About the time this task went live, I learned of a nightclub near me by the fortuitous name of Hell. So how could I resist?

There's more to the allure of doing Katabasis at Hell than just the name - although that's what first made me think of it. For one thing, and this may set me apart quite a bit from most SF0 players, I have never been clubbing. Not once. In fact I always assumed that the Hollywood concept of a club tucked away somewhere where you might never know it was there was a convenient narrative fiction; I'd never known of a real example, let alone entered one. The sort of people that do it regularly, a category I know includes many people reading these words, are an entirely different world - not in any sense "under" mine, but certainly apart from it. It's not something I had explored before until tonight.

And secondly, I have never really been associated with any subculture other than geekdom, despite the geek world's significant crossover with everything else outside of mainstream. Hell was scheduled to play host to a New Year's Eve event hosted by the Davenport Sisters, a pair of local DJs who host a Steampunk radio show. The celebration was billed as a "Steampunk Masquerade." So I marked their Clockwork Ball in my calendar as something to do on the 31st, barring other plans arising, and resolved that if I went Katabasis would be my first praxis of 2009. And, naturally, I promised myself that I would go properly attired.

It's worth noting that in much of the world, Steampunk doesn't exist as an independent scene. Outside of a few major cities like London and New York, what steampunks exist have carved themselves a niche within the goth or cyberpunk cultures. But for some reason central North Carolina is an exception. (Klaude Davenport remarked on this fact to me, and while she is far too modest to take any credit I think she might deserve a bit.)



Now, as a lurker on one Steampunk forum and the designated board mixologist on another, I've eased into the scene's internet side - but I'll be the first to admit that's mostly so I can see the shiny things everybody else makes, rather than because it's truly my world. I'm also quite an introvert. As much as the ethos of the Steampunk scene has appealed to me ever since I first read The Difference Engine several years ago, the idea of dressing up, going to a club full of people I don't know, and ringing in the new year surrounded by strangers was a bit of a daunting one.

In December, Hell closed its doors. Undaunted, the Davenports found a new venue for the Clockwork Ball, a place by the name of the Night Light, where this task takes place. The event - and thus my foray into the world of clubbing - needed no specific location.



I wasn't completely alone - Levitating Potato decided, on short notice, to join me. His wardrobe yielded less period clothing when scrounged in than did mine, but his inimitable gift for nifty circuits led to a lovely piece of blinking rave jewelry with neon lamps instead of LEDs. (This probably made him the most authentic mad scientist present. As he remarked, not many people would carry 150V power supplies around in their pockets.)

We arrived at the Night Light shortly before eleven, and took in a sometimes surprising assortment of music. Good DJing is a knack that, properly cultivated, allows one to do as the Davenports did and play Coulton's cover of "Baby Got Back" in the same set as "Start Wearing Purple" and "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" and have it all seem to fit. Despite the fact that no goth would have felt out of place at the Night Light tonight and few of us would have raised any eyebrows in a goth club, the music was decidedly not gothic.

As midnight approached, we counted down the seconds and then ushered in the new year with a live performance by a local band called Lemming Malloy.



But while the music was good, the people were the newest and best part of the experience. Some have alternate Steampunk personas and will gladly tell you a little about their airships; others will tell you about their Stirling engines and give no indication that they're talking about a fantasy. Some clung to their dates, others came alone or wandered freely about the club. All of them were happy to chat with any random fellow attendee. Or, in some cases, to dance with one.

Remember what I said earlier about being an introvert? Like any mythological figure descending into an alien otherworld, I was here to step outside of my usual. If I didn't sweat a little over it, my experience would have been poorer. But taking risks with your comfort zone does sometimes mean it won't be quite right - and I'll admit I had a bit of an awkward experience at one point.

My final dance partner of the evening and I were each moving in time to the song that was starting up when we found ourselves facing each other. He approached me, I nodded, and we began dancing together - at first without any physical contact, and then with an ever-increasing amount. Meanwhile, the oddly-appropriate lyrics started up: "Let's talk about sex!" I was OK with the dancing - a lot of it was well beyond my ideal level of sexually-laden contact, but not over any kind of line. His hand was often on my ass, which if you'd asked me beforehand I would have guessed would make me far more uncomfortable than it did. (He left it there, not groping, which I think made all the difference in the world.)

And then he stole a kiss on my cheek.

This makes him the second person outside of my family to kiss me, the other one being the only girlfriend I've ever had. That was more than just beyond my personal preferences and into the realm where I was decidedly uncomfortable with it - so I put my mouth near his ear and calmly told him that was further than I was comfortable going with somebody I wasn't in a relationship with. He politely acknowledged it, asked where the line was, and when I said I'd rather not kiss but was happy to keep dancing, he agreed and proceeded to respect that boundary for the rest of our (still otherwise quite intimate) dance. As we parted ways, I told him it had been a pleasure dancing with him - and while that was far more tactful than telling him the whole truth about how I felt would have been, it was also not entirely a lie.

For those of you for whom this sort of night out is all old hat, this has probably not been a very enlightening view of it. After all, without having spent much time in that social world, I can't hope to comment intelligently on it. But I can comment on my own introduction to it, and the big observation is this: the experience is way less unfamiliar than I thought it would be. Being at a party surrounded by people I at least sort of know, I expect to have something to discuss with the other guests - but being at a club with others who are drawn to the Steampunk aesthetic, it turns out the conversations come every bit as easily (which is to say, not very) except when they are drowned out by the music. And as any Turtle knows, the only way to get anywhere in the world is to be willing to stick your neck out - even though the risk doesn't always pay off.

All in all it was a lovely night. Being surrounded by a mass of unfamiliar people is still not something I'd want to do anywhere near as often as many people like to - but the next time the Davenports are hosting their Clockwork Ball, I'll be there again.