Ay-leen the Peacemaker's Blog – May 2011 Archive (15)

QUAINT #22: “Les Xipéhuz” (The Shapes) by J.H. Rosny

Close up of Danae Stratou's "Desert Breath", which would be an apt illustration for this novelette. Image courtesy of io9. Click for link.

The Xipéhuz were created by “J. H. Rosny (aîné)” and appeared in “Les Xipéhuz” (“The Shapes,” L’Immolation, 1887). “J. H. Rosny (aîné)” was the pen name of Joseph Henri Honoré Böex (1866-1940), a French author. For many years after his death… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 31, 2011 at 9:11pm — No Comments

Burning High-Action Brilliance: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Note: While enjoying Wiscon this weekend (con report forthcoming), check out my latest review over at Tor.com. Delayed updates to Con Extravaganza & Asian Identities, Crossing Borders will be posted later this week.

During the Tribeca Film Festival, I managed to catch a showing of Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. Watching the preview, this film promised big set pieces, lots of fiery explosions,… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 31, 2011 at 9:08pm — No Comments

“The Sikh Pioneers of North America”: The Punjabi-Mexican Americans of California

ca. 1909. Sikhs from India at the Calapooia Lumber Company, Crawfordsville, Linn County, Oregon, 1905-1915. (Crawfordsville is about 30 miles north of Eugene, Oregon). (Photo courtesy of Stephen Williamson www.efn.org/~opal/indiamen.htm)

In California at the turn of the 20th century, a community grew in southern California with an interesting history: Punjabi-Mexican families of the Imperial Valley. This unique… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 31, 2011 at 9:02pm — No Comments

QUAINT #21 The Lost Race Story

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

The Lost Race Story. Stories in which unknown lands and races are discovered have been written for centuries, but in the last two decades of the 19th century a new type of story involving their discovery was created. The genre began with the 1885 publication of H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and the 1887 publication of… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 31, 2011 at 9:00pm — No Comments

Beyond Victoriana #77 Indian Automaton: Tipu's Tiger

Among the objects in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, one of the most popular is Tipu's Tiger, an Indian automaton of a tiger mauling a European soldier.

Tipu's Tiger. Image copyrighted by the Victoria & Albert Museum. Click for source.

Tipu's Tiger was created around 1795 for the Tipu Sultan of Mysore. The tiger was the sultan's emblem and the symbolism here is quite blatant: a sign of the… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 22, 2011 at 12:00am — 1 Comment

Convention Extravaganza: Steampunk Industrial Revolution

Steampunk Industrial Revolution is New Hampshire's first steampunk convention and proclaimed to "revolutionize the way we steampunk."

Austin Sirkin opens up our reports with his discovery of a landlocked boat in the middle of the hotel; the musician Eli August gives the low-down on his experiences at the con; Miriam Rocek brings her attendee perspective; Matt Delman, chief editor of… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 20, 2011 at 12:00am — No Comments

QUAINT #20: Roots of the Yellow Peril, Part 2

Note: Read Part 1 of this essay here.

Cartoon from The Wasp. Image courtesy of Berkeley University. Click for link.

Historical and cultural trends fed into the development during the 19th century of the Yellow Peril in the United States and Europe.… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 18, 2011 at 12:00am — No Comments

When Feminist Fashion Goes Couture: Anne Avantie, Indonesian Designer

“If I walk, I hope my footsteps won’t be erased just like that… I want many other footsteps to follow mine!” - Anne Avantie

Anne Avantie's signature kebaya designs are growing in popularity as Asian fashion enters the global scene. Born to Chinese parents in Solo, Indonesia, Anne never had any formal training in fashion design, but always had an interest in the fashion world. Her love for fashion design started…

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Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 17, 2011 at 11:11am — No Comments

Beyond Victoriana #76 The Life of Malik Ambar, India's African Ruler--Guest Blog by Eccentric Yoruba

A portrait of Malik Ambar signed by Hashem (C 1624-25); photo courtesy V&A Images, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; A painting showing Jehangir shooting arrows into the severed head of Malik Ambar signed by Abul-Hasan (C 1616), © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (www.cbl.ie)

Earlier this year, my attention was drawn to a discussion on … Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 15, 2011 at 10:30am — No Comments

Convention Extravaganza–Reporting from Nova Albion: The Wild, Wild East

First stop in this Con Extravaganza series is Nova Albion, based in Santa Clara, California. This con was formerly named Steam Powered, and I first heard about it from Mike Perschon's blog years ago. This year's Nova Albion is the first steampunk convention to address a non-Western theme, and I was intrigued when they had invited me as a speaker back in… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 15, 2011 at 10:10am — No Comments

QUAINT #18 Roots of the Yellow Peril, Part I

Note: Jess Nevins' entry on the Yellow Peril was just too fascinating to be abridged, and so it will be posted in two parts. Follow along next Wednesday for Part II.

Film poster for The Face of Fu Manchu, who is one of the best known examples of the Yellow Peril stereotype. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Yellow Peril. Although the anti-Asian stereotype of the “Yellow… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 11, 2011 at 3:36pm — No Comments

The Industrial Revolution of Today: A Review of FACTORY GIRLS by Leslie T. Chang

Click to read more on the publisher's website.

When we take about the impact of the Industrial Revolution, we speak of it in terms as if there had been only One Industrial Revolution, and that had taken place throughout the Western world during the nineteenth century. As I had written about… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 10, 2011 at 5:48am — No Comments

Beyond Victoriana #75 Cinco de Mayo - Guest Blog by Evangeline Holland

Note: This has been cross-posted from Edwardian Promenade. A few days late for this blog, but still relevant (I also recommend reading this modern perspective on this North American holiday too).

I live in California, and coincidentally, this was where the first Cinco de Mayo celebrations were held in the 1860s. Just in case you have no clue what the holiday entails, “[t]he 5th of… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 8, 2011 at 12:00am — No Comments

QUAINT #17 Assowaum from "The Regulators of Arkansas" by Friedrich Gerstäcker

Image from the Gerstäcker Magazine from the Gerstäcker Museum, featuring his illustrated Westerns. Click for source (in German).

Assowaum was created by Friedrich Gerstäcker and appeared in Die Regulatoren in Arkansas ("The Regulators of Arkansas, 1845"). Gerstäcker (1816-1872) was a German who went to America in 1837. For six years he lived a checkered life in America, working as a… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 5, 2011 at 8:26pm — No Comments

Beyond Victoriana #74 “War, Steampunk, Bulgaria”--Guest Blog by Harry Markov

Bulgarian soldiers from the 19th century

My post’s title says it all--or at the very least I hope it does. At one point I figured that I’d like to write about the probability of Bulgarian steampunk developing as a genre niche and war, more or less, found its way into my writing. I believe that war is crucial for steampunk as it’s crucial for Bulgaria, in its different manifestations.

Speculative fiction fuels itself with war. The most dynamic stories are born in troubled times, as epic fantasy has… Continue

Added by Ay-leen the Peacemaker on May 1, 2011 at 12:00am — No Comments