotten from of the series is extraneous-but-signature Alan Moore cheeky iconoclasm. It is also specific because it asserts an intentional subversive attitude on the parts of such authors as Robert Louis Stevenson and Bram Stoker, rather than assuming their work were written for simple entertainment as well.

2)      “Although Victorian horror and fantasy authors who created the characters that populate “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” made an attempt to rectify the immoral deeds of their characters by attributing them to the influences of “the other”, the monstrous or foreign intrusions on pure English society, because such deeds were written about in the first place shows a obvious angst towards Victorian era enforced societal prudishness by the authors who conjured up such taboos and felt it necessary to express them.”

This is disputable because, as with the first argument, it is an assumption based on a teleological argument that these writers were attempting to do away with their societal customs by plaguing the minds of readers through fantastical depictions of taboos, only to blame the influence in the actual text on a foreign “devil” . It is specific because it deals with the act of scape-goating a figure representing another culture, such as Count Dracula, in being responsible for the evils represented in the novels.

3)      “Although Allan Quartermain is viewed as a figural representation of British Colonialism, as a English hunter in Africa influenced by Western Imperialism, because of his explicit sexual relationship with a fallen woman (“Dracula’s” Mina Murray/Harker), Alan Moore is hinting at the eventual dissolution of the repressive form of morality upheld by the Victorian era society.”

This is disputable because their relationship can be viewed as including the simple necessity of a love story in an adventure melodrama, and therefore the grouping of the two persons most capable of such a romance is not anything to pin historical commentary on. It is specific because both Quartermain and Murray represent to different factions of English society. Whereas Quartermain is seen as an aged gentleman hero, Murray has been bitten by Count Dracula, and has been since divorced from Jonathan Harker, both of which do well to brand her as a “fallen woman”.

I’m Not Like Everybody Else: A Letter To Elizabeth Barrett

Dearest Elizabeth,

I admire your own passionate interest in my work, as you no doubt know of mine for yours. Though, I’m afraid do not share your view on which direction my craft should take. You may feel that my work is impenetrable and confusing to those who do well enough to read it, due to the fact the voice is not my own, but rather of the characters I have chosen to portray through monologue. You may believe this is a waste of whatever assumed talent I possess; living through others as a way of self expression. For if I am to enlighten readers on the peculiarities of the human condition and the psyche of the soul and morality, it would seem obvious that I needn’t resort to the gimmickry of dramatic personae without drama, or using the guise of men who had lived long before me to speak something real. I would be more likely to have better success were I to print my thoughts on a pamphlet, and have underlings distribute them at street-corners.

But, if my personality is, as you charmingly state, finely tuned by God himself, would it not be worth arguing that it is possible God had tuned another’s before mine? Is it so implausible that my own thoughts are not so innovative or dissimilar from those who came before me? I personally do not believe I have thought of anything so profound that it had never before been promulgated already long before I existed. It is easy for someone to claim some sort of philosophical truth in an treatise, as long as they have no interference within the very confines of the page to brush against. If this writing was not of friendly correspondence, and simply a rant from my own head, I could do well enough to claim supreme divinity of myself without the consequences of coming against another seeking to make the same claim (not that such would interest me, though I do believe it crosses the mind of all at some point).

Instead, I enjoy to bounce between my own and the psyche of others I admire, to better understand them, myself and the world we’ve shared. For example, the good friar Lippo Lippi. In my monologue, he questions the church on how events considered sanctimonious should be portrayed, whether or not it is just to use the images of normal people to depict great moments of the divine. If he was ultimately instructed to ‘paint the souls of men’ and not the men themselves, we are left to wonder what is the difference? Our souls are understood to be extensions of ourselves and vice versa, to where the two are one.

Just as well, it should not matter in what form I write, my dear Elizabeth. For whatever comes out of the mouths of the those who populate my monologues, it will surely be more honest than if I were to write it myself, claiming them the ideas as my own.

Yours,

Robert Browning

Picture Book: Victorian Women in Stills

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or:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v190/babaoharry/?action=view¤t=victoriablog_0001.flv

“I might have been a common woman now
And Happier, less known and left alone,
Perhaps a better woman after all,
With chubby children hanging on my neck
To keep me low and wise.” (lines 549-553)

 ——————–

And for curiosity, here are the lyrics for “Victoria” by The Kinks, the song in the slide-show (I’m only including the words actually heard in the show).

“Long ago life was clean
Sex was bad and obscene
And the rich were so mean
Stately homes for the lords
Croquet lawns, village greens
Victoria was my queen
Victoria, victoria, victoria, toria

I was born, lucky me…”

 -Ray Davies

Wicked Annabella: The Modern girl According to Linton

Eliza Lynn Linton’s own disappointment of the modes of dress and discipline of the Victorian era’s young women is on full display in her essay “The Girl of the Period”. In the piece, she asserts indecency towards the English women of the time, accusing them of selfishness and a kind of ignorance in assuming that their dress and manner is the exact opposite of what a man of the era is looking for in a long term relationship; which she alludes to as the ultimate goal for a woman.

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/2688/A173_1_044.jpg

In the photograph of Helen Witte, one can be conflicted as to truly state on which side Linton would take. To see Witte as a proper English girl, or (for lack of a better term) a tramp. On first appearance, it would be rather easy to see the photo as completely indicative of Linton’s prescribed problem.

Firstly, Witte’s body language itself does not represent the ideal of lady-like demeanor. Instead of a graceful posture, she is upright with her shoulders back, and hands down at her side. This “poise” lacks the softness and submissive qualities that Linton felt the traditional English woman embodied, and the current woman lacked. Instead of appearing “lady-like” and therefore theoretically secondary to man, she appears to be standing as though equal. The only slight bit of femininity (aside from the attire) on display in the photo is the “dainty” nature of the pinky finger of her right hand, which is just slightly raised due to the grasping of the item in it (a fan is held in the other). This is of course a problem for Linton, as the English woman of old, who was “neither bold in bearing, nor masculine in mind” (104). Witte’s stance shows no concern for the properness of expected womanhood. Nor does Witte’s dress, which appears less than elegant with its playing cards adorning the hem of the skirt. As opposed to a typically more feminine design or item (say a floral pattern, for example), the cards could likely further draw disdain from Linton as a slap in the face to the notion that a woman should be more concerned with homely and delicate matters, and not such things as gambling or other vices.

Then again, Linton’s major complaint was that “the girl of the period is a creature who dyes her hair and paints her face, as the first article of her personal religion” (104). However, Witte’s face itself appears remarkably masculine, minus the bells and whistles that Linton describes. This may well have been a personal problem of Witte’s and therefore a rude observation on an observer’s part, but it is still interesting how non-feminine her facial features and expression are. So, in the end, Witte appears in dress to be succumbing to the problem of the period girl, by dressing in a manner that is flashy; yet exuding neither the charisma or femininity that one would assume it would entail. This leads one to consider that the photo itself is possibly a statement of irony: of a woman dressed indecent to a person like Linton’s standards, while simultaneously remaining the unassuming blank slate that one could argue Linton would be more grateful if the entire race of woman would regress to.

WORKS CITED:

Linton, Eliza Lynn. “The Girl of the Period” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. By Joseph Black. Vol. 5. Peterborrough, ON: Broadview P, 2006. 104.