PORT TOWNSEND — The second annual Brass Screw Confederacy draws to a close today with a zombie hunt, a card game and Morris Dancing.
And organizers already are getting ready for next year’s steampunk festival.
“It will be bigger and better,” said Nathan Barnett of the projected 2014 event.
“I am excited about how much we have already grown.”
Barnett had no final attendance figures Saturday but said about 160 advance tickets were sold for this year’s three-day celebration of Victorian whimsey.
Many events also sold tickets at the door.
Steampunk is elusively defined and falls into the “I’ll know it when I see it” category, but it involves a combination of Victorian and science fiction, or magic and technology.
“Any technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic,” said magician Master Payne, keying off sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, during a performance Friday.
“And magic,” Payne added, “when it is properly presented, is indistinguishable from technology.”
The steampunk costumes seen around Port Townsend this weekend reflected only the whims of the wearer, providing a shaky combination of Victorian and psychedelia — such as, in one case, a top hat, a vest and a kilt topping off paisley pants.
And then there were the machines, which featured blinking lights and made noise but did nothing.
Pete Toyne displayed a version of his human-powered helicopter and rotated the blades while acknowledging that he’ll never get it off the ground.
Vinnie Pollini, speaking as Professor Pollinaris, discussed the protodyne recitfier that was strapped to his wrist.
“It enables me to adjust my frame of reference in relation to the orientation of the Milky Way galaxy,” he said.
“It moves me through space, as I can do time travel and intergalactic manipulations.”
When it was suggested that Pollini/Pollinaris was making this up, he said, “You can suggest that, but when I’m not here tomorrow, you’ll wonder.”
Pollini, who works as a clerk at Jefferson Healthcare hospital, said Port Townsend is the perfect place for steampunk.
“I really love the costuming thing, which has become suddenly accessible due to all the Victorian clothing you can get in this town,” he said.
“My schtick comes out of what science fiction did to all other genres, where it has led to interstellar space travel, mystery and killing zombies.”
Pollini said zombies and steampunks are natural antagonists as portrayed in modern literature, though Barnett took the comparison into the real world.
“People who like steampunk appreciate creativity and have an aversion to the people in rush-hour traffic who become mindless, blanked-out zombies,” he said.
“There are the modern zombies: the people who go to the mall mindlessly and shops for crap they don’t need.”
Today’s games begin at 10 a.m. at Pope Marine Park at the corner of Water and Madison streets .
The zombies will meet up with the steampunks, who will take up arms as the good townsfolk try to keep their brains about them, according to the event’s website at www.brass-screw.org.
To celebrate the zombie hunt, at about 1 p.m., a round of Morris Dancing is scheduled at the Pope Marine Building.
According to the program, “such festivities were performed for Queen Victoria to ensure her continued stability, and Port Townsend could use a bit of that blessing, too.”
At 11:30 a.m., a game of Airship Apprentice will begin at Whistle Stop Toys, 1105 Water St., in which players will use the cards they have accumulated over the weekend from local merchants.
“I think this was a big success,” said organizer Lorilee Houston.
“We got the whole town involved, not only working together but hanging out.
“We involved the merchants in educating people in what steampunk is all about and how it fits into Port Townsend and what it represents, which is the industrialization brought about by steam.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.