I attended Adult Education

Never Done: I attended Adult Education

I've been meaning to Adult Education go for months, because the talented writer and wonderful guy Jim Hanas is a co-curator. Tonight, when I finally had a free evening to go, I found I wasn't in a very social mood, so I sat at the bar in the back, and took it all in anti-socially. (Sorry Jim! Sorry Alexandra!) Adult Ed bills itself as Brooklyn's Useless Lecture Series, and in fact, when I walked in a little bit late, Charles Star (the very funny stand-up comedian/lawyer host whose website I can't find, and so I can't link to it) was presenting a lecture about remixing Garfield cartoons. I think.

The theme of the evening (and it seems there is a theme every evening) was Remixed. I was drawn in by the advertisement for Doogie Horner's lecture: U.S. Presidential Rumble: Wrestling with History. If all the U.S. Presidents fought each other, who would win? (You may be thinking Benjamin Harrison, but he's eliminated in the second bracket of round four.) And I wasn't disappointed, although I had to wait til the end to find out that the Final Four came down to Abe Lincoln vs Teddy Roosevelt*, and George Washington vs. James Monroe.* The starred contenders won, and in the battle between Roosevelt and Monroe, you might be surprised to learn that Monroe came out on top. If you want to know why, you're going to have to buy Doogie's Book, Everything Explained by Flowcharts, not because I can recommend it (I can't) but because I don't remember why Monroe beat Roosevelt, and it's all in the book.

But before Doogie, we had Sara Taskler's satiric School of Doc: How to make Your Documentary Financially Successful, which, while essentially accurate, really was useless, and hilarious. She made a documentary about balloon twisting, and taught us how to make balloon dogs. Mine came out lopsided because she would say things like, "Pinch it at 1 inch and twist it three times, and I would, and then I would look up, and she would have pinched it at 3 inches. I was sitting next to a guy at the bar whose dog came out even worse than mine, and he reassured me that mine, and I, was OK. Three acts later, I found out that was Doogie.

Here, look at my balloon dog:



This is the first time I put a photo in the MIDDLE of a blog post, and then kept going. (Shehekhianu!) And this is a good time to look at the picture of the dog, actually, because the next lecture is about the Political Economy of Music Sampling, and while it's arguably interesting and Nate Harrison is super smart and has big qualifications, it was also good that I had a balloon dog to play with while he was talking.

The other filling to the sandwich was a guy named Kirby Ferguson, who is working on a project called Everything is a Remix, which is really about the essence of creativity. Which again, was actually interesting, but it sometimes happens that when you're feeling anti-social, you're also feeling anti-intellectual. And plus, it's gotta be hard to be squeezed between balloon dogs and presidential wrestling matches. Which seems like it should be a metaphor for something, but truth is, I don't know what. Hmmm. I guess my mood hasn't shifted much yet.

I appreciated Adult Ed. I liked how short the lectures were, and how funny, and how useless, and yet how deeply based in actual knowledge and scholarship. Next month the theme will be Cuisines of the World, or something like that, and they are still looking for lecturers. I wonder if I have anything useless to offer...