Google is celebrating her birthday today… One of those people I have heard of off and on over the years, but never really knew the actual story. (and we probably still don’t, given her daring escapades)
She exposed an insane asylum by pretending to be a mental case and traveled around the world in 72 days. She also met Jules Verne and there are theories that she invented the 55 gallon oil drum still in use today.
While I am rather proficient at defending my position on technical subjects, this definitely falls more into the realm of opinion, taste, perspective, etc. and I will refrain from imposing my passion onto someone else who has a different worldview.
She is definitively steampunk to me because of how I personally define that genre as a mixture of social and technical elegance with Victorian futurism which I sense has been invigorated by the recent trends in our modern world towards the disposable, cheap and vulgar. When you look at objects from that period, they were built with craftsmanship and made to last - a refreshing philosophy when we have ridiculous gadgets like digital washing machines that promise to do a lot of things, but wind up being needlessly expensive, complicated and much more prone to failures that are cost prohibitive to repair.
Bah!
Just give me a simple dial timer with an “On” button that I can (and have fixed) through simple common sense and lasts 20 years +.
Anyway, you are free to interpret her any way you like.
I personally find appeal in a woman who can impress me with cleverness and cunning without revealing skin across the chasm of a century.
JAG “Where is a Goddamn Time Machine When I Need One?” MAN
