The Skull Candy Aviator, as spotted in the store

That’s the upside. The downside is that the aviator is rather pricy. It retails on the website for $ 149.95 and I saw it in the Antwerp (Belgium) Saturn for €150. I did try it out, and whilst it did make good on it’s promise of epic bass, I thought the rest of the sound was kind of flat and not better than that of their Lowrider model (which I own in black and gold, it was as close as steampunk-appropriate that wasn’t all black I could get back in 2009), so I found the price unjustified, especially seeing you can get better value for money with brands like Coloud or even Sony (I hear a lot of good things about the new super bass, which sadly looks like you’re making contact with the mothership).

Of course, if you’re going for look and durability and don’t mind spending the cash, this is definitely the way forward.
Hopefully other headphone companies will jump the bandwagon and produce their own steampunk or dieselpunk models, at hopefully better price and better overall sound quality. I’m personally hoping that’ll happen and sticking to my black Coloud Colours model.

A Russian Fairytale, photo by Viona Ilegems

It’s an event a lot of people, myself and my husband included, look forward to. Generally we book tickets as soon as they become available as it tends to sell out. We’ve attended every single edition since the 3rd, back when it was still held in the wonderful Altena Chapel in Kontich.

Just like last year, this edition was held in the St-Augustinus Church in the centre of Antwerp and this year’s theme was A Russian Fairytale.

Now this year’s edition, I regrettably must admit, was rather bleak in comparison to the previous years. Not so bleak I wouldn’t attend next year, but bleak enough not to jump on tickets until I’ve seen the program.

Speaking of which, the program for this year did look more than a little promising with their very first live gig on site, of the band Qntal, with a meet and greet later. All the classics that add to the fun of Gala Nocturna such as Viona doing an on site photoshoot and the absinthe bar being present were also listed, together with a historical dance lesson by Lieven Baert (who also taught classes at Sarabande last summer). It was also a longer length event, the doors opening half an hour earlier and the bar closing later. So yes, reasons to be looking forward to it a plenty.

So where did it go wrong this time? I would like to start by saying that by all means not everything is the organisation’s fault, some things are simply beyond their control and the team of Daila Laika should be applauded for putting on several events a year. That aside I do think that when writing a review one should be honest.

Normally the photo shoot by Viona happens pretty much straight away after the start of the event, about half an hour after doors open, and that works really well. People are still coming in, this avoids the build-up of a queue that is such a bothersome length it takes up considerable amount of the dance floor. Which is what happened by doing the shoot late at night this year. Also, only releasing the photos on Facebook instead of on the website? Just a reminder world, not everyone has jumped onto the FB bandwagon, if you organise an event of this magnitude, work properly with a website for everything.

The historical dance lessons early on just didn’t really work. Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind it is a good one. Teach guests interested a historical Russian dance. The thing is, it leaves people that aren’t interested in dancing with nothing to do when you take up 90% of the main hall. When the vast majority of your guests are on the floor and taking up so much space that the non-participants can barely manoeuvre around them you have a bit of a problem. Also, whilst it is a lot of fun to watch people dancing that actually know what they’re doing, it’s little fun to watch people stumble about. This is why dance recitals at Gala Nocturna work so much better, you get to see people at work that are good at what they’re doing.

At Sarabande there was a bit of an issue with lack of entertainment for those not participating in the classes, but it was less bothersome because the classes were in a separate room and thus out of the way for those choosing not to partake.

I do think that historical dance is pretty awesome, but I think that Daila Laika would be better off organising an event purely about historical dance and leave it out of their other events unless they can keep the classes in a separate space like they did at Sarabande. And if they do the latter, also provide something to do for guests that aren’t dancing.

Previous years there were pretty clear announcements of what was happening, this year there was nothing of the sort, which made people miss out on stuff happening on stage. I was at a table towards the back of the venue, and imagine my surprise that I managed to miss the entire tribal dance performance. In a venue that large, you really need announcements, not only because they add to the event but because if you don’t have them, people that aren’t flocking to the stage non stop will miss things.

Not a single bad word about Qntal’s performance though, that was fantastic, and I think it’s great that a band was booked. It also gave those attending the idea that they got value for their ticket (which was € 20 a person) which is always an added bonus. Whether the meet and greet ended up happening I don’t know, it still hadn’t happened when I left around 1.30 am.

There seemed to be so much emphasis this year on the theme that it turned into an event that did have some bits and pieces going on, but that was mainly focussing on see and be seen, rather than on the event itself. I know that a lot of people wondered just what they could wear, previous years there was this neat list summing up the things that would be allowed and those that had been to previous editions still had that in mind, but the current “look at the mood board” on the website was less than helpful for first timers.

In my personal opinion it would be best if for the next edition we saw a return to the glory days of this event, where there were fashion shows, performances and the theme wasn’t so strongly emphasised (people try their best for it and the majority shows up in it anyway), because that just worked so much better. Oh and more _real_ absinthe at the absinthe bar too please, because when people see “absinthe fountain” on the program they expect the real thing, not absinthe liquor (there is a difference, and the liquor is not real absinthe).

Flying machine by Ayers, 1885

The genre of steampunk is often inspired by the nineteenth century, the Victorians, and futurism. It’s about alternate futures or futuristic ideas of times past. But how did the Victorians view the future?

The nineteenth century was a time of many rapid changes. In a fairly short span of time many scientific breakthroughs were made, many new objects and machines invented. Things moved at a fast and exhilarating pace. It could be compared to the current developments around the internet and computers: things are changed and invented at such a speed that it’s hard to keep track sometimes, and you can reminisce with your friends about times when no one had a mobile phone. Just like that, Victorians reminisced about times without diesel power, electric motors, or bicycles.

The power to travel anywhere

A big part of the ideas about the future was that man could travel anywhere. Already, traveling had changed a lot since the eighteenth century: in 1803 the steam-powered train made its first journey, and soon train traveling became faster and easier, with special passenger cars, timetables and set schedules, and later on the Pullman Sleeping car. Another important method of traveling, the bicycle, was invented in 1866. Even though it seems like a simple and straightforward item now, to the Victorians this was a big breakthrough.

Victorians not only dreamed of traveling faster and further, they wanted to travel in all elements. Many machines were built to travel on seas, and under seas. But most energy and brain-power was used on working out how man could fly. Ranging from hot air balloons, to pedals-and-wings flying machines, to objects consisting of flapping wings attached to a sort of harness, Victorians thought about it all. Man would fly in the future, that much was sure.

Flying machine by pedal-power by Goupil

Work was made easier

In the nineteenth century industry was changing rapidly, with increasingly more work being done by machines. Before the nineteenth century, materials were cheap but man-labor was expensive. Now the actual work could be done by machines. This meant that many jobs became easier, or a little less boring, and items could be produced at a much higher speed and accuracy. One thing the Victorians knew for certain: a machine could never work on its own. Drawings of the first elevator of the Eiffel tower show a man “operating” the machine (even though it worked fine on its own). They felt that there should always be someone to attend to the machine and to be in charge.

World Wide Communication

With electricity came the telegraph, which has been referred to as the “Victorian Internet.” Ada Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron) together with Charles Babbage, worked on a machine that could process algorithms on its own, thereby inventing the first computer of its kind. Many people spend many hours in inventing the telephone, which was perfected and ready for use by the end of the nineteenth century. These new and fast-changing ways of communication thrilled the Victorians, and they imagined many ways of communicating with people around the globe. They would have never though of an age where news is spread through Twitter, though!

Advertisement by Hildebrands cocoa. In the year 2000, we'll be dressed exactly like in 1899!

Society of the future

Little is known about Victorian views on future society. This might have to do with the fact that Victorians viewed themselves as the height of civilization, a society that was, overall, very well off. So they would presume future societies not to differ too much. Many utopian or dystopian stories tell us about the wrongs of society, but these are not generally predictions of the future. Some of these stories do show ideas that would be tried out in times to come, for example the Marxist/Socialist News from Nowhere by William Morris, about a society without individual property, where labour and the fruits of labour are equally shared, foreshadowing a communist Russia.

The dark side of science

However, there also was another current of feeling, which was not very visible but present nonetheless. Some Victorians were hesitant about the future. Even though religion was much less important than it had been, even in a secular world many people were still afraid to play god, to mingle in the unknown, to have to pay for their actions. What happens when science goes too far, when things get out of control? This theme was explored in for example Marry Shelley’s Frankenstein, where a scientific experiment quite literally goes on the loose and starts wreaking havoc, wanting revenge on it’s maker.

Victorians were curious about the unknown, but afraid of it too. This is evident from the many ghost stories and the horror genre that blossomed. These days, horror movies are about natural disasters or armed psychopaths, but in the Victorian era tales of horror dealt with things unknown, things acting on its own and being out of control. An example of this is Poe’s famous The Tell-Tale Heart.

When you look at it closely, the nineteenth century wasn’t so much different from ours. We are a little wiser, and we definitely have better social systems in place to protect the poor and unfortunate. But just like the Victorians, we’re alternately baffled and thrilled by science and modern inventions, and always looking for the next big thing to come. Dickens sums it up nicely: “…In short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

It has been a while since I contributed to this blog, a shame, really. I have been occupied elsewhere and there is this annoying thing called the day-job.

What has occupied most of my leisure time is the planning of the European Steampunk Convention. Which brings me to today’s topic. When I started planning I had thought we would get steampunks from the usual places. You know, the countries who have been part of the European Community longer than all the others. France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, you get the idea.

What I did not expect was the feedback from Croatia, Russia, Belarus, Scandinavia, Slovenia. What I expected even less was people from Mexico and Argentinia showing an interest in this.

I have since looked into how the scene manifests from Terra de Fuego to Trondheim and from Mexico City to Moscow.

The only thing I can say: The next person who tries to nail down what the steampunk scene is all about will be forced to wear a hollowed out, six day old watermelon over the head for a day.

The more you look around, the more you see there is a lot of difference from country to country, region to region, sometimes even city to city.

An example: You find weird west elements in the US scene. Maybe some of the US steampunks are not even aware of it, because it comes to them so easily. In continental Europe, there is a taste of Belle Epoque, Fín de Ciecle and gaslight flair mixed in. These are only some of the most obvious things someone notices when casually observing from the outside.

This year, I am making a spirited attempt of visiting steampunks in places where I did not really expect them. Sometimes, communication will be difficult, I expect. Especially when I am going to the Slavic speaking parts of Europe. I am in particular curious about what the steampunks in Prague will be like.

Some things will be just like everywhere, but since steampunk is something that draws at least part of its inspiration from the past, it will be different from country to country. Let’s see what will be different about the Prague scene.

Since steampunk has become such a global phenomenon, every attempt to put a definitive label on it is doomed to fail and at the same time likely to exclude whole communities, and who wants that apart from elitist wannabes and style nazis? As on my own blog, I am completely unapologetic about using this term, thank you.

I for my part embrace this diversity and I revel in it. There is so much potential in the global scene. Trying to press it into boxes can only hurt. Every country has its identity, every scene in this country has an according identity. This is not about conforming to a set of rules, it is about creating the best seasoned and spiciest menue ever. A global scene and flavours from all over the world! Three cheers for international steampunk, for steampunks all around the world. Let’s celebrate our diversity together!

Tales from the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD by Hugh Ashton

Those that have been reading The Gatehouse Gazette and this blog are no doubt already aware of Hugh Ashton’s works such as Beneath Grey Skies and Red Wheels Turning. I am glad to report that aside from producing excellent alternative history works and contemporary thrillers (At the Sharpe End), Mr Ashton has now written a truly fantastic Sherlock Holmes book.

This work contains three new tales, stories written up by Dr Watson, the chronicler of Mr Holmes. I shall be very brief about every short story, because I just do not want to spoil anything for those that have not read them yet.

In the first story Sherlock Holmes & the Odessa Business we learn a little more of Mr Holmes’ family and his family dynamics, and a member of the Holmes family we hadn’t previously encountered is introduced.

Sherlock Holmes in the Case of the Missing Matchbox takes us to the world of the London opera, and the artistic drama that comes with the egos part of that world with crime at the centre of it all of course.

And last but not least in Sherlock Holmes in the Case of the Cormorant our duo from Baker Street takes a little trip to investigate a matter that has bestowed upon Holmes by a very important person indeed. How a cormorant is involved? Well you’ll just have to read and find out for yourself now won’t you. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

I personally am absolutely convinced that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself would be pleased to have Hugh Ashton take up where he left off all those years ago. Indeed, these three new adventures of the famous sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his fateful companion Doctor John Watson could have been of the hand of the grandmaster himself as the writer does such an excellent job portraying the characters and weaving the stories exactly as their inventor did. If I hadn’t known it was a book written by a different author, you could have easily made me believe it was by Conan Doyle himself.

If you’re a fan of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, then don’t doubt, just get this book, you will not regret it. And if you’ve not gotten into Sherlock Holmes yet, then just get it anyway, now’s as good a moment to start as any.

Personally I hope that Mr Ashton will take up his proverbial pen to let us know which other tales are still waiting to be unveiled from Dr Watson’s deed box.

El Investigador #11

The Spanish language steampunk magazine El Investigador released its eleventh edition this month. It’s pirate themed but with a retrofuturistic twist.

Says Araceli Rodríguez, editor, “We see the pirates as if they were heroes, villains having fun and brave adventurers, but that’s only the romantic side.”

A pirate certainly wasn’t worried about his appearance. During the voyage there was no way to take a bath, only with salt water from time to time. When they ran out of food, they ate each other, lost limbs, suffered from scurvy or fever in the best case. How many who call themselves “pirates” in the retrofuturist scene are aware of this?

It doesn’t matter whether you travel by sea or sky, the magazine says, although we’d like to pretend that airship travel is spectacularly comfortable. Not the pirate life, in any event, as El Investigador reminds us.

They have a review of Mireile Calmel’s Lady Pirate: Les valets du roi in their latest edition and one of the Victoriana role-playing game as well as an article about ghost ships such as The Flying Dutchman. Download for free and enjoy!

Boots from Forever 21

This week the finds seem to mostly be on the Asos shop. Which is really coming through for those in need of dieselpunk or goggles style sunglasses.

Or bags. Such as this leather old boy satchel, perfect for Steampunk, especially if you’re portraying some kind of messenger. And then there’s these two satchels in a sort of almost distressed type of browns, one a vintage style satchel, the other a vintage style school bag. Both affordable and pretty epic in my opinion. And ok sure, it’s no Cambridge Satchel Company or Zatchels, but at least it’s affordable and has the right look (something that can’t [always] be said about those two leading satchel companies). Mind you if you can afford to spend money on a real leather school bag style statchel, the Zatchels Junkyard collection and the Junkyard Barrel Bag collection may be something you want to look into. And of course there’s the saddle bags too.

Now I own a Cambridge Satchel and I’ve seen (and touched) the Zatchels in real life (as they sell some at the Antwerp Urban Outfitters) and from what I gather is that the CSC bags are made out of thicker and less flexible leather. Does that mean they are actually sturdier? I wouldn’t dare to go that far as my Fossil bag is made out of lighter and more flexible leather than the Zatchels bags and that’s still a hell of a sturdy bag. Frankly seeing both are in the same price range, I’d choose purely on the basis of the design and colours should you want to go with something from those two shops.

I found a lovely pair of brown boots at Forever 21 last Saturday. They were less than € 30, which is really cheap, they’re very comfy and they look nice. Whether they’ll last long or not I wouldn’t dare to say, but they do make for excellent convention footwear! I’m going to be wearing mine with my steampunk Whovian costumes for sure. They’ve also got some nice brogues and then these boots which are pretty good for more post apocalyptic and distopian outfits. Like I’ve said before, if you’re going to get footwear just to wear at conventions, you may as well get a comfy pair at a place such as e.g. F21 and not spend a lot of cash. If you’re going to wear them practically non stop, you’re better off investing in a pair of quality footwear. I hear a lot of good things about Fluevog, personally I couldn’t comment as my steampunk footwear is by Kickers and Schuh.

Another brand that has some really cool boots is Feud Britannia. Aside from the online shops listed on their site, they also sell via Amazon.co.uk (as does Kickers for that matter).

Topshop has this black corset belt which has an interesting texture that could really add to an outfit. And a fake leather biker jacket for the ladies into the greaser style of dieselpunk. It’s cheaper than real leather and provides an alternative for those that don’t wear leather. There’s also a brown version that is more suited to the aviator and a more contemporary take on sky pirates with the quilted detailing on the back. And of course this week we also see the new arrival of a bunch of vintage style sunglasses. Both steam -and dieselpunk enthusiasts are sure to find something to their liking.

H&M has a whole bunch of skinny ties in stock, but frankly overpriced in my opinion at € 19,95 per tie. Better alternatives are looking at Asos and TopMan‘s accessories section (which should have a ties section under that). Dieselpunk enthusiasts that like the neater styles will be pleased to find a bunch of suits and blazers on the TopMan site appropriate to their style. Be warned though, some are really quite pricy. They’ve also got this leather briefcase and this odd looking gasmask ring. That last is a total novelty thing of course, but it’s nice to see that dieselpunk is getting through to mainstream fashion a lot more than it used to do.

It’s also worth checking out places like H&M and Zara. Zara especially tends to surprise when it comes to basics with a bit of a distressed or deconstructed look and sometimes even a print, making a lot of their pieces suitable for steampunk or dieselpunk. And as a tip: check them out during the sales, as they often dump these pieces at total bargain prices. Of course chains like these, with a fast changing stock don’t always have suitable pieces around, but they do often enough to check them out regularly. As far as H&M is concerned, they still sell basic tees with pouf sleeves and they tend to have good basics for a more contemporary scruffier steampunk look in their LOGG section. And of course there’s the basics. If you are lucky enough to live in a country that has a Hema they now do cheap long sleeved tops in organic cotton at lower prices than H&M and Zara. So if you need those as basics, you know where to go.

And for those looking for geek t-shirts, I can recommend Tee Fury (every day a new cheap tee only available for that day. Steampunk is few and far between but you may luck out.). Redbubble which has some true gems and of course Amorphia Apparel.

Photo by Bert Van den Wyngaert

Our own Hilde Heyvaert of the House of Secrets Incorporated was interviewed on Decimononic last week, a fine jewelry and accessories community where she talked a bit about The Gatehouse, steampunk fashion and jewelry.

Hilde write a fashion column for every single one of the Gatehouse Gazette‘s twenty-one issues between July 2008 and November of last year. Asked why she got involved, she told Decimononic “it would be really cool to have a column that helps people getting to know some of the substyles of steampunk and dieselpunk and help them with ideas for outfits and costumes. Especially if they’re on a budget.”

We often see spectacular steampunk outfits online but the average genre enthusiasts, who hasn’t got a fortune to spend on costumes, tends to be forgotten. Hilde never did in her articles for the Gatehouse Gazette.

You can download all of the magazine’s back issues on our website by the way. They’re free!

As an independent costume and fashion designer, Hilde’s familiar with the struggles of jewelry makers who read Decimononic. Her advice? “Make sure your work is visible in the community, be on Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, LiveJournal. The more exposure, the more people will get interested in your work and buy it.” And, “Don’t be afraid to ask steampunk blogs and magazines whether you can get a feature on them.” The Gatehouse Gazette covered many designers during its run and we’re still interested in hearing from people here at the blog.

Also, a bit of advice for steampunk makers in particular: “Don’t let anyone persuade you from doing your own thing,” says Hilde.

Steampunk has very little in the way of actual rules, and aside from following those it’s all how you see things. There’s always going to be people trying to enforce their vision onto you, if they have things to say you actually like and want to work with: awesome. If they don’t, then don’t be afraid to go in against what seems the popular opinion and stick to your guns.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Congratulations to Hilde on this wonderful coverage!

J. Edgar theatrical release poster

J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was released in the United States late last year but we hadn’t had a chance to see it yet in Europe until last week. The biopic about the former FBI director, directed by Clint Eastwood, is a great history piece but ultimately disappoints because there isn’t much of a storyline.

DiCaprio absolute submerges himself in the role and excels as “the most powerful man in America.” The costumes, the décor, the lighting all enforce a sense of nostalgia that should appeal to dieselpunk enthusiasts. The movie shows a lot of history from the anarchist hysteria of the early twentieth century to the 1930s War on Crime to fears of Communist subversion in the 1950s and 1960s.

Throughout it all, Hoover tries to make himself into the ultimate defender of law and order, the only man who stands between America and moral decay. Coupled with his struggles as a chaste homosexual who’s never quite able to commit to the man he loves, it makes for an intriguing picture of the controversial crime fighter.

The plot, unfortunately, is far less illuminating. Perhaps the problem is that it tries to do too much. The strength of other great biographic films of recent years, including The Queen and The King’s Speech was that they depicted just a small part of an historic figure’s life. Through it, the viewer is able to get to know the person much better than a film that aims to cover half a century of American history can.

DiCaprio is struggling for attention with event in this film. If watched as a docudrama, it’s spectacular. As a motion picture though, it falls short.

Cover of Red Wheels Turning

For the fans of Mr Ashton’s other alternate history novel Beneath Gray Skies, this novel also features that book’s protagonist Brian Finch-Malloy.

Now I have never read Beneath Gray Skies but this wasn’t a hindrance at all as Red Wheels Turning is set a few years before the events in the earlier published work. Therefore you do not have to have read them in the right order of publication at all, even though they are part of the same time line. Where the next instalment will fit in this timeline I’m not sure, but for now, you’re fine reading this one without the other.

The story begins in the trenches in Flanders, Belgium, in the Autumn of 1915 where Lieutenant Finch-Malloy serves under a less than competent commanding officer together with his best friend Sergeant Harry Braithwaite. He receives orders from London to report to the Secret Intelligence branch. Playing it clever, he manages to drag Harry along with him and securing his friend a commission as an officer before their departure.

There they are send off into their new mission together with the Russian Colonel Alexei Petrov who is not all he seems to be. Regardless they set off to Russia, to uncover a British spy for the Germans, stop dastardly Russian Revolutionaries led by Lenin and see about some new Russian inventions that may or may not turn victory in the war to their side.

I personally am not a fan at all of war stories but I found myself thoroughly enjoying this one. It’s written in a captivating way, making it easy to keep your focus on the story. The reader is provided with enough information about the characters to understand what makes them tick the way they do without needing lengthy descriptions about their personal history. And there are enough twists and turns to keep it fresh and interesting throughout the entire book. His mix of historical facts and fictional ones fits his style and the story perfectly. I also like that he’s managed to make it quite clear just how bad things were during the war without having to go into gruesome details and page long battle scenes. That, for me personally, is a definite bonus.

If you like alternate history, inventions and a book full of political machinations, you’ll probably enjoy this as much as I did. I would definitely recommend this.

Official website: www.redwheelsturning.com