A Probability of Being

If you haven't heard already, my friend Tariq and I recently started a new Dreamwidth Community called steampunk_nusantara . This is not a writing community, although there is writing involved. Its genesis began here , as a discussion for a meta-setting set in South East Asia, particularly the region called Nusantara, which is mostly Malaya, the Indonesian islands and a bit of Borneo. Tariq and I had many conversations about how this would work - a collection of documents, some descriptions of stuff that could go in, something to give people a starting point if they wanted to write a SEA-centered steampunk story. We tried using GoogleWave and it didn't work, because Tariq and I are very chatty people, and it just didn't look right as a single document. So we left it on the backburner, although I thought about it occasionally. I just did not know how to make it work. It had to be in a format where a bunch of people could work together on it, but Wave is limited in that w...

So the other day, the following chain of events happened: 1) Lavie Tidhar revealed to us the new cover of the Dragon and the Star anthology, of fiction by ethnic Chinese writers all over the world. 2) The cover looks awful, and my friend Joyce asked, why is it a Western dragon, not an Oriental dragon? Because, after all, this is an anthology of Chinese writers writing specifically Chinese-inspired fiction. The cover looks like an average dragon fantasy anthology, which isn't what the anthology is about. Anyway, 3) while we studied the features of the dragon closely to see what coded it as suitable for this anthology, I suggested, maybe it's a mixed-race dragon , because, even though Asian parents' genes will dominate over European-Caucasian genes, there's always that possibility, and 4) clearly, someone needed to write a story about that . Joyce did . I tried, but I ended up writing a story about an exchange student dragon . (Her situation is significantly more angsty ...

So the last while I've been feeling like, really awful. I'm at home, typing on my new laptop, the keys of which I'm still not used to, and trying to keep abreast of the blogosphere. I've been having a lot of thoughts in my head, but it's like, one ear in, the other ear out, and moreover, the longer I stay in Malaysia, the more I think in short sentences, none of which are useful for very long blog posts like this one. The other day, while making name cards for myself (another project which isn't going too well, seeing as my Photoshop skills are set at Basic), I thought it would be nice to have in the background, "Silence may be golden, but diverse voices make a symphony." Oddly enough, just a few days after I thought this up, this feature on gold came up on The Big Picture , which solidified a few things I was thinking about the saying, "silence is golden." Gold, being a limited resource and, well, very shiny, is valued. I like gold, pa...

The blurb on the back of Soulless reads thusly:  Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.   Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.  With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart? Little did I know that the action really delves into this within the first chapter itself. I'm not used to this....

 This was originally a Twitter rant and then I realized I'd already made several tweets and still wasn't finished, so I thought I'd bring it on here. Minh-Ha at Racialicious has an amazing post up on a modern example of Orientalism which everybody should read. She nails it here: Lagerfeld seems to anticipate this critique when he argues that his short film represents “the idea of China, not the reality. It has the spirit of, and is inspired by, but is unrelated to China.” Without meaning to, Lagerfeld describes precisely one of the core truths of Orientalism (a system of Western knowledge that, as Edward Said explains, “had since antiquity [imagined the Orient as] a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences”). Lagerfeld’s China, like the Orient Said discusses, is a European/American invention.  It's a brilliant send-up of everything that's wrong with Orientalism, and yes, steampunks are utterly susceptible to t...

I'm working on a couple of steampunk costumes right now. I avoid the costuming bit, because I have no skills in putting them together, and it seems like a hella lot of work. However, I do find pieces here and there in ordinary stores which suit my purposes. Right now, I'm working on a more Asian side of costume. I do have an ao-dai that my mother bought for me that looks remarkably like a cheongsam, but Ay-Leen's already got the steampunk'd ao-dai down, and she's actually Vietnamese too, unlike me, so I'd be totally unoriginal. However! I do have a yellow, Chinese-esque blouse I bought in some second-hand store. And the soft white trouser piece of the ao-dai works well with it. Not only that, but if I add a sarong, the ensemble would look remarkably like the baju Melayu worn by men in Malaysia, for formal occasions. Not totally close, because the pants usually match the shirt, but there's only so much I can work with, ya'll. I would prefer a mo...

My friend Ay-Leen the Peacemaker is putting together a project called Beyond Victoriana, which will focus on examples of steampunk beyond the typical Eurocentric sampling at the moment, which is predominantly centered around England. Ay-Leen is also taking examples of North American steampunk, and people are citing Wild West / Weird West examples, such as Wild Wild West (TV show and movie). I myself suggested some Japanese examples which could be counted as steampunk, although I have several reservations about them myself. Mainly because when I think non-Eurocentric, I keep this in mind: "... By Europeans, we refer not only to Europe per se, but also to the "neo-Europeans" of the Americas, Australia, and elsewhere. ... The residual traces of centuries of axiomatic European domination inform the general culture, the everyday language, and the media, engendering a fictitious sense of the innate superiority of European-derived cultures and peoples." (Ella Shohat /...

I have been pointed out to this amazing technology called " Adaptive Eyewear " which aims to provide corrective lenses to as many people as possible, especially in the African countries where over a billion people live without perfect vision. Having worn glasses since I was 9, I cannot imagine what life would be like without my glasses (though I wear contact lenses for modeling and acting), and everytime I wear my glasses, it is a sign of my privilege that I can afford to have perfect vision. Hell, I even get to nitpick over my frames . The glasses work by way of fluid-filled lenses, which can be adjusted by the turn of a dial! Users adjusted the amount of fluid in the lenses, which changes the shape of the lenses until the user can see properly, then the adjuster is taken off. If that's not steampunked, what is? Adaptive Eyewear is a non-profit organization dedicated to making these glasses available at low cost (10 pounds / 15 dollars a pair!). Not only that, but these ...

One of the greatest punk contradictions is this: that the DIY look of the punk fashion is often copied and commercialized. From being a bricolage, something made with one's own hands (and thus, pretty darn cheap to put together), it becomes yet another capitalistic venture where the one with the most money gets the best look. I daresay this part of the punk ethos is difficult to maintain within the steampunk subculture. There is a certain look to a steampunk; it involves either the time, effort, and handicraft skill to put together accessories or a wardrobe worthy of the name, or the money necessary to buy said accessories or wardrobe. I invest a great deal in my wardrobe: if I feel I won't be wearing it on a regular basis, I try not to buy it. This has led to the purchase of many work-suitable shirts from Suzy Shier, several black pairs of trousers (ranging from size 2 to size 10, which is slightly more than embarassing), good jeans, and such-like things. But I do splurge, oh ...

So, steampunk in its current form is Eurocentric. I've been reading a wonderful book called Unthinking Eurocentrism and while it deals with Eurocentrism within cinema and other such visual media, the same principles apply to steampunk: that the subculture revolves around a Western culture, holds it up as a model, and ignores everything else. I noticed this when I was speaking to a friend in England, and he said, "steampunk is Victorian, so it all starts here!" He meant well, but it wasn't what I was talking about: I was talking about steampunk manifestations in non-white contexts. I also recall a discussion on Madame Butterfly, in which I denounced it as being Orientalist, portraying the titular character as a helpless victim. The person I was talking to said, "Oh, but Pinkerton (the Western officer who marries and deserts Madame Butterfly) is painted as an absolute cad!" Not. The. Point. Was I talking about how white people are portrayed? No. I was talkin...

It's been pointed out to me by my friend Tariq that there is a problem with one of the statements I made recently: Being accepted is not the same as being actively welcomed . He responded, and I paraphrase him, being actively welcomed still has that sense of being invited into a space that is not our own, and part of the challenge that PoC face is to find spaces where we are not the Token Minority, and seek (or create) spaces where we feel at home. Not just tolerated, not just accepted, not just welcomed - spaces where we belong . You know, places where we can go home to. When my parents were last in Canada, we went to PEI, and ended up at a museum of sorts, and stayed to watch one of those multi-layered shows which combined film, light and backstage flats on Acadians, how the British and the French tussled over the land, unsurprisingly with few references to aboriginals at all, and how some of the Acadians were deported to places like New Orleans. I was struck by a scene wherein ...

CaitieCat said , ... it occurred to me last night that the Borg? They're steampunk zombie Fremen. How's that for meta? I am so extraordinarily pleased at this intersection of my two favourite nerdy realms in the world.

One of the themes that crops up at the Racialicious essay I posted runs like this: "In my experience, steampunk accepts all races!" Usually, this will be said by someone who's, well, white. Occasionally it will be said by someone who's not, and thus, clearly not my audience, who are PoC and feel all the attendant baggage. So, in my fucking experience, as a person of colour who will definitely be affected by race issues, it could do a hella lot more . This is what I'm emphasizing. Do I see that steampunks can be very accepting of various races? Hell yes I can see that. Most other subcultures are the same. Being accepted is not the same as being actively welcomed . Especially in a subculture that has roots in what is something coded as exclusively very white. Whether or not you mean for the subculture to be exclusive doesn't matter - here's another 101 for you: Intent doesn't matter . Here's another 101 for you, when you say "in my experience...

So, I'm from Malaysia, which was Malaya. And I moved to Canada to study. Most of the communities I engage in (or observe) are comprised mainly of North Americans. One thing I've noticed about North American steampunks is a general Euro-centricism. This isn't really relegated to just the steampunk subculture - it's also seen in other communities I participate in. But what spurred me to write this post was Ay-Leen's essay on colonialism , a kind of exploration on what America would be like if it had remained a British colony for longer than it was. I was struck at the starter conversation. Struck, in the "let me go get my facepalm on" sense. In another essay of hers, this time on Orientalism , Ay-Leen highlights one of the things that [American/Euro-centric] steampunks like to do: imagine a time when the world was ripe for exploration, and there were empty spaces on the map to explore. My country is probably part of that blank space on that map that these f...

While participants of the steampunk subculture generally call themselves steampunks, I find myself calling myself a "steampunk er ". I have a saying which goes, "It is not enough to do , one must be . It is not enough to be , one must become ." This was drawn from an Oscar Wilde quote from the second The Critic as Artist dialogue in which he expounds a kind of blend between critical theory and philosophy: "... the contemplative life, the life that has for its aim not doing but being , and not being merely, but becoming - that is what the critical spirit can give us." By the critical spirit, he meant the ability to judge something by various standards, rather than accept something at face value. He was writing about art, obviously, aesthetic art. But I took it to heart, and applied it to more than just art - I applied it to that great Work In Progress that is the Self. To always improve one's self, to always become something, preferrably something b...

I read Ms. Pagliasotti's essay a while back, upon the recommendation of Ay-Leen the Peacemaker, and meant to make a response sooner, but decided to hold off until I had more to respond to. And I have, which I found in the innocuous description of LJ community steamfashion (which, in itself, is a fabulous community for inspiration when putting together a steampunk wardrobe). The last large paragraph within the profile is as follows: The "punk" in steampunk is a reference to cyberpunk, because when steampunk first formed it was comprised essentially of cyberpunk (that is, dystopian high tech sci-fi) stories set during the Victorian period. The word punk is a very old English term that originally meant a prostitute, but which by the 20th century had evolved into a term meaning an outsider, a street person, or a ruffian (it's fairly clear why the punk rock subculture used this word to describe itself). There is clearly no link between the people of a steampunk setting a...

I was thinking about my observations of the local punk scene and that how I understand the punk genre is alienating to me. When I first read the term "gaslamp fantasy" to replace the term "steampunk", it seemed to make enough sense to me in the context of the literary genre. But the more I looked at examples of steampunk'd work, the less satisfied I became with the term. It seemed dismissive of the amount of effort and thought put into making something which is both functional and beautiful, which is borne from the loving DIY ethic of punk. If "punk" means anti-establishment, then how does "steampunk" roll? After all, it plays on established aesthetics as a method of visual expression (Steampunk Scholar Gotthammer talks about it here ), so where does the rebellion come in? In my correspondence to Ay-Leen, I said, "Steampunk - leading into gaslamp fantasy - gives us more leeway to explore methods of anti-establishment while playing into...

So, I've been corresponding with Ay-Leen the Peacemaker about our rather specialized interest of Asian steampunking, wherein I latched onto something that truly draws me in about the steampunk genre: re-writing history . For all intents and purposes, I could imagine a world in which I have no British colonial residue on my heritage (not that I hate it that much), where Asia isn't exoticized as the place where the girls are either meek dolls or dragon ladies, the men are squinty-eyed villains, or the opium is plentiful. A timeline in which Asia is not some mysterious, untraversed area because we, as in We From the Far East, LIVE THERE!!! And a place where I could, as blithely as the Japanese do but hopefully with less of the problems, take elements of whatever I want from whatever culture I please, and reshape it and innovate it into my own culture's image, and it would be a hodge-podge that fits beautifully together, with the Hodge on the Podge side and the Podge side on ...

So, a couple of years back, I was going out to see local bands quite a bit. This is not the odd bit. I love local bands. I think it's very important to support local talent. No, the weird thing is that I was going out to see punk shows. I don't really understand the punk culture. Of course, I don't know too much about it, and I had to get a friend to explain it to me, but even explained to me, I still didn't understand it. There was a lot of energy going on at those shows - I liked that. Off-stage, the punk band members tended to be decent people, although I didn't really know how to strike up conversation with them. (Somehow, I managed to strike up conversation with the lead of the Crimson Tides and kept going back to see them, even though I didn't even like their music, just their stage presence. And the band members were really nice too.) I didn't understand the moshing. I didn't understand the music. I didn't understand the lyrics. At best, it wa...

So, I love steampunk. I love Victorian-inspired clothing to start with - the lush lace, the splurge-driven dresses, the elegant waistcoats, the delicate act of removing gloves, finger by finger, the corsets, the hats and feathers and veils. The wife of a photographer I shot with once showed me a coat made in that era - thick (broadcloth?) fabric handsewn and still looking none the worse for wear, with extra material at the small of the back for the bustle. The problem with steampunk, though, is that it's pretty much white territory. I read Girl Genius , which in itself is a fabulous comic, and as much as I enjoy the sleek mecha of Robotech and Evangelion, the clunky robots, steam-powered with levers all over the cockpit, attract me more. The problem with Girl Genius is, although it does quite well on the PoC front, there are no real representative Asian characters (except for one doctor and his granddaughter). The only person in the comic with actual yellow skin that matches my own...