Column: the Way We Weren’t

Steampunk is awesome (/squee!). If you have never visited one of the major events, I highly recommend adding them to your list of coolness to be experienced. The steampunk cons are carefully imagined, orchestrated and implemented. The participants approach their costuming with amazing dedication, and the mechanical props created are dazzling; they are also often useless, but that’s not the point. The point is the remarkable enthusiasm within the subculture to manifest a temporary world that speaks to them for a weekend at a time.