The Bulletin - What's happening at The Gatehouse

Ottens from The Gatehouse is rolling up his sleeves to keep this Engine greased with the latest dieselpunk news and fashion.

Straight from his fingertips to your head bones, glue your eyes here each week for a fresh issue of The Bulletin.

Tags: dieselpunk, fashion, fun, gatehouse, member, news, pulp

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Permalink Reply by Ottens on February 7, 2010 at 7:35am

Welcome to The Gatehouse today! Unfortunately, we now have to sometimes skip a day in our posting schedule, but fear not, we will continue to provide you with the latest in steampunk and dieselpunk online!

A new steampunk blog, amply named The Steamblog, recently opened its doors. It looks promising so be sure to pay it a little visit.

The blog Stirred, Straight Up, with a Twist helps you remember that it is permanently 1962 (give or take a decade) and that the problems of the real world can be solved with a touch of glamour and a dash of style.

Troubled by a writers block? Try Wondermark’s Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator 2000: guaranteed to produce a spiffing ’punk tale for you! Thanks to Col. Adrianna Hazard for posting this at the Smoking Lounge.

We also thank the good Colonel for bringing to our attention the excellent 1920s Radio Network at WHRO—“a 24 hour per day Big Band and Old Time Radio service that is geared toward the preservation of nostalgic broadcasting.” Enjoy!

Of course, to discuss “Diesel Music” in general (if there is such a thing) head over to the Smoking Lounge and talk about it here. And we also have a thread for more regular musical tastes.

For a wonderful compendium of this age’s wonders, curiosities, and esoterica, visit the Atlas Obscura, “a collaborative project with the goal of cataloging all of the singular, eccentric, bizarre, fantastical, and strange out-of-the-way places that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks and are ignored by the average tourist.” Thanks to HildeKitten for posting this.

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Permalink Reply by Ottens on March 1, 2010 at 10:16am

Welcome to The Gatehouse today, dear visitor! As you will have noticed, our posting schedule has come under pressure lately with less updates than you may have come to expect from us. Sadly, real life is getting in the way of more important things and while we won’t close shop altogether, we can’t offer daily postings anymore for the time being.

The upcoming issue of our magazine, the Gatehouse Gazette has been delayed due to similar circumstances. Do not despair though; we will have a beautiful new edition ready for you by next week!

As this is still a proper Bulletin, we do of course have a number of links for you.

Step into the past at Time Warp Living, a bustling new community frequented by vintage enthusiasts. Carmen Johnson has discussions, photos and video on offer along with plenty more good stuff to keep you entertained for hours!

Those interested in steampunk period building styles ought to visit St Croix Architecture which contains “the most extensive collection of original, hand-colored, antique nineteenth century architectural plans and prints in the world.” Moreover, the site features original gelatines, lithographs and photogravures.

At our forums, the Smoking Lounge, members are talking about strange ships, steampunk in the home, The Wolfman, Project Arbiter and the death of Charlie Wilson, former US Congressman from Texas. Know that we always welcome new blood at the Lounge, so hesitate no more and sign up today!

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Permalink Reply by Ottens on March 7, 2010 at 5:58am

For many centuries, the interaction between East and West has been a fabulous dwell for art and storytelling. From the days of medieval merchantmen to the era of the great white hunters of imperialism, to our modern day fascination with Japanese cyberculture and the much debated rise of China, the East has lingered in Westerners’ minds as an irreplaceable image of otherness.

Unlike our present day of interconnectedness, globalization and what-not, up until the nineteenth century, the Orient was very much a place of mystery, inhabited by people alien to Europeans’ experience, an exotic, cruel, and barbaric refuge for Western imagination. Critics of Orientalism have done much to cast shame upon our often patronizing and bizarre representations of Eastern life and tradition, but fortunately for those incorrigible aficionados of Oriental romance, steampunk allows us to reject the chains of reality and all the racism and guilt associated with it, to explore anew this imagined world of sultans and saber-rattling Islamic conquerors; harems and white slavery; samurai, dragons and dark, bustling bazaars frequented by the strangest sort of folk. Isn’t this, after all, steampunk’s very premise? To delve into a past that never really was. The Orientalists’ world may never have existed but its history is so powerful that up to this very, Westerners are smitten with it. With this issue, the Gatehouse Gazette is no exception.

As the yet undiscovered realms of Asia are so vastly different, so Victoriental steampunk must differ depending on where it takes place. The deserts of Arabia and the forbidden mountain ranges of Afghanistan may evoke visions of ancient citadels and fata morgana and deserted monasteries atop barren peaks; the jungles of India and Indochina invite adventurers to search for booby trapped remnants of lost civilizations while temples and palaces of spectacular wealth loom beyond, in the lands of Cathay.

In this issue, we, too, travel throughout all of the Eastern World, from Meiji Era Japan to Colonial India to Chinese magic in nineteenth century London.

There is non-Victoriental content on offer as well however, including an interview with Hugh Ashton, author of Beneath Gray Skies, an alternate history novel that is reviewed in this issue. There are your regular columns and a contribution from Sir Arthur Weirdy-Beardy, our correspondent in London.

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Permalink Reply by Ottens on May 8, 2010 at 11:43am

Hello dieselpunks!

I must apologize for not updating here recently. Regular visitors of The Gatehouse will know that the situation is similar at the blog itself. I should be able to spend more time blogging this summer again.

In the meantime, please enjoy the latest edition of our magazine, the Gatehouse Gazette, entirely dedicated to the question of steampunk ideology. This is no accident. Together with this fine establishment, The Gatehouse and many other steampunk and dieselpunk websites, communities and publications are sponsoring the Great Steampunk Debate, a two-month online discussion on everything to do with steampunk politics. Consider yourselves invited!