Steampunked: who'd a thunk it?

Tired of the sleek minimalist streak? Aluminum laptops looking too generic? We got to talking about aesthetics in Seattle, and my friend Jeanne just said the word "steampunk" one night over a platter of scallions at Wild Ginger. "We need to make a black crocheted logo," she said. "Steampunk: for the angry-but-optimistic urban aesthete. Look it up."

So I did, and I must say: wow. Who knew? You can find tutorials for creating your own modifications of technology. Here are directions, at Jake of All Trades, for making a fully functioning steampunked mouse (áká "Bug").

Steampunk, a tongue-in-cheek variation on cyberpunk, draws on the scientific romances of the 19th century, by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, and (my own favorite) Mary Shelley. Here is more from Wikipedia, where you'll find an elaboration of influences and tropes.

Hieronymous Isambard "Jake" von Slatt (né Sean Slattery) at the incredible Steampunk Workshop steampunked his Dell 1907FP flat-panel monitor with gaslamp arms, a brass-colored aluminum frame, and chime levers from a grandfather clock: read more here in a Newsweek article.

The best steampunked computer creations are collected here: brilliant and wild artifacts of transformative ingenuity. And we've seen one "steampunked" computer here before, in the You Tube video offering tips for using the "Electric Friendship Generator."

Etiquette Tips for using the Electric Friendship Generator

The speed and distance with which we can now broadcast facets (at least) of our identities raises questions about Internet etiquette. Facebook, Twitter, and your standard issue blog pose and perform problems concerning the ethical dimensions of representation. Who, anymore, is speaking for whom? As someone recently put it to me: "Stuff gains a different kind of potency when it gets reproduced and linked into larger networks." And maybe it even loses something, too.

But at last we have some excellent etiquette advice, specifically for using Facebook, the "electric friendship generator." I found this video courtesy of Dr. Debby Herbenick, also known as My Sex Professor. It's worth a trip to her site to see the way she fleshes out this topic (so to speak), asking insightful questions about sex, love, and stalking on Facebook and Twitter.

Herbenick is a research scientist at The Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender, and Reproduction here in Bloomington, Indiana, where she provides answers for the syndicated column Kinsey Confidential. She is also associate director of the Indiana University Center for Sexual Health Promotion. I appreciate her comfortable, knowledgeable approach to sex information, and love the illustrated banner for her blog, by Rama Hughes.

Before you get distracted by Dr. Debby and the many fascinating issues she explores, take a moment for some practical Facebook advice – from Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo, the Gadget Blog. Thank you, Jesus! I needed that.

"A Senator Concedes" by Mike Finley

Apropos of yesterday's post, a poem by Mike Finley:

A SENATOR CONCEDES

Every day a man rises and sets off to undo it,
some failure he barely remembers,
a phantom moment hiding in time.

These are the years he is in his prime,
his wisdom and courage fixed in the grin
he landscapes his life with:

the disappointment he feels in the world
he holds at arm's length, the odd fascination
for his mother's first name.

Somehow we never quite let it sink in
that the contests that mattered
have long since been over.

Today I want to walk home, stumbling,
my fists at my eyes,
sobbing all the way.

1974

The author explains: "Yes, I wrote it in 1974. For several years it had a different title, 'A Politician in Retirement.' It was really about me, not a politician, but I felt naked having it that way, like I was foisting anguish on the reader, and so came up with the character. But this was in 1974."

This is the most haunting line of the poem, regardless of context, perhaps especially since it was written so long ago:

Somehow we never quite let it sink in/ that the contests that mattered/ have long since been over.

(I'm also curious about the poet's mother's first name.) Mike tells me that he has been "grandfathered in by the state poetry commission to write free verse in perpetuity without having to purchase the $8 annual license." He lives in St. Paul, where he is a writer for hire.

Norm came later, and he has yet to concede, despite increasing frustration on the part of voters. (When I first saw the poem's title on facebook I got excited and clicked over to CNN, only to learn that there's still more wrangling ahead.) "We will never know who won," says Norm.

Finley's facebook post also included this high school photo of Coleman, from that era when he was a young man speaking against the Vietnam war. One of the features of this contest has been a retrieval of images of the candidates when young: there's even a popular video of Al Franken prancing around as Mick Jagger, from the Franken and Davis years on Saturday Night Live. With Norm, it's the hair and that serious expression. (One of these two guys has a sense of humor; the other – not so much.)

Coleman has a history of cliff-hangers and close elections. This is from Wikipedia:

In April 2003, Coleman told a Capitol Hill reporter that he was a "99% improvement" over [Paul] Wellstone because he had a better working relationship with the White House. Many supporters of Wellstone were offended and felt that this was deeply insulting, and at least one member of Congress urged Coleman to apologize.[26] In 2004 Coleman campaigned for the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), but was narrowly defeated for the post by North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole in a 28-27 vote.

Want more about Norm? There's even a weasel-meter website.

Freeman Dyson: Portrait of the Scientist as Civil Heretic

Yesterday's theme of the neighbor as Other, whether as foreigner or as the abject and rejected part of oneself – that which is prohibited and put out of view – is pervasive. It is something we encounter every day in our lives, so many times that we think almost nothing of it. It is all over the daily news (if we get the news and don't self-select it out): the suburban riots in France in 2005, issues of immigration, the war in Gaza over a contested strip of land. How do we appease the Other, give it space, draw the boundaries of prohibition?

The other Other theme in Frankenstein is that of the despised creation: the work of science or art that we feel compelled to make, despite unforeseen consequences that make us later regret dedication to it. The scientist Freeman Dyson, in an interview for the 1980 documentary "The Day After Trinity," referred to this when talking about nuclear weapons: “I felt it myself, the glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it’s there in your hands. To release the energy that fuels the stars. To let it do your bidding. And to perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky, it is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is in some ways responsible for all our troubles, I would say, this what you might call ‘technical arrogance’ that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds.”

There was a fascinating profile of Dyson, "The Civil Heretic," in yesterday's New York Times Sunday magazine, written by contributing writer Nicholas Dawidoff. The print version included an image unavailable on the web, of drawings and writings made by Dyson as a child. Dyson's over-the-fence neighbor at Princeton used to be Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Looking at the NYT site now, I see that this was yesterday's most e-mailed article, asking the question: "How did Freeman Dyson, the world-renowned scientist and public intellectual, wind up opposing those who care most about global warming?" (Here is a link to an earlier piece on Dyson and carbon-eating trees, over at Boing Boing.) It had a broader reach than news about a vast spy system looting computers in 103 countries, a piece about the rapid growth of Facebook, or an essay about managing the queue at Netflix. It was more popular (understandably so) than a piece about the worst phone company in the world, Verizon, where I am an unhappy customer. (I can't wait to get out of Verizon prison: but that is another story.) There was a piece about Skype, too, as well as one about forging a link to the farmer who grows your food.

25 Random Things: F-Words

Another of my 25 random things, as I work through the alphabet, a second post for the letter "f". (God bless the alphabet(s), by the way!) A few important f-words:

Fresh and free-range: I like my ideas and enthusiasms much like my food – fresh and free-range. I've never been able to constrain my wide-ranging interests, try as I have at times to delimit them. Hence this website, where I roam among them, drawing connections and following their lead. Thanks for indulging me, dear Ideal Readers!

Feminist: Yes, without a doubt. Beyond the waves of 1st, 2nd or post-feminist demarcations, I know that my life has been improved immensely by the efforts of our feminist forebears, women who brought us the vote, choice, more job security, and the freedom to speak out on domestic, personal, and political issues. The best men are unapologetic feminists, too. The wonderful free-range tree of life here ("Woman with Fan") is by feminist artist Susan Bee.

Fragrance: The people who I think deserve at least one shot at Keith Olbermann's "Worst People in the World" award are those who add synthetic fragrance to everything under the sun, including body care and household cleaning products. I'll be ranting about this again, as time goes by. Essential oils, good. Fragrance, deadly.

Far-flung family and friends: a fascinating trope. I'm very connected to my free-range far-flung family and friends, even though we often lack sufficient face time.

Frankenstein: No f-word list is complete without him, patron saint of the Other.

facebook: And finally, I guess I really ought to add facebook, as I'm a relatively new facebook afficionado. I resisted for a long time, and then capitulated when my friend Lisa assured me that "Facebook is all about fun and jack-assery." Whew, who knew? Just don't fling me any Lil' Green Patches – even I know they won't really save the world.

France: Ah, and France. Home of my favorite philosophes, Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard. For a magnificent glimpse of daily life in Paris, visit the web log of photographer Ricardo Bloch, Amphibious Andromeda.

Confirmed as a Friend

It's how we communicate today....my son just confirmed me as a friend on Facebook. (And my daughter did, too.) Of course the two of them have a zillion friends: who knew? (Actually, my house is filled with sleeping teenagers at the moment, so I am not surprised.)

My friends are all in a flurry these days, finally creating Facebook pages. I blame this on Barack Obama, who I guess has more friends than anyone on the planet: God Thanks for That! (as my husband would say.) I am Barack's friend, too...and I never thought I'd say that about a president-elect. And of course he has the Facebook founder on his team: brilliant.

I was very impressed with Obama's first press conference and was thinking about Jon Stewart's next problem: "How do we make any of this funny?" So what do you think: what if Barack just wore sunglasses? The mirrored kind?

I mentioned that to my friend, Dylan, who is one of the wittiest people I know. He holds the honor of being my first Facebook friend under the age of 18. (I adore his parents and little brother, too.) He told me that he loves it when Barack wears sunglasses. We engaged in a bit of banter wall-to-wall.

I resisted Facebook for a long time, afraid of more background noise and lost time at the computer. But my friend Lisa suggests that Facebook "is all about fun and jackassery" – and that suddenly made it irresistible. Anyway, it's one of the "who knew?!" ways we communicate today.

Oh, and that kid on Jack's shoulders? Perhaps the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea someday! (Maybe following in the footsteps of his Dad and/or his Bubu Charles, either of whom might get there first.) Remember this name: Thierry Lepani.