RIP Captain America

I'm sure all the comics fanboys are aware of this already, and judging by the press coverage I've seen online, probably just about everyone else, as well. Captain America has fallen to a sniper's bullet. The hero who once punched Hitler in the jaw, was frozen in an iceberg towards the end of WWII, only to be revived in the 1960's to join the ranks of the rest of Marvel Comics' contemporary heroes.

A lot of the reactions I've seen online have centered around, the lameness of Cap as a character, and the symbolism of this death, which again many commentators see as lame.

I've got a slightly different take on this.

While I never really followed Cap's title, I had a certain affection for him as a character, especially the aspect of him being a man-out-of-time. Here was a member of what Tom Brokaw would later call the "Greatest Generation," who while still in his prime is active in contemporary society. Reading about Cap was like being able to hang out with a version of my grandfather who was still a young man, and had super-powers to boot. He represented a more decent, hard-working, less cynical America to me.

I've ruminated before on what I see as the cultural symbolism of Captain America. In that post, I commented on the Marvel Comics Civil War series, the over-arching plot which ultimately led to Cap's demise. Some of the commentary I have seen recently on this series has included the sentiment that casting Cap as a dissenter in the super-hero registration act saga was not true to his character. I must, respectfully, disagree with this view.

Because, as I said earlier, Captain America, while embodying the idealistic patriotism of the Greatest generation, was unencumbered by the cyncism and bitterness that can come with age. This paradox was part of his appeal. Just because he was the uber-patriot, and a government employee, didn't mean he was a government stooge. For instance the role he plays in Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's classic Daredevil storyline Born Again, is more akin to Fox Mulder than Ollie North. You could say that while the government employed Steve Rogers, Captain America's true alliegance was to the American Dream. And ultimately, it was this interior conflict which indirectly killed him.

One of my favorite Captain America tales, was not an official part of the Marvel Comics canon. It was a "What if" story, from the series of the same name (issue #44), entitled "What if Captain America were revived today?" The link here is to a great essay on this issue that was published the day before the 2006 election. In this story, Cap is not revived until the mid-80's. In the mean time a Red-baiting imposter Cap from 1950s has been revived earlier, and has been used by a fascist conspiracy to turn America into a neo-fascist nightmare. The image above is a scan from that issue.

So the Dragon, for one, mourns the loss of our greatest fictional patriot. I agree with the reactions of Cap's creator Joe Simon, "We really need him now," and long time Cap writer Stan Lee, "He was the ultimate patriot, and I imagine we could use all the patriots we can get today."

Twenty-one shots for you, my friend. Three planes fly overhead, in a four plane formation. And one bugle blows "Taps."

"Well, I say America is nothing! Without its ideals--its commitment to the freedom of all men, America is a piece of trash! I fought Adolf Hitler not because America was great, but because it was fragile! I knew that Liberty could as easily be snuffed out here as in Nazi Germany! As a people, we were no different from them!
When I returned, I say that you nearly DID turn America into nothing! And the only reason you're not LESS than nothing-- is that it's still possible for you too bring freedom back to America!" Captain America, 1941-2007

Rudy Rucker's Transrealist Manifesto

(Warning: the above link is to a PDF document, not an HTML page)

I think I may have mentioned before that "Rudeboy" Rucker is my favorite underrated author. This manifesto of his is old news by many folks reckoning, but I just came across it, and it illuminates for me, much of what I love about his writing, and some of my own opinions about crafting a creative work which has versimmilitude and does not feel contrived.

The Transrealist artist cannot predict the finished form of his or her work. The Transrealist novel grows organically, like life itself. The author can only choose characters and setting, introduce this or that particular fantastic element, and aim for certain key scenes. Ideally, a Transrealist novel is written in oscurity, and without an outline. If the author knows precisely how his or her book will develop, then the reader will divine this. A predictable book is of no interest. Nevertheless, the book must be coherent. Granted, life does not often make sense. But people will not read a book which has no plot.

Steampunk Music

No, this isn't a post about Vernian Process or Abney Park (though I hope to do be doing something on Vernian Process soon, and there is a nice interview with Abney Park in the first issue of Steampunk Magazine.)

No, this post is about a strange of link our resident expert of the strange, Iain de Sane, sent me.

Yes, friends and neighbors, this is about the Stroh Violin, seen above. This odd duck of a stringed instrument, (or chimeric combination of strings and brass) was patented in 1899 by Johannes Matthias Augustus Stroh. Apparently the recording equipment of the time did not pickup the notes of a violin well. The Stroh Violin compensates for this by being much louder, through using a metal horn which is similar in appearance to a gramaphone speaker, as a resonator instead of the traditional wooden sound box. Advances in microphone technology in 20's pretty much did away with them, though that wacky old Tom Waites has been known to use one in his recordings. The sound while louder, is more metallic and lacks the warm depth of tone which comes from wooden violins. You can hear some samples here.

Strohviolin.com has a model with an aluminum bell for $405 USD and a brass model for $445.

Readers across the pond may wish to order from the German site Phonofiddle who offer two similar models for 360 Euro and 400 Euro, respectively.

Could be just the thing for entertaining folks in the cavernous common room during a transatlantic Zepplin cruise...

Correction

In my post awhile back, US Secretary of Transportation is a Biker, I mistakenly reported that Secretary Peters advocates making helmets mandatory in all 50 states. Well I recently recieved the below email, which clears up the matter:

HonkyTonkDragon,
Just for clarification purposes...
In your post on February 19, 2007 titled "U.S. Secretary of Transportation is a Biker," you stated that Secretary Peters advocates for making helmets mandatory in all 50 states. This is not correct.

Secretary Peters does not advocate making helmets mandatory. She believes that riders should make the right choice to wear a helmet, but that the federal government should not be in the position of mandating helmet use. In addition, Secretary Peters personally wears a helmet every time she rides and refuses to ride with anyone who is not wearing one.

Thank you.

Jennifer Hing
DOT Public Affairs
Office of the Secretary

Sorry for the misinformation, friends.

History of Honda

Just ran across this rather indepth (for a blog post) history of Honda Motors. It is interesting to note that Honda had similar beginnings to Vespa, turning surplus wartime motors into a solution to peacetime transportation shortages. The Honda A-type, described below, was more a moped than a motorcycle or scooter. But boy-oh-boy was it pretty, in a Dieselpunk sort of way.

Honda's first motorcycle was born out of necessity in immediate post World War II Japan, where public transportation was desperately overcrowded and gasoline severely restricted.

Looking for a solution to his, and thousands of others', personal transport problems, Honda came across a job lot of 500 war surplus two-stroke motors designed to power electric generators; nobody else wanted them so Honda picked them up cheap.

His aim was to adapt them for attachment to push-bikes and, by October 1946, his small factory in Hamamatsu was making complete, makeshift motor bikes using proprietary cycle frames. Because gasoline was in short supply, Honda adapted his motors to run on turpentine, a fuel that he himself distilled from pine trees and sold throughout Japan. Turpentine (or gas thinned out with turpentine) was not the best thing for powering motorbikes, and required a lot of strenuous pedaling to warm the engine up enough before you could get going.

...

In November 1947, the 1/2 horsepower A-Type Honda was being manufactured and sold as a complete motorbike. Because the motorbike gave off a lot of smoke and a stench of turpentine it was known as the "Chimney".

The Steampunk Community

I haven't been posting as much as usual, because I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on the new Steampunk Forum. I have been wary of cross-posting from the forum, because I am really begining to enjoy the company of the artists, mechanics, tinkers, tailors, and tinkers there. I would hate for them to think I was just there to siphon links... plus, I borrow or share links from Brass Goggles enough, as it is.

Now don't get me wrong, there are other, older steampunk online communities. I've glanced over some of these, but the new one served up by Brass Goggles and the Aether Emporium was just the right approach at the right time, as far as I'm concerned. The timing was genius in fact, almost directly coinciding with Jake Von Slatt's web documentation of his steampunk keyboard project. This project dominated the aethernet over the last week, being linked and noticed, all over the place. Indeed google blog searches for "steampunk" last week could turn up pages of posts just to that keyboard.

A while back I read the wikipedia entry on Steampunk and it implied that some folks were interested in a steampunk lifestyle, or subculture. This got me thinking at the time, and perhaps made me more open to all the steampunk links I have posted since then.

Well folks I'm here to tell ya, there is something interesting going on over at the Steampunk forum. Though we might prefer it if you refered to it as Steampunk culture or community, rather than Steampunk subculture. After all, it is quite an international group of gentlepeople who gather there to discuss tinkering, steampower, airships, movies, games, and of course goggles.

Hanging out in the forum is like being in a technophilic salon. Discuss literature with engineers. Or airships with Muscians. Or both at the same time.

There is an old Indian story about Coyote. It seems Crow was upset with Coyote, for some past slight. So Crow snatches Coyote while he sleeping. He carries him way out into the desert, and plops him right in an endless sea of sand.
Coyote awakes and in confronted by nothing but sand, between him and the horizon. He travels for days before he finds a small puddle, a small spring. He rests there, but there is no food. Eventually, maddened by hunger, Coyote is forced to backtrack, and consume his own scat. He of course, returns to the spring. Here new scat is made of the old, and seeds which were contained in the old, are deposited near the spring, and watered by Coyote's liquid wastes.
Soon Coyote not only has fresh water, but fresh vegetables as well.
The next time he sees Crow, he is languidly enjoying his new oasis.

The moral of the story is, sometimes we must go back for what we have left behind, we must examine our own leavings, for those things of value which we might have overlooked.

I see a lot of this in the steampunk community. It seems there have been a lot of folks in the last few years who have independantly been persuing Steampunk themed projects. A lot of people who were inspired by just the idea of the term "Steampunk," as well as Science Fiction stories, role playing and video games, tv and movies, and just a generally apreciation of antique tech. Gathering a lot of these folks together, as well as people who are just becoming aware of the aesthetic due to a surge in aethernet coverage, is inspiring, to say the least.

Another example of the emergent steampunk culture is Steampunk Magazine, whose motto is "Putting the Punk back into Steampunk." This motto represents a perceived factionalization in the Steampunk community between Victorian reenactors, and anarchistic DIY tinkers. Like any polar dichotomy, the reality it describes is actually much more a greyscale, if not technicolor in origin. Still, like most incendiary Punk rants, I enjoy much of the Steampunk magazines editorial voice. I enjoy a little DIY self-sufficiency with my Steampunk. Though I do hope that in the future the mag will be more inclusive of all members of steampunk fandom.

The wonderful Jake Von Slatt uses a signature line on the forum of, "The industrial revolution... this time it's personal." I just love that sentiment.

What will Steampunk become? Fandom like the Trekkie and Anime communities? Some strange reactment society, somewhere between the SCA and LARPs? An actual culture as well as an aesthetic, manifesting into reality strange and arcane artifacts, ala Borges' Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius?

I don't know, but I can't wait to see.

Life imitates Alex Grey

BoredStop.com - X-Ray Kiss

This is gorgeous!