Clockwork Alchemy comes to San Jose this weekend!

Image: MorgueFile.com

Clockwork Alchemy, the Steampunk convention associated with FanimeCon, has returned to San Jose’s DoubleTree Hotel for the second year.  Featuring dance, art, crafts, writing, music, fashion and food within the Steampunk aesthetic, because the genre is tied to Victoriana, tea will always be available whenever convention attendees want a cuppa.  Not only will the DoubleTree Hotel’s restaurant offer its usual hot tea on the menu, but the convention is setting up its own tea room, called The Alchemist’s Tea Parlour, where guests can get not only a nice hot cup of tea and a biscuit, but even have their fortunes read in their tea leaves.  The Tea Parlour will be open from Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Riesling Room. 

Other occasions for tea include a writers’ gathering and reading, called “Tea and Trumpets”, on Friday from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Monterey room.  On Monday at 11 a.m., there will be an interesting class called “Stocking the Steampunk Pantry, Equipping a Steampunk Kitchen, & Setting a Steampunk Table” in the San Carlos Room.  The class will explore the relationship between the Industrial Revolution and agriculture in changing how people got the food they ate and what was available to various locations.  Class attendees will use this information to imagine the tools, gadgets, and ingredients appropriate to a Steampunk kitchen.   

Admission, or Membership, to Clockwork Alchemy costs $65 for the weekend (and includes free admission to FanimeCon, also in San Jose this weekend), but you can also buy a Membership for each day on its own.  Just go to the At-Con Registration line in the Bayshore room at the DoubleTree Hotel; Friday, the opening day, costs $35 to attend, Saturday and Sunday each cost $40, and Monday is $30 for a general admission Membership.  Children are welcome to attend with an adult, and have a discounted rate.

Steampunk costume is not required to attend, but if you've got a cool piece, why not wear it?  I think I can pull together something from my costume closet, although I will probably have to make a hat or headdress of some kind ... 

Copyright 2013, Elizabeth Urbach.

For more information:

Clockwork Alchemy 2013 webpage

“Bring a ‘steampunk’ tea to Santa Clara’s SteampunkExhibition”

"What you need to make a good pot of hot tea"

"Tea 101: How to brew a pot of hot tea using loosetea"

“Making the most of a cup of restaurant tea” 

“Crash course in Steampunk” 

“Make your tea the steampunk way” 

The St. Clair Aeronauts 

Steampunk Cookery blog

“Time Travel Kitchen: Worm Castles” 

Chrononaut Cookery (sans gluten) 

“Steampunk” Wikipedia article

Steampunk tea dueling YouTube video

Tutorial: Steampunk-friendly millinery flowers

Japanese hana kanzashi flowers turned into
Steampunk-friendly millinery flowers!

I've taken a bit of a detour from my Victorian and 1912 day dresses and started to flesh out an idea I had for a Steampunk hat trim.  I usually don't make my own hat trims -- heck, I have trouble using pre-made trim and silk flowers on my hats -- because I just don't have the right kind of imagination to come up with something that looks good.  A few years ago I was at Costume Academy -- a one-day costume conference put on by the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild -- and ended up taking a class on hana kanzashi, or the delicate, elaborate flower-bedecked hairpins and headdresses that Japanese geishas wear. Making them involves doing origami with tweezers and 1/2 inch squares of hand-painted China silk ribbon to make the individual flower petals, and is very time-consuming and fiddly.  I didn't really know how I would ever use the information, but because I was getting ready to help with the costumes for a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado, I thought it might come in handy for making headdresses for the women in the cast.  While I didn't end up making any headdresses at that time, I did start thinking about how to alter the design and production for theater costume purposes.  I ended up with cool Steampunk propeller-flowers for my hat (which I don't have yet, but that's another story)!

Time-travel with a Jules Verne Steampunk Tea!

A samovar fits the steampunk aesthetic!

Santa Clara will play host to a time-traveling fantasy world this weekend, with the Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition at the Hyatt Regency.  Why not take your tea travels in a whole new direction with historically-inspired fantasy?  Jules Verne was the original science fiction author, who wrote a collection of novels during the 19th century featuring hot-air balloons, airplanes, dirigibles, and other cutting-edge technology of the Victorian era, with speculations about how these gadgets would affect the world.  The Silicon Valley is one major result of ideas like his, and it can be a lot of fun to combine Victorian aesthetics with modern technology in your home decor, or even just in a really great tea party. 

Tips for a Retro-Industrial Steampunk party.

Astronomical clock, Prague. 
Photo: Ian Britton, www.FreeFoto.com

When planning your steampunk festivities, you should let your imagination play while planning the menu, entertainment and decorations.  If you have a Victorian or retro-industrial space in your home, then you are more than halfway to your goal of creating a steampunk-appropriate venue for your party.  The addition of a few more accessories, like vintage international travel posters, railroad, airplane, steamship or hot-air balloon memorabilia, or interesting Victorian bric-a-brac will finish your space nicely.  If your home is more modern than steampunk, you can work with your living room, back or front yard, or even your garage, to create the right ambiance.  Outdoor spaces, especially, can often be made to look like the "wilderness" or a "crash landing site" fairly easily.  Another venue idea -- especially if you're planning a big bash -- is to rent an empty airplane hangar, warehouse, or other old industrial space.

Giving a Steampunk Tea.

"A Lady at Her Dressing Table in the Year 2000"
from postcard ca. 1900.  Photo: Denise Tortorici.

Jules Verne, the 19th century science fiction writer and author of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, was born in February of 1828.  He wrote of space and time travel in an era when that was impossible, and used his novels to describe strange lands and technology in a Victorian aesthetic, but with an eye to the possibilities of future scientific and mechanical inventions.  His works were considered strange in their day, but his novels have received an upsurge of attention in the past 30 years, with the development of the “Steampunk” fantasy literary genre.  Steampunk style is created when a person imagines what life would be like in the 1880s and 1890s if Jules Verne’s ideas and contraptions were successfully translated into real technology, using only the energy sources of the 19th century, like steam, fire, gravity, wind, sun, and water.  This is the “steam” part of “Steampunk;” the “punk” part is what happens when a person builds something that brings these Victorian science fiction ideas to life, especially by taking apart real objects of the era and re-fashioning them into the new/old creation.  There is an element of the "mad scientist" in Steampunk!