we've come a long way baby!

STEAMPUNK makes the hartford courant
rather shocking............

Steampunk Bedecks Contemporary Techno In Victorian Togs
By WILLIAM WEIR | Courant Staff Writer
What would happen if the future went as early science-fiction writer Jules Verne had imagined it? It would look a lot like Steampunk.

It's a term that has been getting a lot of play lately. So what is it?

The curious science-fiction offshoot has been around for some time as a genre of fiction and has since expanded into its own subculture. Even before the term was coined, there was the 1960s TV show "The Wild Wild West" and its 1999 movie version, which mixed its traditional Western setting with flying machines, mechanical spiders and other outlandish contraptions.

Steampunk is essentially a blend of the futuristic with the steam-powered past, a way of melding modern technology with the opulence of long ago. In most cases, "the past" is represented by an elaborate 19th-century Victorian style. Top hats and motorbike goggles are common fashion accessories, as are cellphones refashioned to look like antique items from an alternate history.........