The Brass Balll in Houston

We recently had a fun event in Houston for the local Steampunk community. The Brass Ball, a DJed dance with multiple musicians and vendors was held Sunday July 27 at Mimms Martini and Wine bar on Montrose. You can see photos of the Brass Ball here in the blog post.

This event had me thinking about Houston saloons in the 19^th century. The main choice of drink in the saloon was whiskey, also called rotgut, sheep-dip, cactus juice, coffin varnish, and tarantula juice. In those days cowboys and western gents could partake of more than just a drink in a saloon. In 1839, a local Houston, Texas newspaper decried the town’s houses of ill repute. The newspaper was probably either The Houston Morning Star, a daily newspaper founded April 8, 1839, or the Telegraph and Texas Register, a weekly newspaper that included local, state, and national news, established July 10, 1839. The Houston Morning Star was actually printed in the office of the Telegraph and Texas Register.

In Houston Land of the Big Rich the author, Geroge Fuerman, states that from 1880 to World War I Houston’s vice area was on old Howard Street. In the early 1900’s the brothels in Houston used a practical bookkeeping system based on towels. One was given to each customer and at the end of the night the madam counted the towels and paid the girls accordingly. There’s a story about a Howard street brothel in those days that caught on fire. The madam fled the burning house by taking the outside stairs but when she looked up she saw the porter jump form a second story window with his arms loaded with towels. She exclaimed, “Thank God. He saved the books.”

I did find some saloon information from other Texas towns. In the early 1870s in Lampasas Texas a gunfight broke out in the saloon between state police and outlaws. Three officers were shot to death in the saloon and a fourth was fatally wounded while trying to escape.

There’s even a Texas saloon story involving Jesse James. The outlaw lived for a time in the area of Granbury Texas. He fell in love with an 18 year old saloon girl and began to settle down. In those days if a saloon patron was upstairs with a saloon girl when his wife came to drag him home, the barkeep would send the man down the husband escape, which was the outside stairs. The saloon girl Jesse loved had to run down the husband escape one night but she wasn’t fast enough to escape a bullet in her back. Some people say the saloon girl still haunts the empty up stair rooms around the square in Granbury.

I’m glad to report the Brass Ball at Mims was old fashioned fun and great music without any wild west shenanigans or shootouts but there were some card tricks.

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Maeve Alpin, who also writes as Cornelia Amiri, is the author of 19 books. She creates stories with kilts, corsets, fantasy and happy endings. She lives in Houston Texas with her son, granddaughter, and her cat, Severus.

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Let’s Go Dancing by Saundra Mitchell

Today, as Steampunkapalooza 2011 continues, I’d like to welcome Saundra Mitchell, author of the young adult book The Vespertine.

Saundra Mitchell has been a phone psychic, a car salesperson, a denture-deliverer and a layout waxer. She’s dodged trains, endured basic training, and hitchhiked from Montana to California. She teaches herself languages, raises children, and makes paper for fun. She’s also a screenwriter for Fresh Films and the author of Shadowed Summer and The Vespertine, and the forthcoming The Springsweet. She always picks truth; dares are too easy.

 

Let’s Go Dancing

by Saundra Mitchell

Let it be resolved that in 1889, it wasn’t just the upper crust who danced the night away during their rigid and formalized ball season. The American middle class did just as much fan flirting and dance-card gaming as their wealthier counterparts, but I suspect they had more fun doing it.

Without vast empires to merge and old money to protect with proper matches, the middle class showed up at their balls… to dance. To flirt, and fall in love; to gossip and steal sips of brandied punch. But, since the very-well-heeled weren’t opening their private ballrooms to the masses, the masses instead attended public balls.

Public balls were often held as fundraisers- they might be for a charity, or a public works project. Sometimes, to raise money for a church or synagogue. Unions also played host, as well as social clubs. And then there were plenty that were simply money-making ventures. Hotels especially enjoyed the extra revenue of hosting public balls on the holidays.

There were no invitations to manuever. Public balls were advertised in newspapers, and notices were posted in the post office and in other meeting places. For a fee, anywhere from a nickel to several dollars, anyone could attend, as long as they were properly dressed. (And yes, that meant along with specifically segregated balls, some public dances were multicultural events.)

Sometimes, you’d pay your admission in advance- dance cards often served double duty as the ticket. Others took cash at the door. Once inside, you’d find a string quartet or brass band in the corner providing music, a refreshment parlor and a ladies’ necessary. Unlike private affairs, public balls didn’t generally include dinner.

Which means you pay your money, you get your dance card, and you get straight to flirting, straight to the intrigue, straight to the best part of ball-going season: the dancing. Who said the rich get to have all the fun?

~Saundra Mitchell

http://thevespertine.com

 

I have a copy of The Vespertine to give away to one lucky commenter.  Contest ends April 11 at 11:59 pm PST, contest open internationally.  So if you went to a Victorian ball, what part of it would you look forward to the most?

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In Which Cinder-Suzi goes to the Ball

We have a special treat for you.  February is “Fantastic February” and we will be having some fantasy-themed posts, some great authors, and featuring some fantastic books.  Come join the fun.

Last weekend was the annual Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball, which is part of the Riverside Dickens’ Festival.

Every year the hubby and I go. It’s a chance for us to actually go on a real date and hold hands and dance all night.

It’s also an excuse for me to dress up in a Victorian ball gown.

This year I didn’t make a new dress. I have two perfectly good gowns, the one I “made” last year and the I “made” the year before from two old prom dresses. The hubby thought I should wear the cream prom-dress one, which is the more steampunky one of the two.

Our usual group of friends didn’t make it this year, but another one of my friends came, which was fun.

It also meant I had no hotel room to get ready in so I had to get ready in the bathroom  (I was *not* driving two hours in a corset and ball gown).   Getting into a corset, a bustle, a petticoat, and a lace-up ball gown in a restroom stall isn’t very fun.

Because my dress was cream-colored and I wore my gold clockhand tiara, I got *a lot* of people asking me if I was a bride while I was getting ready.   I told them I was Cinderella getting ready for the ball.

I did discover that I’d brought one white glove and one cream glove, both of different lengths, so I went without, even though it was a little unladylike.

It did bring forth the idea what might happen in a movie or a book where a young woman looses one glove and does everything one-handed, hiding the bare arm behind her back (you know, like when Jo March spent the ball with her back to the wall because of the patch on the back of her dress, only with gloves…)

The venue was different this year and instead of being in a lavish dancing hall, we were in a room at the convention center which lacked the same ambiance.  Still, the ball was packed and so were the “observation seats.” People come just to watch the dancing and the pretty dresses (or, as the Hubby says, watch the parade floats go by.)

The dresses are always fabulous from period-correct custom dresses (down to the underpinnings) to girls in prom dresses.  There were also bustle gowns, prairie dresses, several day dresses, and a few really amazing hats.  There was also a couple where the wife made both the costumes and the fabric of his coat matched her dress.   And of course, the king of Siam.

I do have to say I loved this blouse/skirt outfit.  Why?  Because it’s almost exactly what my character Noli wears in the opening scene of Innocent Darkness, only Noli’s doesn’t have a hoop skirt, and wears a leather apron on top.  This sweet girl (whose name I didn’t get), even has Noli hair!  (Only Noli doesn’t wear glasses).  Even though she probably thought I was strange, she gladly posed for a picture.

Like a true Victorian Ball, it starts with couples being “announced” to the room. This is the first year we actually got there early enough to be announced. We’ve never come up with a persona. The Hubby decides that we’re “Lord and Lady Lazear from Paris, France,” since apparently that’s where the name came from (I didn’t know that.)

Everyone has dance cards and there’s live music. I ogle the pretty gowns and make the hubby waltz, polka, and do the occasional set dance. We did get to dance briefly with the Queen during one of the sets, which delighted the tot to no end. She’s to little to go, but she loves hearing about mommy going to the ball.  The set dances are always so much fun, both to dance in and to watch.  Some of them are very pretty (some are very long.)  I think I need to invent a steampunk set dance — Airpirate’s Fancy anyone?  I also have the urge to write a ball scene in the Innocent Darkness sequel.

Like always we had an amazing time.  In fact, the hubby said this year was the most fun yet.  (That’s what I love about the hubby, I can take him anywhere and he does just fine.)

I can’t wait for next year, only maybe this time I won’t forget my gloves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Steampunk Goes West

There’s long been a debate among those looking at steampunk from the outside if steampunk can really be anything but Victorian England.

I, for one, would argue YES. (And really this has nothing to do with the fact that my steampunk books in The Legend Chronicles are set in some part in the Wild Weird West–honestly.) If Jules Verne can write about being 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, then that isn’t Victorian England, is it? If H.G. Wells can write about the New York of the future in his work The Time Machine, that isn’t exactly London either, is it?

I choose to espouse the view that steampunk is more of a time period than a particular setting. You can write about or design costumes from any area of the globe (and a few beyond our own stratsophere) during that golden age and still be steam. The punk comes from being your own little creative mad genius self.  So why not have dragon ladies, courtesans of the far east? What about appearing as a Maha Raja or one of his veiled lovey wives? Certainly you could even been a Plantation owner from the Caribean or a Cattle Baron from South America. Truly the combinations are endless.

But I digress.

What really has me excited is the steampunk movement into the Wild Weird American West. If you haven’t already heard about the Wild Wild West Steampunk Con going on at Old Tucson Studios in Arizona in March, you should check it out. It’s the first large steampunk gather in Arizona. Not only will Abney Park and the League of S.T.E.A.M. be there, but there’s nothing quite like venturing into Arizona to get the authentic feel of the old west. (I lived there for nearly a decade–trust me.)

Not only do you get the Miner ’49er, but the cowboy, the saloon girl, the rancher, the townie,the gunslinger, carpetbagger and cardshark; so many new and fun ways to express all the goodness that is steampunk. I don’t know about you, but I have a LOT of sewing to do to prepare for the con. And Lolita Elizabeth will be there as well!

If you were going to be one character from the Wild Weird West, what would it be?

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In Which Lolita Suzanne goes to RWA 2010

As you read this I’m on my way back home from Orlando, which is a terrible, horrible multi-plane hike across the time zones. Not very fun.

But the Romance Writers of America 2010 conference was fun indeed.

Fellow Lolitas Shelley Adina and Cindy Holby and I did a Steampunk panel along with agent Jennifer Jackson. I’d been terrified that no one would come, since we were opposite some great workshops. But as it turned out, it was standing room only with some very interesting people in attendance.

We got great questions ranging from women’s roles in steampunk to the darker aspects such as colonialism, imperialism, and child labor. Overall, I thought it went well, especially since I didn’t have the vapors…and with the outfit I was wearing I thought I might.

Another highlight of the conference was the Steampunk ball and Prism awards, hosted by the RWA Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal online chapter. Everyone was welcome to come in costume, so, of course, Shelley and I dressed up. I came as a Steampunk Princess, complete with tiara made of clockhands. Considering I was walking through a hotel at the happiest place on earth, I got quite a few looks from little girls.

I am convinced that fellow Lolita Leanna Renee Hieber is my long lost sister–and not because people get us mixed up. She was nominated for not one, but two Prism awards. There were a few jokes since she wore all black and I wore all cream. Does that mean one of us is the good sister and one of us the bad sister?

Leanna ended up winning in both the fantasy and best book categories for The Strangely Beautiful Tale of miss Percy Parker . Cynthia Eden also was a double prism winner, taking both the dark paranormal and novella categories.

Since the ball/awards was steampunk themed, there were some amazing costumes. I didn’t win the costume contest because my steampunk princess costume lacked gadgets.

Hmmm….what gadgets would a steampunk princess have?

Anyway, the conference was amazing, and I attended some excellent panels on everything from social networking to DNA and got to hang out with my fellow lolitas and YA writers (more about that on my personal blog over the next few days.)

I leave you with a couple of pictures from the Steampunk ball.

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In Which Suzanne goes to the Dickens Ball

The dress is finished, I got the tickets in the mail, the hubby’s suit has been found, and a babysitter for the tot procured.

It’s time to get ready for the ball.

While trying to iron the dress, I quickly realized why ladies of the time had ladymaids. It was a very daunting task, especially since I’m no good at ironing.

I couldn’t find a fall or a curly bun wig to borrow, so I attempted to curl my hair myself. Again, I wished I had a ladymaid. My arms got tired putting in the sponge rollers. I did my makeup (very simple, just a little black eyeshadow in the crease to accent the black and white dress), put all our stuff in the car, dropped off the tot and set off.

The ball was in Riverside–about an hour and a half from Los Angeles with no rain or traffic. Last year it took us about 6 hours to get there and we missed a bulk of the dance. This year we left at 3 and got there in time to get ready in a friend’s hotel room (I wasn’t about to ride in the car in full costume, lol).

We let the guys get ready first, then kicked them out. My friend laced me up and helped me make sure the hem of the skirt covered the hoop and didn’t look too uneven.

My curls didn’t quite dry in the damp weather, but they’ll do. Again, a lady maid would have come in handy. I wore black slippers, not heels–doing the Virginia Reel in high heels is a really, really bad idea. On went the black lace gloves the tot picked out and the black clockhand earrings, hairpin, and necklace I got from EJP creations  awhile back (I had ordered some gold ones, but the black went with better, so I’ll save those for another dress). I add my black velvet cape and a peacock feather fan. Viola! I think I’ll do.

Meanwhile, the guys keep calling to see where we are, so we make the trek from the hotel room to the venue. Bagpipes play in front of the venue,  as everyone arrives in full Victorian regalia. The guys have enjoyed, as they put it, “watching the parade floats go by.” The hubby looks dashing in white tie and tails.

We check in and are given dance cards. Worn on the wrist, they have a little pencil and list the dances that are done in each set. Gentleman go up to ladies and sign their dance card (with the lady’s permission, of course), thus reserving the dance. Most of my card is reserved for the hubby, but I have a few friends I agree to dance with. The hubby also gets drafted to dance. (In the Victorian times it is considered rude to deny other’s the chance to dance with your escort.) The first set is in full swing with a live band. The set dances are called, so everyone can join in even if you don’t know how to do them.

Right after we arrive, Queen Victoria and her retinue arrive. A few people are kinighted for their service to the crown. Then it’s time for a waltz and the grand march. One of my rose pins breaks in the very first waltz. The pin is holding the dress up, but one of my friends has a safey pin so we fix it. I’ll have to sew them on for next year.

The grand march is quite fun, giving you the chance to see everyone who’s at the ball and take a look at everyone’s dresses. There are many, many beautiful dresses. There are quite a few bustle-dresses this year (a little early for the Dickens era, but beautiful nevertheless.). However, many soon find that bustle dresses with trains are very hard to dance in.

There are four sets, each set consisting of 4-5 dances. In between sets the band breaks giving us time to socialize, look at all the lovely dresses, or get some refreshments. The ball is sold out and there are several hundred people there–all in costume. Most are in Victorian gowns. I see a few with Steampunk flair and one airpirate. There’s also a few regency and colonial dresses, and a few prom dresses. Those who don’t want to dress up but want to watch can sit in the observation gallery, which is also packed.

The ball attracts people of all ages, from teens to older couples. There are some families. There aren’t any small children, the youngest are around 9 or 10–all dressed up and well versed in the manners and dances of  the time, quite a cute and impressive sight.

The hubby and I waltz and polka. My slippers are too big and keep slipping off.I learn to Schottische. I feel good because I get a lot of compliments on my dress, fabric glue and drama aside. So, in spite of everything, I guess I did manage to pull everything off.

The most fun dance of the evening for me had to be the plain quadrille, which is quite possibly the longest set dance ever (and five sets, not four). It’s made up of four couples and we were lucky enough to be in a set with our friends. The hubby was a very good sport, going with the flow and trying his best. I was quite proud. My friends who sat the dance out thought we were quite entertaining to watch, especially since the guys are goofballs.

Finally the night drew to a close, finishing with the farewell waltz. The best part of the evening was just getting to spend time dancing with the hubby, though seeing old friends and looking at all the pretty dresses was nice as well. The ball has drawn to a close. We say goodbye to everyone and change out of our clothes for the long, rainy drive home. It’s been quite the fun evening and I look forward to going next year.

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