Steampunk Empire Symposium: Convention Report

As with every convention, I wanted to get going to the Steampunk Empire Symposium in Cincinnati as early as I could. But, also as with most conventions, I was constrained by the schedules of others. In this case, my daughter wanted to go to the con as well but had to work half a shift so I couldn’t leave Pittsburgh until 11:30. Even so, we made excellent time and arrived well in time to unpack the car and get changed to attend the first item on the program that I had wanted to see.

Aloysius Fox, the host of the convention, had contacted me in advance of the con wanting to engage my video room experience in having an all night steampunk movie marathon. It was a very last minute and honestly slipshod plan but what turned out happening was that I brought a bag full of DVDs and all through the weekend I kept putting out disks to be played on the TV in the hotel lobby/lounge area. If one program ended and I wasn’t there to change it out, someone would pick a disk and put it in so that I didn’t have to be a slave to the machine.

It started with my putting in a few hours of Georges Méliès films and someone who produced silent films remarked that he had only ever seen two or three of the shorts before. I think he sat and watched the entire disk. It's those sorts of responses that make such endeavors worthwhile.

Late on Friday night (or rather early Saturday morning) the conversation of a group of people in the lobby was to what was their first convention. Most had been going to cons for two or three years.

I've been doing this for a quarter century. I've been attending science fiction conventions since some time in the 80s, been dressing up for conventions (as a Klingon back when Star Trek was good) since the 90s, and have been doing steampunk for four years or so.

Saturday

The symposium scheduled a number of competitions throughout the day wherein different "airships" would enter representatives to compete in various games. The first such event was the mustache competition and as I have an "epic beard" (not my description but thoroughly apt) I entered as a representative of the Steel City Steam Society. There were some fine mustaches and beards representing the other groups and I noticed a tendency towards wax and pointy handlebars. For myself I prefer not to use wax or sport the pointy handlebar so I felt myself at an unusual disadvantage.

I did not win.

Perhaps I should experiment more with various products and styles to see how much more magnificent I could make my beard. I doubt it will ever reach the world class categories found in the International Beard and Mustache Championships, though.

Lord Bobbins did a presentation on photo manipulation. At last year's TeslaCon he had placed a number of period type photos over the generic photos and paintings the hotel had about. Thinks like battlefields with airships, fantastical field artillery, the destroyed Eiffel Tower. Some of what he presented was useful to me but much of it was not because he uses Photoshop on a Mac and I use Gimp on Ubuntu. I was astonished with his comments as to how quickly he could produce a decent image. Something he would crank out in an hour would take me all afternoon if I could accomplish it at all. I need to update my Ubuntu OS to version 12 soon, maybe then I'll update my graphic software as well.

One of the classes was on pistol spinning. I've been able to back-spin a pistol once but I've never been able to master multiple spins or the forward spin. With just a little bit of guidance from experienced teachers I was able to "get it" in my mind and dramatically improve my physical execution. I'm not good at it but I now know how it works. I also learned the Outlaw Josie Wales trick of pretending to hand the gun to someone grip first only to spin it around. I still need to work on cocking the pistol as part of the spin.

One of the dealers had projector lenses with irises. I don't know what I would do with such a think but I bought one anyway. The dealer also had Kinekt knock-off gear rings. If I didn't already have an original stainless steel ring that I paid $165 for I would have definitely bought one of the copper copies for $40.

Another dealer had a Denix replica Winchester 1866 that lists for $200, is typically found for $165 but because he hadn't been able to sell it and was tired of hauling it to cons he was trying to sell it for $100. I was going to go by at the end of the con and, if he really wanted it to go, would offer him $80 but Euphorbia wanted a pair of goggles and, in taking my cash, did not leave me with enough to make even offer.

It was sort of beat up and Euphorbia didn't want me to have it anyway.

My Mystery Airships presentation was at 7pm on Saturday and the room was exceedingly hot. Especially for me bring in my wool Union uniform. I took the shell jacket off and found a paper clip with which I could reach past the covering protecting the thermostat to turn on the fan. The presentation went well and while I still need to reference the script to get names and dates in order, it is well practiced and runs in the time allotted.

People laugh when they are supposed to and ooh and ahh when expected.

After an hour break, the premier presentation of Victorian Spacecraft did not go as well. I spent too much time on some of the craft and then didn't have enough time to talk about Nicola Tesla or John Worrell Keely. With the airships I wrote a script and timed myself reading it to make sore it fit the time slow. For the spacecraft presentation I didn't want to give a lecture and thus didn't have a good sense of how long it would take. I know better now and my presentations at the Worlds Fair and Expo should go better but for everyone at the Symposium, I need to apologize again not not being as prepared as I could have been.

Last year, friends of mine who had grown tired of seeing northern rednecks with Confederate battle flag bumper stickers and the like decided to have a party celebrating the birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, the man who kicked the rebels' collective asses. As I would be missing their party this year I decided to take the party with me, hosting a party after my spacecraft presentation.

I had put up flyers and talked it up online. I invited those at the spacecraft presentation to join me at the party where we could go over the parts of my presentation I was unable to complete. I specifically dis-invited an Atlanta native and apparent Confederate sympathizer who had been heckling me a little on the subject at my presentation. He ignored my dis-invite and followed me back to the room. While we got the chips and soda, cake and ice cream ready, our conversation continued. He joked about spitting on the "Happy Birthday Ulysses" cake.

That line of conversation thankfully ended when the party actually arrived at the appointed time. All told there were about a dozen people who showed up over the course of a few hours and had cake and ice cream. We talked more about what I wanted to talk about; Victorian spacecraft, Tesla and Keely.

After the Grant party I ended up not bothering with the big noisy event going on in the Atrium nor did I cruise about looking for other room parties. Typical, actually. Instead I spent time sitting in the lobby talking with Lord Bobbins and Kapitain von Grelle. Secrets of TeslaCon 4 were learned.

It was 3am when the Atrium finally shut off the music and, with the noise abated, I could try going to bed.

Sunday

Sunday morning we took the leftover cake out to the registration desk for anyone who wanted some.

I woke up too late to go to the Victorians and the Paranormal presentation. I wanted to see that because I am considering developing a presentation on pseudoscience and hoaxes of the period as a counter to the commonality of occult and spiritualism presentations. A lot of people believe that crap and I think a voice a scepticism and reason would be a good thing. Sure, this is steampunk convention and that means science fiction but I am one of those "hard sci-fi" people who like to have my facts straight (as in the Victorian spacecraft presentation and the forum thread that helped to build it). And if I'm going to make things up I at least want to know how it's made up and admit to myself that it is made up.

I've also been thinking about developing a presentation on the history of Victorian beards and mustaches, and the history of airships.

Lord Bobbins did a presentation on TeslaCon, it's history, how he developed it, some of the props involved and plans for next year. Basically a big advertisement for his convention. About a quarter of the audience members had been to previous cons and did not hold back in saying how terrific it was.

After his presentation, we needed to pack and get on the road towards home so I didn't get a chance to go down to the TeslaCon table so I could talk to Lord Bobbins before we left. We did get one last chance while he was loading up his car to go. He had said during his presentation that the Americans and the aftermath of the Civil War were going to be more prominent at this year's con and that he wanted to have a 20 page PDF for people to read and catch up on the history of those things but he claimed he was not a writer. I consider myself a writer so I told him to email me his notes and I would write his document.

About an hour out of Cincinnati we stopped to get something to eat and I realized then that I still had the room keys and had neglected to check out. I called the hotel and they did the check out over the phone and told me not to bother with returning the cards. I had heard there were a number of issues with the hotel, most concerning were issues of double booking, people arriving at the hotel to learn that their reservation had not actually reserved them a room. I personally didn't have any problems other than the complaint that the air conditioning in the meeting room I presented in was insufficient. In most ways, any complains about the hotel are moot because next year's convention has already been slated for a different hotel.

I'll probably be going, although I already have a lot of cons on my plate and need to consider limiting myself for the sake of my financial survival.
 
Then again, I've said that before and see how that turned out.