Adult Education: Miscellany (February 7) Now in Manhattan!

[ugarte]

[quote ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: Misspent Youth
Wednesday, Dec. 17 2008 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

Bump[/quote]

[ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

In January, Adult Education welcomes a panel of presenters to look back on 2008—and ahead to 2009. The line-up for "The Year in Review" will include:

Things We Lost
From Astroland to Yankee Stadium, Patrick Di Justo takes us on a tour of the people and things that collapsed, died, or evolved away in 2008.

Crusty, Saucy, Cheesy
Food blogger Adam Kuban reviews the year in pizza, during which the humble pie made technological advances yet remained true to its roots.

Welcome to the Night
Joe Garden considers the year in vampires.

The Year of Payback
Trendspotter Marian Salzman explains why the buzzword for 2009 will be "reboot."

All hosted by comedian Charles Star.

BIOS
Patrick Di Justo is the author of the forthcoming book The Science of Battlestar Galactica from John Wiley and Sons. He is a contributing editor at Wired magazine, where he writes the "What's Inside" column.

Adam Kuban is the founder and editor of Slice, a weblog about pizza. He has the largest collection of "pizza upskirt" photographs in existence—or so he believes.

Joe Garden is features editor for The Onion. He is also a member of the writing group Action 5, which has published The Dangerous Book for Dogs and The Devious Book for Cats. They are currently at work on The New Vampire's Handbook.

Veteran trendspotter Marian Salzman, partner and chief marketing officer at public relations firm Porter Novelli, is the author of 15 books, including Next Now, The Future of Men, and Buzz.

Charles Star is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a newborn baby genius. He's on the web at http://www.charlesstar.com.

[ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

I wonder if Beeeej is going.

[Beeeej]

[quote ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

I wonder if Beeeej is going.[/quote]

I'm planning to be there, +1.

Anybody bringing the cowbell?

[ugarte]

Adult Education is a Brooklyn-based lecture series devoted to making useless knowledge somewhat less useless. Each month is devoted to a given theme, and several speakers address that theme using visual aids.

Safety Lessons
March 3 at 8PM (doors at 7:30 and seats fill up fast)
Union Hall
Union St. between 5th and 6th Aves. (Park Slope)
$5

Featuring:

DAVID JOHNS, "How to Honk Your Horn"
This talk will present the results of an investigation into the utility and safety effectiveness of the automobile horn. Please refrain from honking during the presentation.

ROGER MA, "Zombie Hand-to-Hand Combat: Effective Non-Ballistic Undead Neutralization Methods"
This presentation will cover the proper way to engage the living dead in combat without a firearm, and survive. Topics will include: anatomy, weapons, techniques, and common misconceptions of confronting a ravenous walking corpse.

THERESE MAHLER, "Surviving adolescent management of amusement park rides"
Therese Mahler will discuss what happens when inattentive staff and under-prepared patrons meet at a poorly maintained, participatory theme park in the foothills of New Jersey.

CARLOS YU, "A Brief Foray into the World of Medical Self-Experimentation"

And, par usual, your host, CHARLES STAR

BIOS

DAVID JOHNS is a writer and public radio producer in New York. His stories have appeared in Slate, The Washington Post, All Things Considered, Living On Earth, Studio 360 and Fair Game from PRI, a now-defunct news and comedy show where he used to work. He lacks a valid driver's license.

ROGER MA is the founder of The Zombie Combat Club, , an organization that develops strategies and techniques to battle the living dead without the use of a firearm. He is also the Team Chief for one of New York City's Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), a civilian volunteer group that assists first responders in the event of a city emergency (including zombie attack.) His book, The Zombie Combat Manual: A Guide to Fighting the Living Dead, will be published by Berkley Books next year.

THERESE MAHLER spent her teens and early 20s working at a New Jersey amusement park better known for its injury rate than its rides. She and some of her former co-workers blog about it at The Center of the Action She once won $1550 in the Cash Cab and can occasionally be heard on WFMU.

CARLOS YU has been a biochemist, a comic strip writer, an over-the-counter securities broker-dealer, a consultant for Harvard Business School in economic history, and a barista. Like so many Brooklynites, he is originally from Wisconsin. He is single.

CHARLES STAR (HOST) is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a baby genius.

[ugarte]

Adult Education is a Brooklyn-based lecture series devoted to making useless knowledge somewhat less useless. Each month is devoted to a given theme, and several speakers address that theme using visual aids. In April:

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: "COLOR SCHEMES"
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

MEGAN MONTAGUE CASH, "Crayon Boxes Through the Ages"
Hang on tight! Megan Montague Cash takes you on a wild ride while exploring the history of crayon packaging.

LAURIE ROSENWALD, "Mutant Bastard Yucky Colors of the Apocalypse"
Lavender is the yellow of Japan. Hot pink is the navy blue of India. So how did dusty rose, teal, suntan, and what the author Douglas Coupland calls "veal" become America's first palette? Laurie Rosenwald investigates.

JENNIFER L. KNOX, "The Making of Brown"
Jennifer L. Knox explains the historical evolution of the primary colors, their permutations, and why sleeping in a red t-shirt three nights in a row can give you a sinus infection.

JUDE STEWART, "Decoding Color"
From blue collars to white telephones, Jude Stewart explores colors and their meanings.

All hosted by Charles Star.

BIOS

MEGAN MONTAGUE CASH gave up her previous career of writing, illustrating, and designing children's books in order to pursue her true passion: crayon boxes. She teaches a class on crayon packaging at Pratt Institute. Her favorite color is "flesh." See also Bow-Wow Books.

LAURIE ROSENWALD does graphic design for IKEA, animation for the Sundance Channel and Noggin, and drawings for The New Yorker. Her new book, All the Wrong People Have Self-Esteem (Bloomsbury) is available wherever books are sold. It is an inappropriate book for young ladies, and frankly, anybody else. It is the only book you will ever need, except for her other book: And to name but just a few: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue.

JENNIFER L. KNOX is the author of two books of poems in English, Drunk by Noon and A Gringo Like Me. Her poems have appeared in three editions of the Best American Poetry series (1997, 2003 and 2006), as well as the anthologies Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to Present, and Best American Erotic Poetry. She is a three-time Milwaukee poetry slam champion.

JUDE STEWART writes about design, culture, and all kinds of other things for Slate, Business Week, The Believer, and other magazines. Her talk is based on her column "Color is ..." for STEP inside design magazine.

CHARLES STAR is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a newborn baby genius.

[ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: "URBAN TRAVEL"
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

EDDIE JABBOUR, "Building a Better Subway Map"
Can the NYC subway map be improved? Designer Eddie Jabbour thinks so.

SUZANNE REISMAN, "Take the A Train"
Author Suzanne Reisman provides a guide to hidden treasures along the A train's route.

MATT MURO, "The Passive-Aggressive Turd From the Suburbs"
How one man learned about the true nature of his soul after building what he thought was a silly website.

CULLY LONG, "Underground Life Drawing"
On the subway, you might see people reading, sleeping, listening to music, or just generally zoned out. Cully Long sees models for his sketches.

With your host, CHARLES STAR

* * * *

EDDIE JABBOUR is creative director at Kick Design and creator of KickMap, an alternative to the official map of the New York City subway system.

SUZANNE REISMAN is the author of Off the Beaten (Subway) Track: New York City's Best Unusual Attractions. She was the female victor in the 2005 South Street Seaport qualifier for the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, where she ate 6.5 hot dogs and buns—beating out a bailiff who only downed five. Suzanne blogs about things that amuse or annoy her at http://cussandotherrants.com.

MATT MURO, who navigated NYC's subway system while on crutches for five months, is a senior web producer and editor at VH1 Digital. He has also worked for New York Times Digital and The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News online.

CULLY LONG is a scenic designer, illustrator, and graphic designer who has been sketching passengers on the subway for 4 years. He self-published a collection of his sketches in 2006 entitled A Line: Sketch Portraits From The New York City Subway.

CHARLES STAR (HOST) is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a baby genius.

[ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS:
"AD NAUSEAM: LESSONS FROM CONSUMER CULTURE"
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

Note: This month's show is doing double-duty as a book release party for Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture (Faber and Faber, June 23), edited by Adult Ed founder Carrie McLaren and her longtime writing partner, Jason Torchinsky.

CARRIE McLAREN
"The Strange and Curious History of Subliminal Advertising"
Ms. McLaren discusses the little-known origins of "subthreshold" persuasion — and the businesses that, against all apparent odds, made a mint off of subliminal advertising.

JASON TORCHINSKY
"On the Purity of Car Insurance Advertising and the Many and Diverse Ways it Sucks Profoundly"
Due to the alarmingly insubstantial nature of their product, car insurance commercials have evolved to become the purest sort of advertising, spawning mascots and spokescharacters. Mr. Torchinsky surveys their tactics in this brief lecture. As exciting as it sounds!

DAVID ANGELO
"Advertising and the Celebration of Deferred Responsibility"
Mr. Angelo uses contemporary examples in advertising to illustrate his point that all marketing campaigns require their intended targets to abandon the basic concept of personal responsibility.

+ 1 more lecture TBA

With your host, CHARLES STAR

* * * *

DAVID ANGELO is a New York-based comedian and internet-radio folk hero. Raised in historic Lexington, Massachusetts, he proudly carries on the tradition of revolutionary dissent. You can find him online at http://chickenpadthai.com.

CARRIE McLAREN is co-editor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture and founder of the hopelessly obscure and now defunct Stay Free! magazine. Her last talk for Adult Ed was "How to Raise an Ape in Your Home."

JASON TORCHINSKY is the other co-editor of Ad Nauseam. An artist and writer based in Los Angeles, he writes for the Onion News Network but merely for sport.

CHARLES STAR (host) is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a baby genius. He now writes for, of all things, a mostly-libertarian website because the other writers at Popehat are smart and funny and asked him to come aboard despite his leftward leanings.

* * * *

[ugarte]

[quote ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS:
"AD NAUSEAM: LESSONS FROM CONSUMER CULTURE"
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

Note: This month's show is doing double-duty as a book release party for Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture (Faber and Faber, OUT NOW!), edited by Adult Ed founder Carrie McLaren and her longtime writing partner, Jason Torchinsky.
[/quote]

This is tonight. It will be excellent. Please join us.

Also, if you are interested in the book, there are many places to purchase it.

[ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: "BEER MATTERS"
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

ELIZABETH BRADLEY
"Knickerbocker: Nativism, Prohibition, and the Rise of New York's Namesake Beer"
Elizabeth Bradley is Deputy Director of the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. When not venerating librarians, she writes about New York history and culture. She is the author of Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York, and edited the Penguin Classic of Washington Irving's A History of New York, the 1809 satire that unleashed Knickerbocker in all his buckle-shoe glory on an unsuspecting world.

BRENDAN I. KOERNER
"The Madonna of Malternatives: Zima and the Challenges of Brand Reinvention"
Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and the author of 'Now the Hell Will Start," which he's currently adapting for Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. He blogs daily at Microkhan.com.

ERICA SHEA & STEPHEN VALAND
"Secrets of Brewing In the Modern New York Apartment"
Erica Shea & Stephen Valand own and operate the Brooklyn Brew Shop out of the Brooklyn Flea. The two began making beer the same way most kids get into stamps, model airplanes, and civil war reenactments, mainly by finding some dusty equipment in a parent's basement and figuring out on the internet what to do with it.

BILL WANDER
"The Truth about McSorley's: Reenvisioning Joseph Mitchell's 'Wonderful Saloon' "
Bill Wander is the historian for McSorley's Old Ale House in the East Village and has spent more than 20 years as a documentary film-maker for National Geographic, The Discovery and History Channels, the three major networks, and Public Television. He is working on a book about the history of McSorley's to be titled "Sawdust on the Floor." He began his working life at the South Street Seaport Museum, continued on to the National Maritime Historical Society, has consulted for the Smithsonian, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Scarsdale Historical Society.

Hosted by CHARLES STAR
Charles Star frequently posts on eLF as "ugarte," He rarely gets to watch any hockey so he tends to stick to making jokes about libertarianism.

[ugarte]

Tonight!

[quote ugarte]ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: "BEER MATTERS"
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

ELIZABETH BRADLEY
"Knickerbocker: Nativism, Prohibition, and the Rise of New York's Namesake Beer"
Elizabeth Bradley is Deputy Director of the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. When not venerating librarians, she writes about New York history and culture. She is the author of Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York, and edited the Penguin Classic of Washington Irving's A History of New York, the 1809 satire that unleashed Knickerbocker in all his buckle-shoe glory on an unsuspecting world.

BRENDAN I. KOERNER
"The Madonna of Malternatives: Zima and the Challenges of Brand Reinvention"
Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and the author of 'Now the Hell Will Start," which he's currently adapting for Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. He blogs daily at Microkhan.com.

ERICA SHEA & STEPHEN VALAND
"Secrets of Brewing In the Modern New York Apartment"
Erica Shea & Stephen Valand own and operate the Brooklyn Brew Shop out of the Brooklyn Flea. The two began making beer the same way most kids get into stamps, model airplanes, and civil war reenactments, mainly by finding some dusty equipment in a parent's basement and figuring out on the internet what to do with it.

BILL WANDER
"The Truth about McSorley's: Reenvisioning Joseph Mitchell's 'Wonderful Saloon' "
Bill Wander is the historian for McSorley's Old Ale House in the East Village and has spent more than 20 years as a documentary film-maker for National Geographic, The Discovery and History Channels, the three major networks, and Public Television. He is working on a book about the history of McSorley's to be titled "Sawdust on the Floor." He began his working life at the South Street Seaport Museum, continued on to the National Maritime Historical Society, has consulted for the Smithsonian, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Scarsdale Historical Society.

Hosted by CHARLES STAR
Charles Star frequently posts on eLF as "ugarte," He rarely gets to watch any hockey so he tends to stick to making jokes about libertarianism.[/quote]

[ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: "The Proper Prank"
Tuesday, November 3, 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union Street at 5th Ave.
$5 cover

The Yes Men, "Doing it Outside In: Breaking the Bank with the Yes Men"
One half of the infamous New York duo presents strategies for infiltrating business conferences, masquerading as corporate execs, and successfully lowering blue-chip stock prices.

Tim Harrod, "You Are Dumb: How the Media are Pranking You Even as You Read This Events Listing"
The Onion's history is riddled with occasions where the newspaper's satirical stories were accepted as fact by individuals and large groups. Tim Harrod discusses the implications of trusting the media under any circumstances.

Patrick DiJusto, "The Day I Gave My Brother Appendicitis"
Mr. DiJusto presents lessons gleaned from a high school prank gone awry.

Stephen Bruckert "Don't Feed The Trolls: Life Lessons From The Internet's Most Popular Blood Sport"
People all over the world are playing a game on the internet, and the object of the game is to make strangers waste time and emotional energy. What are the rules of the game? What strategies do trolls use to win? And why are trolls so important?

Hosted, as always, by the inimitable Charles Star

BIOS

STEPHEN BRUCKERT is a tech-head polymath workaholic obsessed with internet-based collaborative culture, design, text, the ephemeral business of conveying ideas, and also his wife. He also has a day job.

PATRICK DI JUSTO is the co-author of the forthcoming book The Science of Battlestar Galactica from John Wiley and Sons. He is a Contributing Editor at Wired, where he writes the "What's Inside" column.

TIM HARROD has written humor for The Onion, The Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Not even that is good enough.

THE YES MEN, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, directed and star in The Yes Men Fix the World, a documentary that chronicles the duo's efforts to parody and expose corporate misdeeds. For more on their work, from masquerading as the Dow Chemical execs to advocating slavery, visit TheYesMen.org.

CHARLES STAR (HOST) is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a budding baby genius. He doesn't do much on the web these days except Twitter and goes by ugarte when talking about Cornell sports, where he is recognized as having a lot of opinions even though he doesn't get to watch much hockey.

[ugarte]

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS:
"Death"
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

DORIAN DEVINS, MARGARET MITTELBACH, & ANDREW TEMPLAR
"Death and Taxidermy: The Ape That Launched 1000 Quips"
Devins, Mittelbach, and Templar discuss observations gleaned from four years of Carnivorous Nights, an annual taxidermy contest held in Brooklyn.

ALEX PAREENE
"Everyone Is Trying To Kill You: Analyzing Homicidal Tendencies In Electronic Information Networks"
The most dangerous people in America today are celebrities. And Arianna Huffington is letting them blog. Alex Pareene assesses recent threats to our national health from Suzanne Somers and Canada.

KATHARINE HELLER
"Le Petit Mort: Death as a Metaphor for Orgasm in Popular Culture and Literature"
Heller looks at the various ways in which death, much like everything else, is tied to sex.

JOANNA EBENSTEIN
"Morbid Anatomies and Anatomical Theatres: A Guided Tour through the Macabre World of Medical Museums"
What is the difference between a wet and a dry specimen? Why did people make life-sized, recumbent wax women whose insides could be taken apart into dozens of pieces? Where did Gunther von Hagens (Body Worlds exhibit) get his schtick? Joanna Ebenstein presents a virtual tour of great medical museums of the western world.

Hosted, as always, by the inimitable Charles Star

* * * *

BIOS

DORIAN DEVINS and MARGARET MITTELBACH are cofounders of Secret Science Club, a monthly lecture series at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Devins is a radio producer and host of WFMU, 91.1 FM's "The Speakeasy," a weekly arts and cultural interview program. Mittelbach is co-author, with ANDREW TEMPLAR, of Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger and author of Wild New York: A Guide to the Wildlife, Wild Places and Natural Phenomena of New York City. Templar is co-owner of Union Hall, the Bell House, Floyd, and the mysterious 'rump ape.'

JOANNA EBENSTEIN is a Brooklyn based artist. She runs the Morbid Anatomy blog and the Morbid Anatomy Library. She is also the founding member of Observatory, a collaborative Gowanus-based exhibition/presentation space where she presents lectures on a variety of morbid topics. Her recent exhibition, Anatomical Theatre, is a photo survey of great medical museums of the western world.

KATHARINE HELLER is a writer, actress and comedian. Most recently, she wrote and produced an award-winning show at the New York International Fringe Festival, The Boy in the Basement. Heller has been a regular theater and nightlife reviewer for the online magazine New York Cool and is working on her first one-woman show, My Dad's Crazier Than Your Dad.

ALEX PAREENE writes about politics for Gawker and is author of the blog Everyone Is Trying To Kill You. Formerly, he was Editor of Washington DC gossip website Wonkette. His writing has appeared on many famous and popular internet sites, on the World Wide Web. He is not a doctor and, in fact, did not even finish attaining a BFA.

CHARLES STAR (HOST) is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a budding baby genius. He's on the web at charlesstar.com.

Got an idea for an Adult Ed lecture? Email your pitch to adulted (at) stayfreemagazine.org.

[ugarte]

We have started posting videos of selected lectures on BlipTV. You can see the Adult Education archive here.

The only lecture of mine currently up is "A Short Selection of the Worst Toys in the World" but there is a lot of great stuff. Sorry about the video quality in the early vids. My camera is home-use quality and the lighting at Union Hall is horrible.

[Rosey]

The only lecture of mine currently up is "A Short Selection of the Worst Toys in the World"

Good stuff. :-)