Jeff Mach's Blog, page 20
July 28, 2022
A Note To Mr. Hyde
I promise: I am not the monster in your closet.
I am not the horrible thing under your bed.
I am not the ghost infecting your phone.
I am not the shadows on the wall of your room.
I am not the cold face watching you from the moon.
I am not the presence you sense in the darkness.
I am not the one who pressed half the breath out of you while you slept.
I am not any of those things because they do not exist.
They do not exist because I ate them all.
And gained everything they were.
And much, much worse.
Sleep well, in the shadow of your dear Mr. Hyde.
Dream of me.
The post A Note To Mr. Hyde appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.
July 26, 2022
What Monsters Live Under
UNWARNING: This document is full of Villainy.
What do we live under? If it’s not yet quite clear.
We don’t live under anything. Because we are right here.
Monsters are not movies. Monsters are not myth.
Monsters are here. And everywhere.
We are your kin and kith. You fear the dark and basement.
You fear the closet door. You fear the dark, but you should fear the light very much more.
Because we work in the Sun
The very brightest noon.
We are not coming later. We are not coming soon.
Our time is now. Our place is here.
We do not begin. Because we do not need to. Because we’ve always been here.
Never hidden, never beneath, and not at all unknown.
We are your hands. We all your mind. We’ve never been alone.
We are your companions in the cold unflinching day.
And you always have wanted us. You’ve wanted us to stay.
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July 25, 2022
A Disclaimer From The Management
WARNING:
The management is not responsible for confusion and bedazzlement, disturbances in the Force, love potions, Ragnarok, the end of the world, spontaneous pointy-ear syndrome, Puck, vanishing Faerie gold, increasing Faerie alcohol tolerance, unmanaged mischief, TARDIS malfunctions, Puck, the Return of the King, the Jedi, or the weird box you bought at that strange shop which inexplicably vanished when you turned your back on it, what happens when you give coffee to mythological beings, what happens when you believe in mythological beings, what happens when mythological beings believe in you, Puck, golden apples marked ‘Kallisti’, acts of Gods, acts of Goths, Thursdays, losing the One Ring, finding the One Ring, inexplicably comparing George R. R. Martin to Tolkien, Puck, chaos, calamity, the highly illogical, crossroads deals, Magick ascendant, the illusion of Reality, rebellion against the Capital, Puck, or tulips.
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July 24, 2022
My Steampunk Is WIthout Regrets
My Steampunk could be easier to see in a bunch of pictures, or a Facebook post. Facebook’s algorithm really will pick up on goggles and grab, because that’s what Facebook wants – gorgeous, magnificent, strange Steampunk stuff. Not some event promoter in a t-shirt.
My Steampunk could be simpler.
My songs could all be about pistons and oil.
I could write about gears and mad scientists all day long.
I could cater to every Steampunk stereotype, and people would love it – not because people are conformists, but because we are a tribe, a tribe that’s small and close-knit and we are excited to see tribal symbols in ourselves in each others. Goggles, top hats, corsets? You must be one of us. T-shirt and a funny hat? We’re not so sure, and it’s hard to put yourself out there for someone who might not love you as much as you are ready to love and join with them.
I don’t care.
Your Steampunk is magic.
Your Steampunk is power.
Your Steampunk is you, individually, by yourself, made by you, accountable only to you – and it is your admission, your declaration, your contribution to our wild Steampunk tribe.
Steampunk has limits, sure, but we break them, shatter them, leave them behind.
Create Steampunk. Create the Steampunk you want. And have no regrets. None.
Make Steampunk your own. You deserve it. Make it bigger and better, and we will love you for it. That’s the secret.
No fear. No regret. Just creativity. And that’s more than enough.
Grinding gears and mechanical stars,
~Jeff Mach
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July 22, 2022
How To Be As Annoying As A Gryffindor
~J. K. Rowling
1. Be academically slapdash, yet clearly be several teachers’ favorite student. Ravenclaws seethe.
2. Go about things in an inefficient, pig-headed, holier-than-thou moralistic fashion, yet always win. Slytherin hearts freeze.
3. Be really brave and loyal, thus rendering Hufflepuff (even more) pointless.
4. Have Great Cosmic Power. Be Really Emo About It.
5. Be aware of all of the above, yet never ONCE stop to wonder why everybody else wants you dead.
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July 21, 2022
I’ve Never Felt Like I Fit In Anywhere
Categories: Announcements, Jeff Mach Speaks: Musings on Steampunk
Tags: belonging, events, home, steampunk
“Steampunk isn’t about fitting in. Steampunk is about refitting – the Universe, the past, your clothes, your idea of how to have fun, your ability to make stories, everything.”
― Jeff Mach, The Steampunk World’s Fair
“But you don’t have to fit in to be okay. Believe me! I am the not-fitting-in world expert. I have not fit in in maybe five different countries so far. I am homelandless. I even make mistakes when I speak Bulgarian. But it’s not big deal, not really. It’s not the end of the world, right? It’s okay.”
― Anne Nesbet, “The Cabinet of Earths”
I’ve never really felt I fit in. I’ve never really felt at home in groups, even though I love groups, even though my life’s work depends on bringing people together into large groups and making them feel as safe, excited, and happy as possible.
But I’ve never felt at home anywhere.
Which is odd, because I now have a lot of places that I can call “home”, and a lot of places where people welcome me with great kindness.
It’s true that I’m an extrovert. But the only real home I have is inside me – or inside the moments when I suddenly realize I’m part of a shared experience, creating something that’s never been before.
Humans are social animals; you can Google any number of studies on social isolation to find out what happens when we don’t have our own kind, our own tribes, people we can speak to.
I’m surrounded by people, people I genuinely love, and still, it’s hard.
It’s weird and it’s lonely. But at the same time…
It makes me treasure what I have even more. It makes me treasure Steampunk, Faerie, Goth, Fandom, and all the peculiar worlds we build. Because I’d rather feel at home a few times a year, and be driven to make those experiences, than feel at home all the time, and be content where I am.
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July 7, 2022
Nerds Are Damn Sexy
I think about geeks getting together pretty much all the time. I have to. It’s my job; I run events for geeks – and while, in actuality, “geeks getting it on” is shorthand for “geeks being able to make powerful social connections which lead to longterm connections” – it genuinely occupies much of my brain.
I keep considering the question of scarcity. If I were viewing this a younger geek, thirty years ago, it would deprecation, with a culture whose members were universally told that they were not wanted, and would never be wanted. For me, the journey might be summed up like this:
1995: “You geeks love computers because they’re the only things which will ever love you.”
2017: Holy DAMN, were they ever wrong!
Not every geek has an incredible intimate life, not even in 2017. But now we know that every geek can. They told us we’d be locked out of intimacy for life, barely able to find enough kindred souls to form a few friendships – certainly not love, not sex, not abundance. But they were wrong: in fact, un-fucking-believable nerdex is the legacy of this generation of geeks.
I won’t try to define “geek” or say exactly what a “geek” or “nerd” is; there was a time when those definitions seemed totally critical to my life, but now it’s just Tribe: If you’ll declare yourself a Geek, and be open-minded and good to other Geeks, I’ll call you a Geek. Simple as that.
Whether it’s romantic fiction or not, I like the historic view that geekery as we know it started with science fiction. That’s quite disputable, but it’s still one good place to begin. There we were, inventing a weird genre with no literary credibility. There we were with no support but that which we made for ourselves, when we started tiny magazines and began forming tenuous communities. We had nothing except our minds, and the concept that you could–and should!–use ideas to challenge conceptions of the world around us.
Then came my generation, and, again, my vision of it is more of a romantic memory than a real historical breakdown. But give this a nice 80s rock backbone and splash it into a montage:
The embrace of home computer technology! Our entrance into pop culture (as deranged, invariably male engineers with terrible social skills, true – but at least they knew that geeks existed) – and the rise of what was starting to become modern fandom! We helped establish the culture of geekery – in art, film, literature, clothing, gaming, social lives. We were the ones given the tools and materials to build the fledgling Geek Nation.
And now?
Now comes the geekery of joy! Now comes the geekery of celebration! Now comes nerdsex beyond belief!
This is the generation of those who know geek love is strong. After all, this is the generation whose members might very probably have attended their first conventions with their parents. This is the generation which, as others have noted, can wake up any morning and be immersed in geek culture. This is the generation which knows that geeks are not alone.
This generation of geeks has the entire architecture of imagination as their rightful heritage. Our bequest is that of dreamers-of-dreams. Because we are the third generation to push the boundaries of what is possible. Because our creativity has decades of spanning galaxies and millenia in search of new ideas. Because we have spent half a century building rich lives of the mind– and being told that those were the only lives we would get. And we are shattering that idea so hard that the next generation won’t even believe it really existed.
Geek sexuality has always, always been powerful; it’s simply that we were few enough, and our confidence little enough, that you seldom saw it. Now we’re visible, and we are creating the birthright of those who’ll come after. Because if geekery has always embraced the mind, and geekery can now embrace the body, then the geekery we build is limitless.
We are getting together for our future. And it is a glorious damn future indeed.
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July 6, 2022
A Flashback To Being 42
I occurs to me that I got everything I wanted for my 42nd birthday, some years back.
Is that a good thing?
In just over a week, I become 42, that most important of all ages of geeks, at least those who, like me, were influenced by Douglas Adams.
Here’s I want for my birthday:
A gritty Cyberpunk reality. I was promised that, by now, computers would be overtly trying to take over the world, and large corporations would take over countries, not through subtle financial pressures, but through force of arms. Let’s go, people! I want to join the rebellion!The question to the answer of “Life, the Universe, and Everything”. To go back to the start, Douglas Adams said that the answer was found and it was the aforementioned “42”, and suggested that we we didn’t understand the question. I’m going to keep asking questions until I figure it out.The Post-Apocalypse. I’ve been practicing so hard. I’ve been working on maintaining a perfect tan while out in the desert. I’ve been learning how to spend all day, every day, cautiously pointing a rifle through the rubble which once was major cities. I’ve been learning how to find the other Last Humans on Earth, and I’m totally ready to hoarde Twinkies like there’s no tomorrow, which there isn’t.More worlds of imagination. Because I’ve decided that creating spaces for Steampunks, Faeries, Goths, and Geeks isn’t enough. I want to make the world a weirder place all day, ever day, and I’m ready to do it.I do not want a flying car. I don’t even need a self-driving car. I just need a very snarky car, like Kitt from Night Rider. (Which could, yes, self-drive, but that wasn’t the important part.) I want a witty vehicle which will crack one-liners at me as I cruise through the night, defending the innocent and trying to go on dates with this week’s love interest.I would really like some more chocolate, please.The post A Flashback To Being 42 appeared first on Worlds of Villainy.
July 2, 2022
“Into The Blue” – from our Steampunk musical
(I left this unpublished for many years because, well, spoilers. But Absinthe Heroes was the first Steampunk Rock Opera, and it’s been out for 10 years. And this still doesn’t tell you how it ends.)
MAYOR:
Into the blue! Into the blue!
How godly their ascent
Surely for stretching heavenword
The hands of Man are meant
We tame the very skies above
We own this element
As to the will of Man the saphire
Firmament is bent
Into the blue! The naked blue!
Into the blue, into the blue
Stretching over space
As each barrier to commerce
We brilliantly erase
In five or ten or twenty years
This will be commonplace
Each wonder will be more mundane–
That’s the hallmark of our race
ANTIKYTHERA:
Crave pardon, but I must raise
A slightly dissenting voice
Not everything is easy.
Not everything’s your choice.
I’ve fed the winds a potion sweet
They listen now to me
I’ll take your ships; and your crews perish
In the etheric sea
Into the dark! Into the dark!
How human your ascent!
You had some tools, and never thought
To see what they all meant
You looked not high enough
Saw the heavens as a tent
Now all your hopes and plans are
In a thousand pieces, rent
Into the black! The ever-hungry black!
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Our No Ghosts Guarantee
This Resort Is Not Haunted
The Management would like to take a moment to address certain rumours alleging supernatural activity upon the premises.
We would like to remind you that we live in a material world, and that of the ethereal and immaterial is known to nonexist.
In other words, if there were such things as ghosts, they wouldn’t be, because there’s no such things as ghosts.
This property is assuredly not haunted.
They’re definitely not haunting anything around here.
They certainly do not have a preference for steak and whiskey.
Don’t feed them.
I mean, REALLY don’t feed them!
But don’t worry.
They’re completely harmless.
At least to other ghosts, anyway.
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