The Bonkworld Lecture Series

Lectures Most Peculiar

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 [see other tab above].

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:

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.