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@culthistorian
on air in 17 min!
Listen to @IntelFuturist & @CultHistorian talk about #steampunk Friday 10amCT on @45northwpr: http://wpr.org/45north/ #VintageTomorrows

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An exciting week for Vintage Tomorrows
Brian David Johnson (@IntelFuturist) and I will be speaking and signing at Powell's Cedar Hill Crossing location this coming Monday 25 March at 7pm. There will also be a reception afterward--looking forward to seeing you there if you are in the area. For more details, check out Cory Doctorow's post on boing-boing or Bruce Sterling's post on Wired. Yes, it's that cool! TIME.com just ran a piece on Vintage Tomorrows as well. It was an enjoyable interview and produced a couple of great little pieces. Many thanks to Lily Rothman for some darn good mainstream journalism. The article, "5 Reasons You'll Be Talking About Steampunk in 2013" is here, and you can find their "Steampunk 101" photo gallery here. Things like this always make me think about the observer effect. In doing and sharing our research on steampunk, Brian and I are also changing it. This was most certainly never the plan, but ideas have impact. When we start talking about counterculture and cultural change in the pages of TIME, we've altered both the context of the conversation. I could follow this all the way down a postmodern rabbit hole, but see little point in that. For the moment, it suffices to say that counterculture is a conversation about culture... add in the "transitive property" and you start to see the fractal a little bit--patterns within patterns. When you study something, you become a part of its pattern, whether you like it or not. It's never not been a fun ride, but it's getting more interesting all the time...
I'll be doing a reading and book signing at UBS tomorrow. Come join me if you are in the Seattle area!
Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have questions about the book! Our publicity automata (and their happy human wranglers) are standing by. #VintageTomorrows @intelfuturist @mary_grace
It's Alive!
Vintage Tomorrows available in print & ebook (order here). Definitive proof: our publicist @mary_grace, book in hand! @intelfuturist #vintagetomorrows

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Vintage Tomorrows
...will be available in hard copy around/soon after 11 February. @intelfuturist and I have literally sent it to the printer. Now's the time to pre-order! The first installment of our free companion ebook: Steampunking Our Future: An Embedded Historian's Notebook is in editing and will be up online at around the same time. It includes my visit to Wellywood to chat with Greg Broadmore about heroes and villains, art and storytelling, the roots of ray guns, and the sheer human joy of blowing shit up). More on that soon!
Emma: 'They're just stories. The Mad Hatter is in Alice in Wonderland--a book. A book I actually read.' Jefferson: 'Stories. Stories? What's a story? When you were in high school, did you learn about the Civil War?' Emma: 'Yeah, of course.' Jefferson: 'How? Did you read about it, perchance, in a book?' Emma: 'History books are based on history.' Jefferson: 'And story books are based on what? Imagination? Where does that come from? It has to come from somewhere. You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.'
from "Hat Trick," Once Upon a Time, season 1, episode 17 (2012)
Vintage Tomorrows on shelves 29 January!
We're in print, folks! Pre-order now! ...and there's more to come. Keep an eye out for the free companion ebook: Steampunking Our Future: An Embedded Historian's Notebook. It will be available online on or before the 29th.
Vintage Tomorrows is off to the printer!
It's away! It really is quite amazing how much work goes into getting a book out of one's head and into the physical world. Our publisher has incredibly fast turnaround times (what you might expect of O'Reilly Media, who also publish MAKE Magazine--they do things their own way) and I'm told to expect to see the book on shelves by the end of the month. When I have a date, I'll be sure to share it. Of course, a project like Vintage Tomorrows is hard to tie up with a simple bow. We had a lot of fantastic material that didn't make it into the book (the general consensus was that people would prefer to be able to actually pick up Vintage Tomorrows without the assistance of hydraulic machinery... so we cut it down to a more wieldy length). There was so much more story to tell and so many more ideas to explore that we decided to do a second book. As such, my project for the coming week-plus is to finalize the free companion ebook: Steampunking Our Future: An Embedded Historian's Notebook. I'll also be traveling down to Portland to work with the incredible Byrd McDonald and his talented film-making crew, helping to put some final touches on the Vintage Tomorrows documentary. I don't pretend any knowledge of the documentary film release process, but you can rest assured that as soon as I know when & where you can see it, I'll let you know. There's a radio tour in the works as well. My co-author Brian David Johnson and I will be doing some talk radio rounds soon. I'm looking forward to that (and will share details when I have them), but expect it to feel a little weird being on the other side of the microphone. I'm used to being the interview-er, not the interview-ee. We'll see. One thing's for certain: neither Brian nor I will run out of things to talk about. A historian's work, it seems, is never done. That's alright with me. I greatly prefer it to boredom (though I'm not sure I'd recognize boredom anymore even if it walked right up to me and smacked me in the face with a 20lb. trout). And now back the to Notebook. Good God/dess is this fun!
Steampunk on the latest episode of TNT's Rizzoli & Isles "Love the Way You Lie" Korsak: "Victim was a famous author." Rizzoli: "Is his name Jules Verne?" Isles: "Nice literary reference. Hints of Dickens, too." Frost: "Victim was a steampunker." Rizzoli: "A who?" Frost: "Steampunkers revere Victorian Era fashion and technology but add a punk spin." I'm only 6 minutes into the episode now, but they've already pulled out the "dope" steampunked laptop... but of course the dead author wrote his books on a manual typewriter. And so it continues. Addendum: Not so much with the research on this one--a few bad stereotypes (e.g., "the only guy in Boston without a cell phone") and the laptop was the extent of it. Heck, they even solved the crime with the help of a typewriter ribbon and failed entirely to make the obvious Holmes reference. Talk about dropping a slow fly ball. But culture change is messy. As steampunk hits the mainstream, a lot of what we see is gonna miss the mark. And you never know what's going to "get it" and what's not. Tori Spelling did better than Tyra Banks. Justin Bieber's team actually did their homework (though I still cringe at the dancing factory kids). In the end, though, mainstream popular culture's job is to entertain. We can try to hold them to a higher standard, but they're gonna do what they do. It's all a part of the process.

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Webcast follow-up
I just finished doing a webcast for Vintage Tomorrows (the archived version will be available by Monday here). It was a blast, but I wish we’d had more time for questions. I suppose there’s a downside to the fact that Brian and I both like to talk so much. That said, this here internet is a marvelous tool that allows me to time travel a bit and engage a bit with the online chat that happened during our presentation. Yay, transcripts. Whatever would I do without you? (Okay, easy answer: I’d forget a lot of things). Since my kids are at school and I have a keyboard in front of me, I’ll take the liberty of chiming in—punking the chat, as it were. Here’s an incomplete but well-intentioned engagement with the conversation: Creede—I agree on the music. If we could have steampunked the whole darn thing we’d’ve done it. The visuals from the book were unfortunately all we could muster. We’re already an odd-shaped cog in O’Reilly’s works, but they love that and have continually bent over backward to accommodate the eclectic nature of our work. Otto & Maxim—Ditto. Our journeys did not take us to Russia or even Eastern Europe, and in the grander scheme of steampunk that’s a big miss. You can’t do everything in one project, but I’m really fascinated by what I’ve seen coming out of the former Soviet Union. There’s a particular perspective there that is missing from a lot of Anglo-European steampunk. I’m not sure I’m informed enough to characterize it perfectly, but it seems to me that there’s unique insight to be found when you’re surrounded by the remains of a dreamed future that never quite came to pass. Speaking more broadly about “other cultures,” a great place to start is with Diana “Ay-Leen the Peacemaker” Pho’s blog Beyond Victoriana (as you know from her excellent comments throughout the transcript) and Jaymee Goh’s Silver Goggles. They’re great resources for the wider world of steampunk, and strong voices in the community that help keep us honest about the cultural questions that playing with the past raises. Travis—I’ve been meaning to post a list of my favorite steampunk stuff for some time now. I’ll get off my rear and do that soon. Diana’s absolutely right to point you toward the Airship Ambassador. Mike Perschon, the Steampunk Scholar, has a great site as well, which ranks and recommends an increasingly vast array of steampunk literature. Der Diesel—You haven’t gotten your shiny jumpsuit yet? You’d better get on that, or you’ll be left behind when we all climb into the big cannon to be shot up to the moon. Creede—Agreed, steampunk is what steampunks do. The inverse is also true. I think that one of the most powerful things about steampunk culture is that it’s really more questions we all have in common than answers. I’m really glad to hear that your granddaughter is engaged as well. My daughters are a never-ending font of steampunk awesomeness (Mimi is the oldest; her younger sister is only now becoming old enough to get out there and dig in—not that there’s a bottom end age limit, it’s just that it’s taken a little time for my kids to get to the point where they can keep pace with all I have to do at a steampunk event). Let me know when you have built your steam-powered banjo. That is a truly awesome and deeply commendable endeavor. I doff my tarboosh to honor your noble effort. Also, although I’ve never been there personally (Brian has), I did hang out with Cory Doctorow for a weekend and would not be in the least surprised to discover that his office has already become self-aware and is striking out on its own. It would explain a lot, actually. Maxim—I haven’t seen a mechanical computer with a mechanical display manifest in “reality” yet (at least not in the way that you imply), but the classic example in literature is The Difference Engine’s kinotrope, a mechanical pixelated screen. That idea blew my 20 year-old mind when I first read Gibson & Sterling’s classic. Tim Leary did not steer me wrong in sending me to read Bill Gibson’s books. As to steampunk being for geeks, sure… but that’s where cultural change starts—on the fringe. Do Justin Bieber, Tyra Banks, and Tori Spelling count as geeks? I have a kind of flippant theory that it’s the freaks and the French who really drive the engines of cultural change. French steampunk, btw, was way ahead of the Anglo curve. Some 1970s French graphic novels are now being issued in English by Fantagraphics Books (Jacques Tardi's work in particular), but you might have better luck getting the original French stuff in Russia—I don’t know. Calvin—I’ve got an essay on the “punk” bit in the forthcoming issue of SteamPunk Magazine (#9). A version of it is posted on my blog below (look for the picture of Oscar Wilde). There’s also a lot more in the book, including a great interview with Ann and Jeff Vandermeer that is particularly insightful on the “punk part.” Der Diesel and Suzanne—Men keep steampunk just as (ack) “steamy” as women do. I’m not sure I answered the question in the podcast as well as I might have, but from what I have seen, steampunk provides an interesting (and largely safe) space for people of all genders to push the boundaries of how they present themselves. The conversation over this is just heating up (see how I avoided saying “building steam”… ‘course then I just said it. sigh.) I’ll underline Diana’s link for others here as a great place to start. Otto—If you’re looking for a great group of makers in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area, get in touch with the Obtanium Works. You won’t regret getting to know those wonderful people, and their “art car factory” is nothing short of amazing. You can also find them on Facebook as the Neverwas Haul Traveling Academy. Der Diesel—If I set my range free, will it come back to heat my chicken tea? J John—Myst was one of Claire Hummel’s early inspirations. It’s absolutely tied into all this. Well-spotted. Maxim, Diana, Joseph, and Jerrie—Great conversation. There’s a great bit in the book about this from my interview with Cherie Priest (about her grade school teacher in Texas History). For what it’s worth, I took great pleasure in pissing off the business majors in my undergraduate sections when I taught the history of the American Revolution. They wanted to hear about how great George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were, not about how womens’ networks of domestic trade facilitated communication between far-flung communities. Totally agree on the transformative nature of Industrialization (a sword with many edges, tho). War is always a huge motivator for technological and social change. Heck, World War II is as responsible for helping coalesce gay culture as it was for spurring the development of the technological thinking that brought about the Information Age (though I tend to agree with Jim Gleick on his point that it’s always been the Information Age, we just happened to figure that out in the wake of WWII--see James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, 2011). But to women’s history more generally, it’s fraught with tensions and contradictions. Like all history, but infused with an extra edge—gender hits deep cultural chords, and while it is a social construction like race or class, it has an emotional element that causes it to (perhaps) resonate more strongly. Of course, you can’t really untangle the threads of race, class, and gender. Finally, a great book recommendation on women and labor in early 19th century America: Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work (1990). Danielle & Robert—the jet lag quote is from William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition (2003). Here it is: "She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien’s theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can’t move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage." Joseph—Welcome to steampunk! You’ll have a blast (if you don’t, we’ll send in the mechanical kraken to crush whatever kills your buzz). Keep your wits about you. You’ll find use for them in surprising places. Mark—It’s always a pleasure to hear your insights. I’d add John Ruskin to William Morris. Also, Bill Gibson turned me on to mid-20th century British neo-romanticism. Great stuff, what little of it there was. Sadly, those abstract expressionist bastards squashed it flat. Talk about imperialist thugs. Humphrey Jennings' Pandaemonium 1660-1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers sits on my bedside table. It's great snack reading--too rich for a straight slog but wonderful to nibble on. Thank you all! You’ve given me a bevy of great stuff to look into and made me think. That’s the mark of time well spent. Oh, and I’d be remiss in not linking to the websites of some of the amazing artists and organizations whose artwork is included in the book. In alphabetical order: Dmitri Arbacauskas Libby Bulloff Greg Broadmore Burning Man, LLC Samuel Coniglio Molly Michelle Friedrich Paul Guinan Claire Hummel Key West Literary Seminar Lionhead Studios David Maliki ! Byrd McDonald Obtanium Works Andy Pischalnikoff Kimric Smythe SteamPunk Magazine Josh Tanenbaum Mark Thomson Jake von Slatt ...and of course for more on the film, check out the Vintage Tomorrows website. We'll keep information up to date as it comes in. Cheers, and thanks again! James
Join me and @intelfuturist tomorrow 10amPST/1pmEST to talk Vintage Tomorrows!
on cards and character... what's the "real me"?
I got my driver's license renewed today. I've been living in the state of Washington for ten years now, and the license I got upon my arrival would have expired on my birthday tomorrow. The process was fairly straightforward and most of the folks I had to deal with were fine and friendly, joking their way through a tedious Friday at a government job. But the last guy, the one who took the new photo, absolutely insisted that I remove my glasses. Sure, I challenged him on it, but that's what I do. I was polite in questioning him, but was honestly baffled by his demand. I wore glasses in my last license photo, but this time I had to take them off. They've changed policies, he said, and they now require that the picture be of the "real" me. He said this with force, and the implication that I was trying to hide something... as though these lenses I wear are somehow an obfuscation rather than a part of who I am. So I took my glasses off. I felt a little naked and not quite myself, but had better things to do with the rest of my day than pick fights with petty bureaucrats. In retrospect, however, the assumptions behind this whole thing are kinda hard for me to truly comprehend. Sure, policies change and people follow them because it's the easy thing to do, but really, apart from two momentary fits of contact lens insanity my glasses have been a crucial part of my body for well over 30 years. How is a picture of me without them more "real"? I am well aware that these darn things are a crucial weakness in case of zombie apocalypse. But I somehow doubt that, should the worst happen, I'd be carded by the insatiable dead. If the State of Washington is really so interested in seeing the unmediated me, why didn't they insist I shave? Doesn't my beard obscure my face more than my glasses do? What if I cut, grow, or dye my hair out of spite? How on god/dess's somewhat-less-than-green Earth am I supposed to show them "the real me" in a photograph? And am I somehow less human because my eyes don't focus properly without the support of a couple objects and some wire? I really don't get it. So now there's this stranger in my pocket... a very weird way to enter into one's fortieth year. And doubly odd that I should somehow assign identity and meaning to this card issued me by some arbitrary government. I moved to Seattle, sure, so in a way I chose Washington, but this whole "driver's license" fetish is a factor of the broader regime under which I happened to have been born. I guess I've been acculturated to put undue weight on a little piece of plastic I carry in my wallet. It's only when I take a step back and think about it that it seems unnatural. My glasses are a part of me even if they're not a part of the image on my driver's license. I guess I ought to have learned by now to expect the weird and inexplicable. It's the sane and sensible that ought to surprise me. And yet they don't. Those rare moments when things actually make sense seem a heck of a lot more real than stuff like driver's licenses, taxes, and whether there's a Democrat or a Republican in the White House. At the end of the day, we're all just trying to be human beings, right? I guess I can't really speak for anyone other than myself, but I assume so. I hope that I'm not alone in asking these kinds of questions. The curse of the optimist; J'espère bien.
I've interrogated the folks I worked with at Intel and am assured that the marketing teams never saw my research (the first couple months of the research that eventually culminated in Vintage Tomorrows were conducted as a small project for Intel Labs). I suppose this affords me plausible deniability, but I can't help thinking about how observing things changes them. The more we discuss the parallels between the Industrial and Information Ages, the more manifest they become.
Sex and sexuality are rarely discussed openly in steampunk culture--which is something that really needs to be remedied. Steampunk's inclusivity in particular ought to know no such limits, and any broader challenge to the cultural status quo must include a frank assessment of every element of who we are as human beings. A Steampunk's Guide to Sex is Margaret P. Killjoy's latest work, and if A Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse and SteamPunk Magazine are any indication (which they are), this will be a notable contribution not just to steampunk, but to our understanding of ourselves and our world more generally. In short, this project receives an emphatic CultHistorian seal of approval. The kickstarter window is closing soon, so I recommend you act with speed and generosity.

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Vintage Tomorrows' Brian David Johnson on steampunk, the past, and the future of technology.
I'm late to the game in sharing this, but Tor.com's talented steampunk editor Diana "Ay-leen the Peacemaker" Pho has gathered together a collection of great content from some brilliant and insightful folks, including, among many others: Ann Vandermeer, James Ng, and Margaret P. Killjoy. I highly recommend checking it out.