Quotidian Steampunk: Brass Plant Mister

Third in a series of everyday encounters, iPhone in hand, with items that elicit a steampunk’d reaction. A celebration of materials, honest mechanics, longevity, and a tactile attraction… The antithesis of disposably-priced, short-lived, flimsily-manufactured, and blindly-operated “stuff.”

Today’s subject is a simple hand-held houseplant humidifying device (not a brass “plant”, mister…): refillable, thumb-pumped, all-brass construction, task-oriented and obviously with a few years under its screw cap. The metal patinas over the years; the piston cylinder tips a bit from the pressure of many a thrust; the sides gain a dent or two – but it keeps going. If it leaks or stops spraying, it can be repaired. If it’s not needed for the moment, it sits in repose, gleaming in the sunlight with its handle and nozzle arcing gracefully as the houseplants it dutifully services. A paen, no doubt, to utilitarianism but a pleasingly simple and effective example. It’s not that hard to do things well. What are your preferences?

Quotidian Steampunk: A Clockwork Roomscape

 

Second in the series of “Quotidian Steampunk” discoveries: scenes captured with an iphone in the course of a regular day-in-the-life of a modern Vermonter (no comments there, please)…  New England is a treasure trove of recombinant imagery: our steam- and water-powered past seasons our 21st-Century lives at home, in town, and in our attitudes and mindset. The echoing industry of past enterprising Yankee generations reverberates through the physical evidence still amongst us – workaday and ornate brickwork, rusted steel rails and bridges, glass and gilt furnishings, brass and turned wooden mechanisms…

Quotidian Steampunk: Overhead Garage Door

Steampunk inspiration is all around us if we look for it, in the everyday and the commonplace objects that fill our twenty-first century world. It is an interesting challenge to spot these moments and ponder how various technologies have morphed, melded, and made their way into our modern times. A simple cable and pulley still gets the job done efficiently, affordably, and dependably: in this case, the counter-sprung lifting mechanism for a garage’s overhead door.

This is the first in a series of “Quotidian Steampunk” – a wonderful adjective that, according to Merriam-Webster, means “ordinary” or “belonging to each day.” These entries will be grouped under this blog’s Company Journal category of the same name for your future reference. What have you seen today?