How about this for your birthday, honey?

Swift and McCormick, metal recyclers. It's an interesting place. Unused (scrap) metal from manufactories is deposited here; the company leaves a bin at your site and picks it up when it's full. The stuff is sorted, baled, and sold. Locals who have metal stuff around bring it here, get paid for it, and have that good feeling they didn't throw it into the landfill.

And then there's retail buyers. Visit, pick, weigh, pay and leave. She was excited. It was a moderate, beautiful Saturday morning.




A month ago I had got my hands on a unique piece and intended to buy it but mistakenly left it in, literally, the dust. I described that scenario to Linda, with emphasis on my disappointment. "One in a million chance of finding it," I muttered, somewhat bitterly.

Minutes later she was walking toward me, swinging it in her hand, look of smug delight on her lovely face. It's the D-handle looking gizmo in the image of the loot in the back of the pickup.




Her find was the cast piece, probably for the top of a gate, which includes two ravens. This will be a stunning addition to the Steampunk/Poe teen section of the library, once she paints it.

Oh, and back to the D-handle thingy. I suspect it will be vaguely familiar to you but, out of context, not easily identifiable. Leave a comment with a hint towards your guess. We'll all be wondering, and it will be more wonder-ful if no one just out and out says it. (note: somewhere in this text there is a clue; not in this paragraph.)

But perhaps you'll not have time for such games, being on your way to Swift and McCormick for a day of Unbridled Birthday Joy.

Steampunk Weaponry and Harmless Drudges

High School speech students often start an oration with, "Webster defines (insert subject of speech here) as..." Not a bad idea to start a discussion with a definition. And if you're curious about definitions themselves, well, Webster defines a definer as...

Our subject today is Steampunk. Here is an agglomerated definition of this portmanteau word: Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy literature that includes technology powered by archaic methods (often, but not exclusively, steam) and an emphasis on hand-crafted, individually produced mechanical artifacts.

Common Elements of Steampunk
1. Steam locomotion, Airship transportation, Clockwork mechanization.
2. Fictional technologies, often based on archaic principles such as the Aether or Chaos Energy.
3. Victorian setting or sensibility. (1837 - 1901)
4. A lack of mass-produced goods and an emphasis on hand-crafting and crafts guilds. Clothing Victorian; embellishments, completely individualized.
5. Often presented as an alternate history of the real world.
6. Sometimes includes magic or fantastic elements or "science fiction."

These descriptors seem to be accurate to this observer, and are typical, but the definition never seems to tiptoe into the realm of the tension between the buttoned-up mores of the Victorian Era and the full-speed-ahead mentality of the Industrial Revolution.

But enough of this. People make Steampunk stuff, some of which houses modern things. And whether one traverses the aether by foot or airship, one should have an article or two of self protection.

Hence the above exercise, by a harmless drudge of the "assembled from other parts" world. Perhaps this is portmanteau art. The Thrombolean Dysambulator has the capacity to not only stop the heart of your assailant, but also to render her/his knees nonfunctionable. The Stygmisticator allows for confident self protection without sacrificing heft.

Dysambulator, $395 plus shipping; Stygmisticator, $275 plus shipping.