do you believe in the telectroscope?

Trans-Atlantic Inter-Era Telectroscope Steampunk Conference

I am indebted to Tobias Fauntleroy for alerting me to this important announcement:

We hereby establish a Trans-Atlantic, Inter-Era Conference for Steampunks, Neo-Victorians, Explorers, Adventurers, Scientists and Enthusiasts of the Vintage Arts, to be held on Saturday June 7.

Members of the BrassGoggles.co.uk community have Proposed that on Saturday June 7, New Yorkers meet in front of their Telectroscope at 2pm US East Coast Time. Londoners meet in front of their Telectroscope at 7pm GMT. Original posting here:
http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/?p=852

All attendees are invited to wear their full regalia, whether it be steampunk, neo-Victorian/Edwardian, or vintage garb from other eras or representing other parts of the world. Suggestions for steam-powered fashion may be found here:
http://community.livejournal.com/steamfashion/
http://www.whitemischief.info/photos/steampunk-clothing-at-white-mischief
http://www.whitemischief.info/videos/around-the-world-in-80-days-dressup-inspirations

You are encouraged to bring WRITING IMPLEMENTS and PAPER so that you may communicate the written word via the Telectroscope.

Upon the completion of Trans-Atlantic communications, all London-based Conference-Goers are warmly invited to attend a post-event party at White Mischief "Around the World in 80 Days", Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, London from 8pm-3am, where like-minded individuals will be gathered for music, dancing and some of the finest entertainments known to man or woman.

Steampunk costumes will be on display, as will the splendid rayguns and pith helmets of Stentor Industries, plus live bands, aerial acrobatics, sword swallowing, snake dancing and dancing late into the night with numerous DJs.

Full details on the White Mischief extravaganza can be found here:
http://www.whitemischief.info/about

 

Coming Home (via the Tunnel!)

Paul St George is coming home after his much feted trip to America. But did anyone out there actually see him on site at the Brooklyn end? If you have any photographs of the great man in the Big Apple please do share them with us. Here he is in London (thanks cowfish!):

I am still unclear BTW as to whether Paul travels via the Tunnel or takes the plane like the rest of us. One has to assume there is some rudimentary form of transport down there.

Just a few weeks ago I might have thought of Paul as Charles Bronson in The Great Escape, tap-tapping with his trowel and being tugged to and fro on a trolley hundreds of metres below the ground. But given the grand scale and fine workmanship of the Telectroscopes, I now see in my mind’s eye a motorised carriage – the kind of thing owners of the early Wild West railways used to live in while the navvies banged out the track in front of them.

Or does Paul travel more ‘Lenin-style’ in something steel plated, fortified with blacked out windows, chuntering along slowly beneath the Atlantic, plotting and co-ordinating his own curious revolution?

But I digress. On a more practical level, it must be assumed that the doorway to the side of the Telectroscope is where Paul will once again surface. My daughter and I tried to open said door the other day, if only to see to see what lay on the other side, but it was firmly sealed.

The pressure gauge upon the door did twitch a bit as we tugged, deviating slightly from its typical range of 2 to 4 bar. Which begs more questions: how is Paul managing the extraordinary fluctuations in pressure that must occur in his subterranean world?   And how is the light, being squeezed, travelling and bending its way across the Atlantic, still producing such fine images?

Other Telectroscopes, Other Tunnels (And Their Uses...)

The world’s media has gone crazy for the Telectroscope. Already I have bookmarked over 20 different  news items, including reports in German, French and Chinese, as well as over 40 blog posts. I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.

One of the more interesting speculations arising from all this attention has been whether more Telectroscopes should be built and for what purpose.

Tom Taylor writes: "I envisioned a telectroscopic network spread throughout the world, connecting all manner of cities, not just London and New York. I imagined simple devices, without the steampunk-esque glamour, perhaps the size of a bus stop advertising horde. They would stand upright, dotted around parks and public spaces, each one forming a permanent connection to its partner thousands of miles away."

Others, such as commenters Ed and Lanalasagna suggest that Telectroscopes could be used to promote global peace.

In the one brief phone conversation I have had with Paul this week he rather breathlessly alluded to requests from national governments for their very own Telectroscopes. Presumably this would also mean many, many more Tunnels. Is this the reason, perhaps, why so many countries including Britain are racing to claim sovereignty over vast areas of the sea bed?

I fear for Paul. The more attention his wondrous device receives, the more likely it is that powerful and avaricious forces may seek to control what he has created. Could the Tunnel be nationalised, I wonder? Would a foreign power have the temerity to steal or appropriate a Telectroscope and perhaps even use it for warlike purposes? Remember the Iraqi supergun?!

As a young boy I was made painfully aware - thanks to my brother Paul - what a magnifying glass on a sunny day can do to a man (and a gerbil) when placed in the wrong hands.

I sincerely hope that Paul has taken steps to ensure that the Telectroscope cannot be reverse engineered.