We Moved Some Chairs Around

Well, not really. But we've done some remodeling for our upcoming celebration. So, please stop in and take a look. There'll be fondue! (God knows there's always fondue on this blog because we just love to write that word.) Please let us know what you think. We feel as though we're in such a vacuum sometimes.

Exhausted by creativity, she sank into a funk.

And we don't even enjoy using one to clean with! So save us from the surreal sensation, won't you, please? A line or two would mean so much to our tired little heart, and we will respond in kind, unless you're writing to tell us that you hate this blog and don't even care to tell us why, in which case you would strike us as being unduly harsh and we would ignore you. But on the whole, we crave comments and look forward to yours. .



Thank you in advance. We'll leave the light on for you. Don't forget your keys.


Postscript: Virginia Woolfe was so flamin' right. You can
see more steampunk decor on Creekmore World
at https://twitter.com/#!/Creekmoreworld

It lacks only me and that glass of perfect absinthe

Striving For Steampunk

     A bold summer choice
 

We sighed and sipped our frozen grasshopper, wondering why we had ordered a frozen grasshopper in the first place. Then we remembered. It was a mere week until Jackie Kennedy's birthday. Ms.|Kennedy being a woman whom we regard as a most admirable woman possessed of Victorian sensibilities which she ingeniously revamped to suit a less genteel age, we like to celebrate her birthday by sipping a grasshopper cocktail, a drink which she herself enjoyed during the high summer of her youth. Then again, dear Jackie has been dead for seventeen years. Steampunk thrives. It seemed only right that we turn our attention to it for a moment longer.
"Allow me to assist you," we said to our friend.
 Taking out our cell phone, we hit "browse" and went immediately to the Etsy website where we showed her a photograph of our recent purchase.
"Oh what a cool clock! I love it!" our friend opined, as we knew she would.
"Yes, but let's keep our minds on the business as hand, shall we?" we suggested kindly.

  

      "Steampunk, steampunk!" our friend who writes a budget travel blog exclaimed rather inexplicably the other afternoon over drinks at a crowded downtown saloon. "That's all I hear about these days. In fashion magazines, in all the food blogs. But I still don't really understand exactly what makes something steampunk."

  Never uttered the words "steampunk"

HG Wells was a man of his time and ours, too

"In other words, steampunk is stuff that looks like it could have come out of some Victorian's crazy dream about the future," our friend said. 

    "Some might call them crazy dreams," we said. "But this cell phone I'm holding didn't simply invent itself." 

                                        

    The thing is, Gentle Reader, that steampunk is one of those genres that overlaps other genres, thereby blurring the lines between them and igniting verbal, and sometimes physical altercations among steampunk geeks and cyberpunk geeks all across this and other great lands. No doubt there are Victoriana geeks who feel called upon to offer their two cents worth as well, although, in general, the relationship between a Victoriana aficonado and steampunkers could be compared to that of a well-groomed poodle and a spike-collar sporting Doberman eating dinner from the same flowered porcelain bowl before going off to different corners of the yard to digest and perhaps regurgitate what they've eaten. What's that? You find the analogy an offensive one? We apologize. Perhaps we should make another attempt to clarify the subject with a pictorial lesson using elements of compare and contrast.

   Let's begin with the photograph directly below us, which is an example of what could be referred to as a "sexy steampunk lady", whereas the photograph to our side is more representative of what one might call a "saucy Victorian gal." The difference? Elementary.

Sexy Steampunk lady

For one thing, the woman in the photograph is wearing a mannish hat and coat on which there are shiny metal objects most likely possessing certain scientific attributes that only a real Victorian's mind could imagine, and she's holding a pocketwatch, which, we may conjecture, is also probably some kind of weapon or scientific device. By contrast, the lady below us is just standing there behind a fake fence looking saucy, and she probably doesn't walk along beaches with a random man's pocket watch between her dainty digits. That would be unladylike. How could you even suggest it? Although she does look saucy enough to have repeated a blue phrase or two in her time.

Saucy Victorian gal

    Now for another example, this time using jewelry, an artifact in which members of both camps place a great deal of value as a mode of expression. Below , we have the image of a lovely Victorian era necklace, .

 with specific attributes in keeping with the apt description of same given on the venerable WiseGeek website. To wit: "The look of Victorian jewelry is quite distinctive. It tends to be heavy and elegant, with a lot of jet, diamond, and coral. To the modern eye, it has an old fashioned feel. Victorianstyle has such enduring popularity that several firms make reproduction jewelry which is modeled after or inspired by real Victorian jewelry. Reproduction jewelry tends to be less costly, because it is not an antique like real Victorian jewelry. Many of the fabrication techniques for hand made pieces are the same, reflecting the fact that metalsmithing has changed little over the centuries." 
     What more can we add without being ridiculously redundant? But what we can offer is a contrasting example of an equally lovely steampunk necklace from NobleStudiosLTD, one of our favorite sellers on Etsy. See the cross, the clockface, the unnecessary,,but ever so appealing little metal extras on it? Steampunk at its most basic.As is this ring we also found at NobleStudios, LTD.
 

   In fact, we are so enraptured by the ring in the photograph above that we may never be able to recover from our joy and will be forced to give up writing and become a greeter at Wal-|Mart.
    But that's our problem. We only hope that our little attempt at steampunk edification has brought some clarity of mind and vision into your life, Gentle Reader. Remember...

Victorian looks like this

Steampunk looks like that

And both of them are capable of creating.....

Happiness, baby

   

Coming Attractions

                   
Well, now. In my last post, I mentioned that I would be sharing ongoing posts about my experiences as a person with knowledge of the "dust world", (i.e. monkey dust, bath salts, Ivory Wave, etc). But since then it has become clear to me that my dust world posts require their own blog, so for those of you who didn't receive a link, you can read my "dust" posts at http://bettergretadusted.blogspot.com. And please don't hesitate to let me know what you think of the content. It's not happy stuff. But I'd like to know just how or even whether it resonates with anyone out there.
    This blog will continue to be an eclectic (God, slap me the next time I use that word) curio cabinet of Victoriana, Steampunk and random information, links and musings. Sadly, it's been rather a slow week here at "Nocturne In G Flat Major". Other writing duties have kept me from adding much new content, and what time I did have, I spent getting "Dusted" up and running. But I have  high hopes for this coming week, with a real life Victorian seance love triangle in the offing, one in which the third party is neither man nor   woman, but a spirit known as Katie King.

I'll also have some exciting news about Steampunk cuisine as well as a few words about that food I can't believe anyone ever has room for---Jell-O. Hint: It's not a good one.

 So, at any rate, catch you on the downbeat this coming week. Stay safe, not sorrowful, and remember not to put anything in your mouth until you know where it's been. Kisses.

Getting Dusted and Steamed

   Well, now, let's see....where were we? Three days into my new fascination with beginning a sidebar life as a blogskeeper (yes, I JUST coined that phrase; let the residuals start rolling in), I'm doing my best to keep up with the high demand for new blog posts and working intermittently on making the place look a bit more professional. Like everything else in my life, this blog is a fairly eclectic enterprise, although its main purpose is to share my passion for Victoriana/Steampunk in all its beauty, glory and oddness, and to allow me a venue in which to write what I'm calling "Dusted", which consists of my ongoing, real life experiences as a person who knows people who know people in the "Dust World." Not going to say a lot about it here. If you read newspapers or watch televised news, you've probably heard about "monkey dust" aka "bath salts" and sometimes "mad dog", a new synthetic drug currently legal in most U.S. states and making quite a name for itself as well as for those who snort, smoke or inject it. To call it "a new trend" is like calling the acid movement of the sixties "a little thing." Monkey dust is like a white tornado swirling its way through an entire segment of the population, taking with its families, lives, homes and more than a few lives. But like any dust storm, it reveals as much as it destroys. Some of the things it's revealed were revealed to me. How could I be any less forthcoming with my readers....all three of you?
    But it's not all sad drug stories here in Nocturne Land. As I said, the Victoriana/Steampunk connection is huge, with links to other sites and blogs that do the genre proud. I especially recommend a visit to "Retrosexual Risque", your free classic Victorian dirty images connection. Did I say dirty? I meant, "a little soiled." These ladies aren't showing much more than their breasts, although there are a few very pale Victorian buttocks in the mix. But by and large (and a lot of them are pretty Rubenesque), these are ladies who would themselves be aghast to see what constitutes "dirty" and "sexy" today.
   I'm also pretty excited about the weekly "Awful Retro Recipe Photo", which gives new meaning to the phrase, "I don't like the looks of that." Whipped cream and mayo frosting, hot dogs in aspic, canned peaches and tuna sorbet...it's all here, in faded photographic splendor, courtesy of the world's still extant 1950s and 60s cooking books.
   You can also check out my You Tube channel if you have nothing better to do, which I don't, being a "Better Greta." Just like my guardian angel, Ms Garbo. And if she'd had a blog, she wouldn't have had to talk at all.
   The next installment of "Dusted" shows up tomorrow. Get "Dusted." By blog.