The Bonkworld Lecture Series
Everyone
is an expert on something. But if they are, they are not allowed
to speak about it in the Bonkworld Lecture Series. Instead, we require
them to speak about something--anything--for which their only qualification
is some sort of delirious passion, preferably fleeting. We at Bonkworld Headquarters
have found that all that is needed to bring out the authorative
voice in the ordinary person is a podium and some hard liquor. Liquor is easy enough to procure using our fake IDs, and with the help of Uncle Dave Meuser, we came up with an actual podium as well. With these artifacts in place, we gathered our most erudite and/or drunken friends
in our living room and began to hold forth, taking turns to be the
lecturer on a fortnightlyish basis.
Bonkworld lectures are edgy, unpredictable, and (like Belgium) a little bit different. In short, the Bonkworld Lecture Series is something that Madame de Pompadour herself would be proud of, if she weren't dead and, presumably, too haughty for it anyway. A toast to her health, a great woman, and to hell with her.
In any case, the Bonkworld Lecture Series has included the following lectures:
- Man in Perspective by John Schoneboom, delivered August 16, 2000
- The Cult of Mary by Mary Bombardier, delivered September 13, 2000
- How Posh Is Posh Spice? by Abby Schoneboom, delivered September 20, 2000
- We Have Met the Aliens and They Are Us by Dave Meuser, delivered October 11, 2000
- The Commie Jew by Joel Saxe, delivered November 8, 2000
- Good Meme, Bad Meme by Paul Bissex, delivered December 20, 2000
- Transcending Dualism and Cyborgs and Stuff (not her own title, which was too intellectually challenging for us even to remember) by Leigh Clare, delivered January 17, 2001
- An Evening of Microlectures, multiple presenters making 15-20 minute microlectures, August 9, 2001 [more details]
We are continuing to harass our lecturers to hand over their presentation materials in some form that we can adapt to the Web, but you know how it is, with time going by the way it does and people and their busy days and so on. Still, we do have the following lectures in an online form:
- South American Designer Potatoes: The banned masterpiece by exiled guest contributor Roman Krznaric.
- The Arrival of Potato Salad in Australia in the 1950s: The definitive answer to the potato salad question.
- How Posh Is Posh Spice? A Guide for the Foreign Visitor: From the Bonkworld Lecture Series, the discerning observer's guide to such unerring class indicators as jaw tension and the Price-Commodity Reflex.
- Man in Perspective: From the Bonkworld Lecture Series, a quasi-earnest bit of musing on time, space, and bipedalism. Includes the Early Man Quiz!
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