The Bonkworld Lecture Series

by John and Abby Schoneboom

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Microlectures at the Bonkworld Salon

A stunning night of fabulous microlectures was held at the former Northampton headquarters of The Bonkworld Organization on August 9, 2001, just prior to the relocation of Bonkworld Headquarters to New York City. All of Northampton's finest society turned out for the gala affair, including ice cream magnate and man-about-town Steve Herrell. It was in short one hell of a goddamned swank-fest.

Microlectures presented that evening included, in this order:

  1. James Lowenthal, "Pancakes in Space": Turns out the universe is made mostly of pancakes. James is an actual astro-PhD guy, so he was technically in violation of the Lecture Series prohibition on credentialed expertise, but we let him slide because, well, we let him slide, OK?
  2. Mary Beth Brooker Lowenthal, "The Pure Ignorance of Desire: A Reflection on Desire knows nothing of the law and lack and the signifier (A chapter title in a book by French philosopher Michel Foucault)": A major crowd favorite, and if anyone who was there can figure out just what Mary Beth was on about, please call the office.
  3. Abby Schoneboom, "Mathemagics": A masterful numerological deconstruction of the card trick Lucky 13, complete with effortless reworking into Lucky 8, Lucky 15, and Lucky What Have You. Let it also be noted that Mrs. Schoneboom was wearing an enormous tin-foil hat that took the better portion of a day to manufacture.
  4. Roman Krznaric, "A Fragmentary History of Potato Salad": Mr. Krznaric's lecture included an interview with his father on the arrival of potato salad in Australia (available online, see links below), and numerous other potatoey things. Krznaric has also contributed as background his banned masterpiece Designer Potatoes, which he describes as "one of the most obscure and meaningless pieces of writing I have ever done" (and which is also available among the links below). The author has since been kicked out of the country under dubious circumstances.
  5. Tom Doherty, "Max Power's Rules of Life": And I can tell you we all learned a thing or two from the redoubtable Mr. Power, whoever he may be. Unfortunately we were so captivated by Doherty's energetic presentation that we forgot to write down any of the rules, and now we're left as helpless as ever.
  6. John Schoneboom, "Big Boy's Banal Space Facts: Size and Distance": Presented live using a collection of smelly old bits of sports equipment and a clean white labcoat.
  7. Dave Meuser, "Coprophilic Tendency and the Modern Mass Confection": We're not sure, but we think Dave was telling us all to eat shit. Or that we've BEEN eating shit. Without knowing it. In any case, his presentation of highly original neo-Freudian research had us captivated, stimulated, and slightly nauseated.
  8. Jim Desmond, "Throat Singing: No Throat Necessary": A fitting and satisfying wrap-up to a long night of lecturing, Desmond was not only able to make a variety of unearthly noises using only his voicebox and the shape of his mouth, but he was also able to cause such noises to emanate from the mouth shapes of his terrified audience members.
And once again, here are those lectures that are available right here online courtesy of your friends at Bonkworld:

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