There comes a time in every bloggers life where we sit back at work in our comfy chairs, clad in our finest pajamas, and query ourselves: sure, this is great, but what have we done for the readers lately? Surely, they deserve more than a simple re-post, the internet's version of a subtle approving head nod.

So, what to do? 

AHA! Thought I. I will sell all my belongings, hit the road, and go meet other Makers!

The first part is done. At the moment I am in LA, at some big crazy artists warehouse thing (they just find me, I don't know). In mid October I will be in Austin for Maker Faire.

Between now and then? That's where you come in.

Do you have an awesome project you want seen on Steampunk Workshop? So awesome, or so weird, that it should be seen in person? Have you built a great workshop of your own? Is there a community workshop, craft group, or otherwise in your town? Has making stuff (steampunk or no) totally taken over your life?

Let me come check it out! Granted, I'll want a little information first. Send me the basics on your project/group/shop, where you are, and whether or not you plan to rend me for my highly-profitable internal meat organs, and I'll get back to you. No, really! I want to see what you people, grand readers, are up to!

Though, no matter how thorough your full-size steampunk rendition (including cast) of the Bates Motel is, I would probably respectfully decline.

(Photo from Stephanie Booth's Flickr stream)

This is either brand new or somehow snuck completely under my RADAR. It's a little essay by Bruce Sterling written, I think, for GOGBOT that describes what Steampunk is and he F&@%ing nails it! NAILS it! I say.

He gets the community part right:

If you like to play dress-up, good for you. You're probably young, and, being young, you have some identity issues. So while pretending to be a fireman, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or whatever your parents want you to be, you should be sure to try on a few identities that are totally impossible.Steampunk will help you,  because you cannot, ever, be an authentic denizen of the 19th century. You will meet interesting people your own age who share your vague discontent with today's status quo. Clutch them to your velvet-frilled bosom, because you will learn more from them than you ever will from your teachers.

He gets the crafts part right:

Steampunks are modern crafts people who are very into spreading the means and methods of working in archaic technologies. If you meet a steampunk craftsman and he or she doesn't want to tell you how he or she creates her stuff, that's a poseur who should be avoided. Find the creative ones who want to help you, and who don't leave you feeling hollow, drained and betrayed. They exist. You might be one.

And he wraps it up exactly right:

We are a technological society. When we trifle, in our sly, Gothic, grave-robbing fashion, with archaic and eclipsed technologies, we are secretly preparing ourselves for the death of our own tech. Steampunk is popular now because people are unconsciously realizing that the way that we live has already died. We are sleepwalking. We are ruled by rapacious, dogmatic, heavily-armed fossil-moguls who rob us and force us to live like corpses. Steampunk is a pretty way of coping with this truth.

And then he puts a cherry on top!  Go read the whole thing now!  As they say on the LiveJournal: "I am full of Squee!"

Shakespeare. The name sort of takes over a page doesn't it? It dominates, stealing the spotlight from whatever you might have actually been writing about. The man and his works are such a literary institution, so contentious and widely loved that just the name alone almost represents an entity beyond the person. Either that, or I'm (metaphorically) talking out of my ass.

Now, try and keep both of those ideas in mind for this next bit. Imagine a work that doesn't just steal the spotlight from Shakespeare, but does it using his own play. Impressive eh? Unless you think I'm full of crap. Then you'll have to actually judge the piece on its own merits. Luckily, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a play by Tom Stoppard. It follows two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet through the background of said play as they fumble about with existentialism, fate, and probability (among other things).

Now, I'm going to commit a crime here and tell you the ending: They die. Course, if you didn't know that already, you shouldn't be reading this play. While not technically vital, you really should have a decent enough knowledge of Hamlet to at least know the plot. Without it, you might be able to follow the dialog (maybe), and you could probably piece together a few of the deeper themes through out the story, but much of the humor and pretty much the entire plot will be lost on you.

A few days ago, NIMBY, a warehouse near and dear to my heart, survived a fire. However, due to the fire, the owner of the building has decided not to renew their lease. They are now trying to find a new space.

NIMBY is an amazing place- Alan Rorie, who Interviewed here before, is a resident, but so many amazing projects have come out of there, its staggering: Kinetic Steam Works, The Steampunk Treehouse, Dance Dance Immolation, The Stagecoach of the Apocolypse, a few among many. Many artists also have their personal and proffesional spaces there. Not only that, but it has contributed much to its native west Oakland community.

Now, after years of helping bring great art to the world, NIMBY needs your help. They need to be out of their current space by December 31- which seems like awhile until you consider the hundreds of tons of machinery and delicate artwork that will need to be moved. The costs, needless to say, are crippling for this type of move. For the sake of all the artists as well as those who run the space, please donate what you can, using paypal, to NIMBYLLC@yahoo.com .

Just a quick note that artifacts from our show tonight in Seattle are on pre-sale online right now!  And yes, the Steampunk Strat is among them!

Long before the age of the internet, and well before the cold efficiency of the assembly line, existed fantastic and terrible machines, run on hope, sweat, and steam. It was a time in which form and function lived in sin, and everyman was a revolutionary.

We are 13 American artists united by broad geography and narrow aesthetic.

Marrying narrative and nostalgia to design and technology, we imagine the triumphs of the past overriding the failures of the present to create from the ruins and detritus a dazzling future-perfect.

September 12 - October 3, 2008 Opening Reception: September 12 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM

2222 2nd Ave Suite 100, Seattle, WA 98121 (206) 956.3900

suite100gallery.com/show/2008/09/12/anachrotechnofetishism

Just a quick note to let you know what's going on with the Brass Goggles Forum and website.  Apparently BG's success has pushed it over it's web hosts (Fasthosts) CPU quota and the site has been suspended.  Amanda and her tech staff are working on the issue.

She also extends a heartfelt "Thank you" to everyone who wrote with expressions of concern and offers of help.

Hidden somewhere in Los Angeles is a remarkable place: a museum, of sorts, but more of a walk-through enigma. The building itself is identified only by a standard 'Museum' sign outside. Just chancing by, you could never guess what's inside: this is the Museum of Jurassic Technology. 

Entering, the whole museum has it's lights lowered far beyond what even the most delicate artifacts could possibly require. You entered a nondescript, plain looking building, but the interior...It's bigger on the inside. And far, far older.

The exhibits themselves don't make any sense per-se, reading like specialized text from some obscure and outdated profession. Having a logic all their own (and for you to try to figure out) the museum goes on through dark corridor after winding staircase, far larger than you could have guessed from the outside. Nonsensical scientific experiments, fragments of history, and a lush foyer dedicated to the brave canine cosmonauts of the Russian space program..its like having your brain reset by overloading it with nonsequiturs- which is needed after a few days braving the pavement in LA.

As hard as I try, I cannot explain this place- which is a good thing. If you find yourself in the city of angels anytime soon, make the special trek out to see some good, old fashioned, American hard boiled eccentricity.

Cliff writes:

Thanks for the photo and kind words Cliff! 

This is one of the more unique casemods I've seen and I'm quite impressed!  The large disk at the back contains the motherboard, the cage at right is the memory chamber and contains the hardrive and the copper tube front and left of center is the USB hub.

I can already hear John Brownlee over at BBG lamenting the lack of a brain in a fluid filled jar!

Last year I had the privilege of taping a segment for WIRED Science with Chris Hardwick.  As far as I know the piece never aired ("not sciencey enough" I heard through the grapevine!  ;-) ) but it's finally turned up on the WIRED Science website.

There is a larger version of the video on the WIRED Science website here.