Maybe I should do one of these things before I make Gunner. Its a bit long I'm afraid.
I’ve been a Sci-Fi fan since I was old enough to read Space Cat books and was a Star Trek freak by nine years old. I also watched Wild Wild West pretty religiously. I spent my teens play D&D and read every Michael Moorcock book I could lay my hands on. I’m still an overgrown fan boy and go to Comic-Con every year.
At about nineteen (the early eighties) I got heavily into the emerging California mod scene. Back then the scene was full of DIY punk attitude as well as sixties based dandyism. Punk itself was going through the darkest and most self destructive part of the hardcore period so it was of little interest to me. I was deeply into the mod scene for at least twenty years. After a few years I got into this John Steed/city gent look with it and that, and a slowly growing awareness of Victoriana, was never far beneath the surface of my style.
I’ve been married for twenty years to a cinemaniac, craftswoman, and fellow mod scene veteran. We have two boys seven and four years old who possess the combined insanity of both parents. I’m overeducated, BA Anthropology, interdisciplinary social science MA, and a Master’s in Library Science. I work as a youth
services librarian, and recently published a paper on “virtual” community as Chapter 13 of Youth Culture: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes.
A few years back I got fed up with the stagnant vinyl geek remains of the mod scene and got into various medieval and renaissance reenactment groups and activities. My musical tastes broadened to include darkwave, medieval, neo-medieval and folk. I also discovered I’m a fair craftsman. As much love the medieval thing it always seemed a little lacking in that there was no way to bring it into your day to day life and style without looking like a dork or a hippy or both. I found myself turning into a boring dad blob wearing jeans, Teeshirts, and (gasp!) shorts.
Last month my wife and I went to Anachronist's Comic-Con party and brassgoggles meet-up. I knew about the board because I sent Anachronist a copy of my then unpublished book chapter as research material for his paper. I knew what steampunk was in literary terms, but I had know idea how far it had come as a culture. Even though my wardrobe was at its lowest ebb in twenty years it was now problem to dress for the party I just put on one of my bowlers and my lapeled waist coat and was good to go. The party was more than I expected. There were well dressed people, civilized manners, intelligent conversations, yet it was undeniably an assemblage of deviants creating a world of their own. I was home again.
Kiskolou's phrase “punks with etiquette” is not only apt it is for me familiar. In the early eighties mods were called “punks in mohair (suits).” I think the mainstream social order has a lot invested in a the dichotomy of clean-cut, respectable, conformity vs unkempt, disreputable non-conformity. This makes clean-cut, respectable, non-conformity incredibly subversive. Steampunk is, of course, more than that, but for me that is a big part of the appeal. Anyway, a month after that fateful party, I'm on these boards, my sideburns are a lot bigger, and am starting to rebuild my wardrobe.
