Steampunking Our Future: An Embedded ... - cdn.oreilly.com

A Historian in the South Pacific
James H. Carrott (Wellington, New Zealand)
Meeting Greg Broadmore was one of the easiest things on earth. I dropped him
a line, explaining the Vintage Tomorrows project, and asking him if he might be
game to chat ray guys and retro-future over a beer. He kindly agreed and suggested
we meet at the Roxy Theater in Miramar.
“It’s got a lovely restaurant and has a little Grordbort’s in the mix,” he said.
The Roxy isn’t your average theater—Tania Rodger (co-founder of Weta
Workshop) and Jamie Selkirk built it with Peter Jackson so they could premiere
films at home in style. I arrived early. The place was decked out in Academy Awards
finery but eerily quiet. A gala for the awards had just completed and everyone had
already left. True to form, I needed to look around. (It’s not every day you get to
hang out in Peter Jackson’s cinematic home). As I climbed the stairs to the upper
lobby I saw what Greg meant by the place having “a little Grordbort in the mix.”
Greg, it became clear, was a master of understatement as well as its
blunderbuss-toting inverse. “A little Grordbort in the mix” turned out to be a breathtaking
mural—giant robots and rocketeers that covered the entirety of the huge,
vaulted ceiling—and a near-full exhibition of character portraits from the Grordbort’s
universe displayed on easels in elaborate gilt frames. All that and a full bar.
Ah, the benefits of showing up early…
Once Greg arrived, we headed a couple storefonts up the street to a Mexican
place he likes—the Roxy was shutting down for the night, and we were just getting
started.
What’s in a Name?
WHY SETTLE FOR THE LESSER DEATH RAY? | 11
We sat at the end of the bar and ordered a round of Tuatara, a good local beer. So
there we were—two big-bearded geeks waiting for enchiladas. Greg’s beard wins,
by the way.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, taking a pull from my pint, “about how things get
labeled. You know, how the beats became ‘beatniks’ or how Ken Kesey and Tim
Leary became ‘hippies.’ How did your ray guns become ‘steampunk’ and what does
that mean to you?”
“I kind of fear labels more than anything,” Greg earnestly replied. “When
somebody gets labeled—and especially if you’re put in that label too—it becomes
something to set another thing against. If you’re a hippie you’re set in opposition
to conservatism or whatever, right? As an artist, I always feel like I want as much