Playing Catch Up -- Trip to International Steampunk City

[adelheid_p]

In early May, dergeis and I went to the International Stemapunk City in Waltham, MA. We drove up in my car and it took ten hours. Luckily, the weather was sunny and clear for the drive. We arrived early dinner time at our hotel, Crescent Suites, and checked in and got partially unpacked. The rooms at this place are all Suites for staying long term and we had a little kitchenette. Since it was dinner time and I was hungry, we drove up to one of the main shopping districts in Waltham and ate at the Watch City Brewing Co. I had the calamari appetizer and a salad and dergeis had a burger. Afterward we wandered back to the car via a local used bookstore. I bought two cookbooks for amg04 and a couple of books for myself. We got in the car and found the local supermarket, Hannafords, and bought some lunchmeat, bread, muatard and found that they had root beer (Polar?) made with sugar and not high fructose corn syrup. I was happy because they had Waist Watchers soda pop made with Splenda and not Equal or aspartame. We bought as much of the root beer as we could and I bought a 12 pack of the cream soda and one of the diet black cherry and a two liter bottle of their cola and one of the raspberry ginger ale (I would have bought these in cans but they didn't have it in stock). We went back to the hotel and finished unpacking and put the groceries away and settled in for the night.

We woke up and got dressed and came down to a very nice breakfast in the little cafe area of the hotel. (A nice suite, and free breakfast! This was truly a value.) I had a few things to do for work so we returned to the hotel room where I completed the tasks. Because there were no events planned for Friday, which we found out after time had been requested off and reservations had been made, we ventured into Boston, MA and pretty much played tourist, following the Freedom Trail from Boston Commons to the Old North Church where Paul Revere was said to have displayed the lanterns (okay so that isn't accurate). Along the way, we stopped at a bakery and I bought a delicious pastry called a lobster tail which is pretty much a tail shaped pastry shell filled with a sugary ricotta filling that was very rich. This was my lunch, essentially. We walked back to the Commons under which we had parked, but by then it was 5 pm and the midst of Boston rush hour which I did not want to drive in. So we wandered around and had an early dinner at Penang, a Malaysian restaurant. While I enjoyed the food, it wasn't quite to dergeis' tastes but he managed to find something to eat. After that we considered seeing the movie, Thor, which had just come out but the showings were later than we'd liked so we drove back to the hotel.

On Saturday, we dressed in our finest Steampunk outfits (I got to wear dergeis grandmother's watch which was manufactured at the Waltham Watch factory.) and ventured forth to the International Steampunk City. The very first thing we discovered was that things weren't quite in the walking distance as advertised. Sure we were very close to the original Watch Factory that had the stage where the opening ceremonies were held, but the location of their registration was a good twenty minute walk away back to street where we had dinner on Thursday night. In addition, many of the events were across the Charles River and some were down a few blocks in the library, etc. It was all very scattered about. I can tell you that my costume shoes are not made for walking comfortably. After viewing the opening ceremonies, we walked to the registration area and then over to the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation. One walks into the basement where they have some exhibits. Of course, they had a large "Steampunk: Form and Function" exhibit. Much of it was done or obtained by Bruce Rosenbaum of ModVic which is based nearby. But also notable were signs of the damage done by the flood a few years ago and the impetus for this event. The first Steampunk City was held last year as a fundraiser for the museum as was this event. We wandered around the museum and then went out to see the vendors that had set up outside. It got to be about lunch time so we walked back to the hotel. While we were on our way back, it started to rain and we ducked into the Watch Factory to wait it out. I note that the Watch Factory now houses various businesses and it has been a long time since it actually turned out any watches. The are a we entered had a small exhibit about the manufacturing of watches there. Of note to me, was that, although the factory employed many women, they could never rise above something equivalent of a team lead. Men were always the upper level managers. After the rain subsided we continued to the hotel and ate lunch. dergeis napped a bit and then it was time for us to go to the library. He was going to give a presentation but wanted to see one that was before his. Since it was raining, and we were bringing his laptop and a projector, I insisted that we drive. I think this was a very good idea. I managed to find a parking space on an adjacent side street to the library and we collected the equipment and went to the library. The presentation he wanted to see was by a couple of people who were trying to make a steampunk gun but were going about it as if they were living in the 19th century, etc. It was very good and well researched. It was also about half an hour. The following presentation was done by a graduate student who had written a paper about Steampunk and it's sociological intent. From what I could get, the person's hypothesis was that Steampunk was all about revealing the inner workings of things. I don't dispute that this could be an aspect of it. But I do think it's only one aspect of the movement. Her basis for this hypothesis were quotes from several books, none of which I have read but I am familiar with them. I was not prepared to take notes, but I believe that one book was Boneshaker by Cherie Priest and the other was The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and is often cited as a beginning of the movement. Also, for some reason, I'm put off by academic analysis of the movement. We had to leave early for dergeis to set up for his presentation in another room. But when we got there, there was already a group earnestly discussing the panel currently in the room. They did clear out at the time of dergeis presentation and he had to hurriedly set up. I had read his presentation and so I was familiar with the subject. He gave his talk and it was well received by the people who attended but the library was closing and he was interrupted several times during the last 15 minutes with notices about the closing and that patrons should check out their items asap. In addition, we were hurried out of the library by staff who wanted to leave at exactly their appointed hour. Things were pretty much closed up with the city and we went to find some dinner. We ate at another Asian restaurant in Waltham called Tom Can Cook. It had Korean and Chinese food so dergeis was very happy. Then we went back to our hotel and rested.

On Sunday, we got up and got dressed again and went out for the last day of the Steampunk International City, this time driving. We decided to wander around another park where there were more vendors set up and over to a bank building where vendors were set up on the 5th floor in some unused office space. Then I ventured back to the Charles River Museum and met up with wren13 and got to meet sebastian_tombs and another friend of theirs. I spent some time wandering around with them. We parted ways at some point right before Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band were going to start parading from the Museum over to the park and I met up again with dergeis and we paraded to the park after the band and then we found our car again and ate dinner in Margaritas Mexican Restaurant.

The drive back on Monday was favored with equally nice weather.

My over all impressions were that things were too spread out. The use of donated spaces, the bank building office space and some donated store fronts along Moody Street was interesting. I think the program newspaper was cute but the grid did not have some of the names of the panels listed. I know that some of the vendors were unhappy that the spaces were spread out the way they were. There were some problems getting to the vendors in the bank space without a staff member to call the elevator (they had badges for this). They had some concerts done in one of the presentation rooms in the museum and the space is just not very good acoustically. The high ceilings and bare walls just caused sound to echo and distort. While I had a good time, I'm not sure I think it's worth the drive and money at this point. If you live in the area, I would say it's worth going for a day and that the museum is a worth cause to support.

Comments

[theyarnproject.livejournal.com]

Did MARGARITAS come with the dinner, at Margarita's Mexican restaurant?
And, I must say...I am so happy to see you write, to help promote museums. I LOVE MUSEUMS!!!

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

No, sadly, Margaritas did not come with dinner gratis, but I think I had one (or a Sangria, I don't remember which). I also had a beer at the Watch City Brewing Co. In case you were wondering. . .