Spurious Contraptions & Other Steampunk Oddities



Check out Neil's drum kit!! The stage props!! The Kevin Anderson novel may not be as bad as I first thought. Apparently he & Neil Peart are longtime friends and have been developing it for quite a while.



Still working through the shakedown cruise - the first 2-3 listens. (__{BM}___[[≈≈
 
How about for Steampunk Worlds, instead of having the vanilla civs but with Industrial flics and pcxs, we have their actual 19th century equivalents? For example, Rome is replaced by Italy (lead by Carvour), Maximilian (or Benito Juarez) leads Mexico instead of Montezuma of the Aztecs, and so on.
 


  • No zeppelins or gears but firmly steampunk.

  • Mausers instead of jians but definitely wuxia.

  • A sense of humour somewhere between The Good, The Bad & The Ugly and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.

  • Homages as well to other auteurs like Lean, Bertolucci & Altman.

  • The first time in quite a while that I've watched a film & wanted to immediately watch it again. Resisted the urge just for the pleasure ruminating on its many delights.

  • Settle down by yourself (or with someone else with an open mind & a refined yet unpretentious aesthetic sensibility) and Let The Bullets Fly.
 
No one else seems to post here anymore, so most of the weirdness I come across doesn't get posted. Couldn't resist this though:



Read about it here, here & here. Each offers details the others lack.

The base model Brooke sedan - without swan, etc. - cost thrice as much as a contemporary Rolls-Royce.

Highlights:
  • 30-HP engine
  • Indian silk upholstery, gold leaf detailing
  • swan's eyes glow amber
  • exhaust-driven, eight-tone Gabriel horn operated via keyboard
  • ship's telegraph to issue commands to chauffeur
  • brushes to sweep elephant dung from the tyres
  • swan's beak sprays steam to clear crowded streets
"Whitewash, milk or yogurt could be dumped onto the road through a valve at the back of the car to make the swan appear even more lifelike"

If that isn't enough to pique interest, a model is available to any interested unit maker.

 


Fossil ivory, ebony & silver. Fully functional - assuming you can figure out how to place & move pieces that tiny.

This got me thinking of a sort of minimalist Phileas Fogg - travelling light without sacrificing any of the necessities of being both cultured & comfortable. Wonder what mechanisms he might hide in his gibus, for example. Given the miracles of steampunk engineering*, what could a gentleman reasonably carry with him - worn, plus a single gladstone bag and umbrella/cane?


*Within reason - no unobtainium-based equipment, such as cavorite-thread backpacks that have no weight limits.
 
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