Starting today - plan your trip into history - and the future!

Today: See History and Art - and the Future - collide at Steampunk exhibit

Dana Maxson Photography
Posted

Step into the world where history and fiction collide - Steampunk.

Children will be treated to three fantastically fun and interactive hours of arts, crafts, stories, and activities in and around the Meadowlands Museum and its gardens. Children who participate in the whole day will go home with three completed projects, and will have had the opportunity to interact with the current exhibit, "Alternate Reality: Steampunk & the Victorian Age."

Projects include

paper cameos,

painted fans,

Steampunk animals,

create your own Steampunk character,

fancy portraits,

scavenger hunts, and

story time readings.

Admission is:

$7.00 for first child

$5.00 for each additional child in the group

Children 5 and under are FREE

All proceeds go to support the Meadowlands Museum and its programs, exhibits, and ongoing projects.

DATE: Saturday, August 2, 2014

TIME: 10:00am - 1:00pm

Rain or shine

MONDAY: The Science of Steampunk

If the term "steampunk" means anything to you, it probably evokes the image of goggles on top hats or of gears on, well, just about everything. Dig just a little bit further in to the movement and you'll find dirigible airships, clockwork robots, and steam-powered vehicles. It may come as a surprise to find that these are not tropes invented in recent times, nor are they primarily drawn from the fiction of an earlier era. While modern steampunk film and fiction exaggerates the abilities of these contrivances, they all have their roots in actual inventions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the scientists and inventors who made them were just as colorful as their fictionalized counterparts. Much as advances in computer technology now give anyone with enough creativity (or eccentricity) and drive (or obsession) a shot at making it big, the Victorian era was a period when advances in physics and engineering gave rise to what we now recognize as the spirit of steampunk.

In this talk, we'll learn a bit about the scientific principles behind these inventions, such as what it is that gears actually do, as well as discuss some of the larger than life figures who tried to bend these principles to their will.

About the Speaker

Scott Calvin is a professor of Physics at Sarah Lawrence College, where he teaches a variety of courses including Steampunk Physics. As his alternate persona Professor S. Q. Black, he has designed a number of novel inventions, including a working pair of death ray goggles and the T-BAVAC (tetra-barrelled anti-vampiric arm cannon). Outside of steampunk, his recent projects include using x-ray spectroscopy to analyze advanced battery materials for electric cars, writing a textbook on x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy featuring cartoon animals, creating a pop-up book to promote a new Department of Energy synchrotron light source, and developing a physics study guide in graphic novel form.

DATE: Monday, August 4, 2014

TIME: 6:00 - 8:00pm

Admission is free and open to the public.

Donations are greatly appreciated.

Summer Schedule

There are many events happening this summer during our Steampunk exhibit! Here's what we have planned for you this summer at MMus:

Bartitsu: The Lost and Found Scientific Self Defense of Sherlock Holmes

(or Self-Defense for Victorian and Steampunk Gentlemen (and Not-So-Gentlemen))

With Professor Mark P. Donnelly (S.S.S./ E.A.A./ B.F.H.S./ S.W.A.S.H.)

Saturday, September 6

2:00pm - 4:00pm

This lecture is designed to be an extensive introduction to this esoteric system of self-defense which incorporates: fisticuffs (in the scientific method); savate (use of low kicks in self-defense; grappling (judo/jiujitsu); as well as the use of numerous commonplace Victorian accessories such as walking-stick, cane, umbrella, top hat, snuff box, opera cape, handkerchief, etc., all employed in an effort to maintain "preservation of person and property when beset upon by ne'er-do-wells of nefarious intent."

The Wandering Cellist

Saturday, September 20

2:00pm - 4:00pm

The Wandering Cellist (aka Luna Skye) started playing and became obsessed with the cello at age 16. She would fuse this new-found obsession with the passion she had developed years earlier for heavy metal music. This has defined the unorthodox journey she has taken.

In the years that followed, she got some classical training, started playing in rock bands, began composing his own music, began playing in the subways & freelancing in New York City. Her journey would take her from popular New York City underground venues to a Progressive Rock Festival in Quebec City, to Steampunk, Sci-Fi & Gaming Conventions in the Northeastern US, and beyond.

Her music fuses her classical training with her love of heavy metal, fantasy, film & folk music. Building layers of cello on top of each other, she creates a world simultaneously dark, beautiful, wonderful, fantastic & breathtaking.

You can learn more about the Wandering Cellist at http://cellomike.com/.

The Annual Grand Victorian Tea

Sunday, September 28

Featuring Chris Calvin and Jeff Mach

Attendees will be treated to a lecture by tea sommelier Chris Cason on the topics of the history of tea, a short primer on the different types of tea, and how to properly prepare and taste tea.

Following Mr. Cason's remarks, guests will be treated to a musical performance by Jeff Mach, performing his own Steampunk musical compositions and excerpts from his Steampunk rock opera, Absinthe Heroes.

DATE: Sunday, September 28, 2014

TIME: 3:00 - 6:00pm

LOCATION: United Presbyterian Church, 511 Ridge Road, Lyndhurst, NJ

Tickets are $30 per person and available at the Meadowlands Museum, Wednesdays and Saturdays, 10am - 4pm.

SPECIAL: Tickets are available for a discounted $25 each for attendees of the Family Fun Day during that event ONLY!

Coming Next:

Around the World in Eighty Days

Opening October 2014

Based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name and Elizabeth Cochrane's actual trip around the world in 72 days (which she wrote under the name Nellie Bly). This exciting exhibit will focus on the journey, showcasing the different countries visited, methods of transportation, and modes of communication, and drawing on the MMus' collection of costumes, international dolls, and correspondence from the era.