On Saturday May 3, Cap'n Robert of Abney Park, Libby Bulloff of SteamPunk Magazine and I will be on  The Heather Gold Show which will be streamed live from the main stage at Maker Faire.  From Heather's site:

I've been thinking about what this whole Steampunk thing is and I still haven't gotten a handle on it.  But anything that brings together such a wide range of artists, makers, and fans has got to be good.  Is there any other hobby that will bring you email from HAM radio operators, Bay Area sculptors, European train buffs, Seattle musicians, media reporters, alternative energy tinkerers, clockmakers, goth fashion designers, literary agents, telegraphers, Scottish printmakers, LA fashion photographers, British narrow boat dwellers, and so many more?  I think not!

One such email arrived this morning from Suzanne R Forbes, a Berkeley artist who has created a work that embodies three of my most favorite memes!  In addition the painting (and Suzanne!) will be at Maker Faire next week and will ultimately be auctioned off to benefit one of those favorites, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  The exercise of determining the other two favorites is left to the reader.

Prints are currently on sale at her Etsy store and $10 of each sale goes to benefit the EFF. Be sure to look for Suzanne, the EFF and the rest of us SteamPunks at Maker Faire next week!

The inexorable march of technology has rendered my 4:3 aspect ratio 19" LCD mod and my pump-less water cooled PC obsolete, so when I saw a 24" wide screen monitor on sale for $299.00 I grabbed it with the intent on making a Steampunk All-in-One PC.

I am happy to announce that The Steampunk Workshop will be making a grand appearance at this years Maker Faire! For those of you not acquainted with it; "Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It’s for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things." Make magazine, sponsor of the event, has been very kind to SPWS and given us a space to create for you what we have named the Contraptors Lounge. It will be a space for Steampunk Makers, admirers, and the unaffiliated or uninitiated to meet, greet, fraternize, and otherwise hobnob with each other and us as well as see some awesome projects!

Appearing at the lounge will be the inimitable Datamancer (of steampunk laptop fame), The Legion Fantastique, Magpie and Libby Bulloff of Steampunk Magazine, Molly 'Porkshanks' Friedrich - whose work has been featured here on SPWS - as well as a several other travellers and Makers including yours truly, Meredith Scheff, and our esteemed proprietor Jake von Slatt.

Maker Faire is held in San Mateo, Ca, on the weekend of May 3rd and 4th. In addition to our humble encampment, there will be all manner of machinery, crafts, lectures, thing-a-ma-bobs, whatchamajigs, and whosawatsits to peruse at your leisure. In other words, if at all humanly possible, you should drag your bustled bootie out there and have yourself one hell of a good time!

Publishing house Tachyon Publications and editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have agreed to make their new fiction anthology, Steampunk, available for pre-order at a discounted price!  This volume, priced at $14.95, is being offered at $12.00, including free shipping within the United States. Shipping outside the United States will be by Global Priority Mail: $9.50 to Canada and $11.00 to our friends in Europe and Australia.

Click Here for the Detals

In addition, books ordered through this offer will arrive signed by the editors. Signed and personalized…they will even draw little zeppelins!

So you probably all saw Merlin Mann's Steampunk DIY video blog monologue on Boing Boing yesterday, well I thought he was being a little bit mean and I happen to know a couple of things about the future of SteamPunk . . .

Wandering through the industrial neighborhood of West Oakland, You'll find more than a few warehouse art studios, each one filled to the brim with all manner of projects; from giant robots to huge metal art - and of course steam machines.

A few days ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited into the studio of one of the artists that reside there; a fine chap by the name of Tom Sepe. After sending out a call for willing subjects (aka, interview-ees), Tom contacted me and, with but a few words, lured me into his studio. Those words were simply: "Want to come see my electric-steam hybrid motorcycle?". He calls it the Whirlygig Emoto.

I'm very happy to have the opportunity to introduce you to Meredith Scheff who will be doing a series of articles for The Steampunk Workshop where she will "go exploring in the jungles of maker workshops; and share the images with you, the hopefully regular reader."

Meredith describes herself as "a cartoonist, maker, geek, and general silly person. She avoids everyone's advice and continues to live happily in San Francisco, no matter how tired of Top Ramen she may get. She is in her thesis semester for illustration/sculpture at California College of the Arts. Her website, until she builds a better one, is satiredun.deviantart.com."

In addition to her series Meredith has agreed to develop a regular cartoon feature for the Steampunk Workshop and I've asked her to do a bit of lampooning of all of us Steampunks - if you are as curious as I am as to what the result will be get thee to the front page and sign-up for the mailing list or grab the feed! - Jake von Slatt

There is nothing in the world that I like better then receiving pictures of things that people have been inspired to build by my projects.  When I opened my mail and discovered these photos of Dave's monitor, keyboard, and Mini Mac wrap I squeed like teen on LJ!  

In interviews I've often described Steampunk as the intersection of technology and romance - well here is the story to prove it!

Work on the Steampunk car continues.  Here I remove the rotted seats and mildewed interior. Rebuild and rewire the dash as well as replace the VW tail lights with reproduction Model A lamps.