Metapunk

Now that was a day to remember: My dear we, our good friend Andrea and me went to meet a few new æthernet acquaintances face-to-face at the Victorian House in Munich.

Oh happy day! What a perfect place for a steampunk to hang out. The interior takes me back to the days when I visited a family friend in London, back in the glorious days of Queen Victoria, when steam-powered cars roamed the street and… I digress…

Now here you can see a lovely cup of tea and a plate just before the arrival of the scones:

And here’s a painting of an unknown dignitary:

And another shot of our fully set table:

The lady on the left is our good friend Andrea, the gentleman on the right is Louis, it was, as I said, our first meeting with him and we were most delighted to have met him.

We talked a lot about the olden days, however, this was more a spiritual discussion an not one involving technology, so, very little steam in there.

But a very pleasant and memorable day none the less. The acquaintances we made have proven most profitable and have turned into friends. We are well pleased.

Long live Kaiser Friedrich!

To continue about the Heidnisches Dorf:

Most of the merchadise there was either not what I like or simply too expensive. I really would have liked to add some steampunk or at least steampunkish spectacles from Shades Nosferatu to my eyewear collection but I had promised myself not to overstretch my budget like last time…

So instead I purchased some recreational beverages and took some more photographs of my suroundings:

Self-portait, amidst a medieval setting (a steampunk lost in time):

Some of the vendors:

And here’s a shot of one of the elusive natives (he jumped into the picture, so I consider myself lucky). The traveling trader to the far left sells most excellent spirits:

After this little episode we went back to the Agra Halle and met a trio of most charming young ladies:

So far, I thought (being a steampunk with only western hemisphere travel experience), the gothic lolita subculture was still firmly planted in the empire of Mutushito Tenno, oh, I’m getting displaced in time again, *cough*. It seems I was wrong. The style has left Japan (where Akihito is the present Tenno) and there is a German community on the æthernet Dunkelsüß.

But now let’s turn to the two cultural highlights:

Emilie Autumn:

She’s such a lovely crazy little thing. She also describes her style of music as „violindustrial“ and since she plays a lot with Victorian aesthetics and has a upcomming book (novel?) titled: „The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls“ I think you should not miss her, there are so many steampunk elements in her works and personality. Granted, she does not call herself steampunk as far as I am aware but everything she does fits in.

The last big concert my wife and me attended was S.P.O.C.K.:

20 active years now, this was their anniversary concert. When they anounced this at the beginning of their concert I thought „By Jove!“, (ah, what a steampunk expression) „Those guys are old!“ Then I remembered when it was that I bought my first S.P.O.C.K. CD, back in the days when they were still allowed to call themselves Spock, and then it struck me: I am old! And a lot of time has passed. Those were the days, back in the 90’s, even the early 90’s when I had only recently joined the goth scene and slowly crept towards electro and industrial. Now I am steampunking and I like the style, it fits my age-induced preferences, too.

Steampunk: For elderly industrial goths.

This concludes the penultimate episode about the Wave Gotik Treffen 2008, narrated by the traveling steampunk.

Obviously, there was a lot more to disover in the Heidnisches Dorf. There were two stages and we had the peasure to listen to The Moon and the Nightspirit from the eastern reaches of Austria-Hungary, namely Hungary.

Here’s an image taken from their æthernet site:

Not steampunk but pagan-medieval with strong leanings towards pagan, which is fine by me.

Somone else we met in the Heidnisches Dorf was the guy from Shades Nosferatu (By Jove! I think he’s a pirate):

He offers a huge variety of glasses, spectacles, shades and cutom made designs some of which is really quite steampunk:

But that’s still not all… There’s more to come. The Traveling Steampunks‘ tale of the Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2008 is not over yet.