Steampunk festival in Waltham brings thousands to the city's center
18.05.12
), Has gained traction in loyal followers and an ever-growing fan base.
Thousands of people in Victorian gowns and 19th century garb swarmed central Waltham Saturday morning and afternoon, visiting the vendors set up on the commons, browsing exhibits in the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, and chatting with strangers sharing the same unbridled enthusiasm for all things steampunk.
The festival this year is estimated to bring a total of at least 15,000 people, said Elln Hagney, executive director of the museum and this weekend's event organizer.
Proceeds made from selling admission passes will go toward renovating the museum, which suffered $500,000 worth of damage in a 2010 spring flood.
Steampunk attendees showed chipper spirits today, enjoying the bountiful sun and 80-degree weather.
The festival enjoyed more costumed camaraderie than last year, as local residents who noticed the event in 2011 were converted over the year into the steampunk state of mind.
Source: Boston.com
Local vendors help brides plan eco-friendly weddings
18.05.12
Flowers that live forever
Leah Teague, owner of Flourish Floral Design Studio, and Sarah Brobst, volunteer coordinator at Ijams Nature Center, make bridal bouquets from brooches, fabric or paper to save on floral waste.
A brooch bouquet, which is gaining popularity due to Pinterest and Etsy, is made of vintage brooches and broken jewelry. Sometimes handmade fabric flowers serve as a base.
Brides are turning to these alternative bouquets because they are unique, can be personalized and last forever. They can be passed to future generations, and they're easy and pretty to display.
"You have something you can keep, one that doesn't mold or rot," Brobst said. "And they're made from things that would be in a landfill. Pins are broken or you have one clip-on earring — who wears that?"
Brobst, who began making brooch bouquets in January and already has orders from eight brides, buys brooches at thrift stores or flea markets. Sometimes brides collect brooches from family members.
Source: Knoxville News Sentinel
Open Book: More In Anger, by J. Jill Robinson
18.05.12
The story begins in 1915, with Opal, daughter of a prosperous Winnipeg merchant, engaged to marry James Macaulay, a lawyer for the CPR in Calgary. He’s clearly a young man with ability but something of a cold fish — no tolerance for elaborate or poetic speech, no sense of humour. He is not exactly demonstrative in his affections, either. However, marriage will change that, Opal believes. “She suspected a hot spring of affection and regard would be revealed once they were secured to each other by God,” Robinson writes, “and after they became more accustomed to one another, more at home.”
Fat chance. In the dining car of their honeymoon train, she persists with some innocent questioning until he tells her, “Shut your trap.” Not, “Desist my dear, from your foolish interrogatories.” Not, “Enough of your childish prattle,” but “Shut your trap.” It is hard to imagine that a corporate lawyer, a man of Victorian rectitude, striving for gentility and intellectual cultivation, would be so boorish. In fact the phrase is passed on like some malign inheritance to her oldest daughter Pearl, who employs it in conversation with her own unfortunate children.
Source: National Post
