Back to the future: Handcar RegattaBy Dan Abbott
Video of last year’s Handcar Regatta by Mike Sloat of Roaring Mouse Productions
Do you ever get the feeling that we're totally screwed? I do, but I'm kind of into it. I've been consuming dystopian science fiction most of my life. I don't remember the last time I read or watched speculative fiction that saw the future as being better than the present. That may be one of the fundamental differences between the Boomer generation and their children; up until the early 70s, people actually believed the world would be better in 20 years. I grew up watching The Terminator and The Road Warrior, and at this point anything better than fighting wasteland mutants for a dented can of Dinty Moore will be a pleasant surprise. And considering the widespread interest in being actually prepared for a zombie apocalypse, I am not alone.
This is indicative of a deep distrust of progress, which is really the fundamental belief of modernity. The idea that there is a trajectory for the human species, that mistakes are learned from and that we are slowly but surely improving ourselves. Before the mechanized bloodbath of World War I began to throw it into question, this belief in the inexorable march of progress was iron-clad. The technological wonders of the 19th century inspired writers like Jules Verne to envision a future made utopian through invention, a world of crackling Tesla coils, bicycles and iron gears powered by steam. While this vision was drowned in a sea of bubblin' crude at the dawn of the 20th century, there is a revival of this sort of speculative engineering going on. Some of the Bay Area's best and brightest gearheads will be showing off their technological prowess this Sunday, Sept. 27, in Santa Rosa at The 2nd Annual 2009 Great West End & Railroad Square Handcar Regatta & Exposition of Mechanical & Artistic Wonders!
Yes, I know, it’s a mouthful. Just say “handcar races”, which in itself is something you don’t get to see very often. Picture an old episode of Hanna-Barbera’s Laff-A-Lympics with more booze, and according to organizers, an expected 10,000 attendees. It amounts to a free assemblage of all the coolest art cars and interactive gearhead toys from Burning Man, minus the glow sticks and painted genitals. While the main event includes hand-built railroad vehicles made to run on human power, there will be plenty else to do and see. Arts and crafts vendors will ply their trades, as well as the beloved beer salesmen. Several musical acts and sideshow performers will be on hand to shock and delight, including Amber Lee and the Anomalies. (By way of full disclosure, my band the Hobo Gobbelins will make an appearance on an art car that for all the world looks like a front porch in Arkansas, named, appropriately enough, the Front Porch.)
From the Victorian-era penny-press feel of the website, it's clear theme is a sort of steampunk retrofuturism. In these, the declining days of the Oil Age, the organizers are embracing the technological wonders (and enthusiasm for them) that preceded petroleum, and a vision of a future without it. Attendees are invited (though not required) to dress up in the spirit of what they term “play-ticipation”. Hopefully this won’t include tuberculosis or cholera. So dust off your top hats and goggles and come marvel at things like the Golden Mean, a 10-foot motorized snail blowing fireballs from its iron eyestalks. You may not understand any of it, or how it will help you survive the horrors of the future. But as Richard Dreyfus once said, this means something. This is important.
The 2nd Annual 2009 Great West End & Railroad Square Handcar Regatta & Exposition of Mechancial & Artistic Wonders
Sun/27, 11am-5pm
Free
Railroad Square in old downtown Santa Rosa (Depot Park, between 4th and 5th streets near Wilson Street)
handcar-regatta.com
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