Anyway, I suddenly realized, in my previous discussion of what might be a child's first introduction to steampunk-type notions, assuming he didn't have steampunk parents, I only thought of Talespin, which I still think is Baby's First Steampunk, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. But I left out something huge! Thomas the Tank Engine! I didn't think of it because it wasn't on when I was a kid, but there were several kids in the the store today who knew all kinds of stuff about steam engines! We have a big train set in the children's section, with the little wooden Thomas trains on it. One of the kids, who was probably about three, was telling his mom all about how the engine was thirsty, and he was getting a drink under the water tower, and what a roundhouse was, and what the caboose did. There was also a girl who made all the engines drive around and get water, and use their brakes down the hill, and wait for the signals to get into the roundhouse. A couple of other kids played games that were similarly detailed about how trains worked. I just think it's cool how kids are still learning about a lifestyle and technology from a bygone age.
So Thomas the Tank Engine gets points for the coveted title, Baby's First Steampunk.
I am perpetually dismayed how much hope there is for the children—here I try to be decently pessimistic, and the little no-neck monsters go and do something sane. It's all a set up for a bigger disappointment, I'm sure, but in and of itself it is encouraging.
ReplyDeleteMention of Talespin reminds me, Gummi Bears is a bit steampunk too—is there some arcane connection between steampunk and talking bears?—albeit in the clockpunk variation. Which, by the bye, should've been named campunk, waterwheels and cams being vastly more typical of medieval tech than clocks (though the medievals did have a perennial hobby of improving their clocks, merely, as we would put it, FOR SCIENCE!).
Pessimism is nice, because you are always either pleasantly surprised, or you get to say "I told you so". It's hard to say which is nicer, but I'm guessing Schopenhauer would prefer option number two.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Tolkien played Thomas the Tank Engine with his children? I forget where I read this... I'm pretty sure I read it in one of the Letters his son edited, or in one of the Father Christmas letters. Tolkien wasn't generally a fan of things modern, but he did look gently on steam trains.
ReplyDeleteMom.
Because steam engines are AWESOME!!!!!!!! Chesterton liked them as well. And so did Walt Disney.
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