Steampunk Morris

Although the hosts of the tour might have been disappointed by the choice, I opted for the Steampunk goggles over the traditional event T-shirt. I know the amount of effort put into the design of the shirt eclipsed the copper spray-paint customizing of the goggles by several orders of magnitude, but my cool-dar drew me to the welding glass oculars like a dog to cat food. Here's what happened.
   The Ale, hosted by Red Herring Morris, was in Waltham, which was also experiencing a Steampunk festival. And although Cecil Sharpe would probably roll over in his grave at the thought, when the two worlds went nose to nose on the street, it became clear to many that there was a considerable amount of DNA shared between devotees of either affliction. Morris dancers, already renowned for peculiar dress-sense, were quick to fancy the trappings of alternative futures (so many of them already live in alternative pasts). And many a weightily bedecked cover art poser crowded into the old watch factory/museum to cheer on the dancers. It probably helped that it was raining outside, but the setting was still conducive to an easy marriage between the two.
   To one degree or another, we all nurse our fantasies of the lives we believe we're living. And to my thinking, being sane and being rational cannot accurately describe our species. Reality is in our minds, with enough overlap to keep us civil. For the most part it works, despite the efforts of the news media to make us think otherwise. The comfort zone of that overlap, and the civility it supports, allows so many of us to crowd onto this planet.
   But that still leaves plenty of room for hyperbolic thinking. And I have to say, if an alternative future had given me alternative physics, and I could truly pedal a flying machine from here to the moon, I would so be there ... with bells on.