Foxy: I first heard the expression used a year or two ago (it helps to have a teenager in the house). Loosely defined, it's another form of counter-culture behavior I suspect, with a focus on the elaborate (& sometimes odd) Victorian-era engineering of things used in the steam-driven society of that time (steam trains & boats, steam-driven manufacturing, etc.). The kids that practice it are focused on older (or very old) artifacts that have otherwise been discarded by modern society as being obsolete, but that were well-made then and that are still very-functional now. I suspect that it's a behavior that is mostly driven by economics (& a need to own something tangible), but there is an "art" to it as well. It's a blend of campy and cool I suppose. It's old typewriters, chemical cameras, mechanical watches, fountain pens, spats and cigarette-holders, all combined with bathtub gin and absinthe. I don't entirely understand parts of it, but some of it is fun (& mostly harmless).
Think "Art Deco" or "Biedermeier" furniture, acetylene miner's lamps and bamboo fly rods, or the "Deus ex Machina" (translated loosely into "God from the Machine") of really old motorcycles with stick (or "suicide") gear-shifters, or even mechanical brakes and standard transmissions in cars instead of modern automatic transmissions (or now, even "self-parking cars"). That's almost "Steam Punk" to me.
Last edited by Lloyd3; 05/13/23 01:12 PM.
