This appallingly blurry cameraphone picture depicts a few of Dr. Grordbort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators - a dazzling array of rayguns from Weta Workshop.
They are made in limited numbers, cost a zillion dollars each, and I want them in the worst way.
Why? They’re guns, more or less, and I hate guns, right? I think the appeal for me is the notion of having “life-sized,” fanciful gadgets from a steampunked-out alternate timeline. Too real-seeming to be easily comprehended.
But is it not still a phallofirearm thing? I think I understand some of the appeal of the actual guns I despise: they’re heavy, precisely made machines with moving, interacting parts. And they promise power, with all the usual psychosexual freight. But these rayguns don’t offer those things. They have no moving parts, and the only libidinalized potency they might provide would be helping to get dates with attractive geeks. So it’s not so much as guns that these appeal to me. Right?
Hmm, maybe, maybe not. I am forced to admit that if I could pull the trigger and disintegrate a dumpster with it, I would want one even more. Rats!
