Nerd Nite Philly

Posts Tagged ‘burial’

Hey-Yo Nerds!

“The Dead Alive: The Victorian Fear of Premature Burial” by Megan Rosenbloom

Librarian Megan Rosenbloom, director of Death Salon, takes you on an exploration of the Victorian obsession with premature burial based on books from the era, and how those hilariously lurid books inspired the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Megan will delve into some of the purported tales of live burial, the entrepreneurs who made safety coffins, the societies formed to protect against this primal fear, and how this fear trickles down into our modern culture.

Bio: Megan Rosenbloom is a medical librarian at the University of Southern California, where she manages the medical rare book collection. Megan is the director of Death Salon, an event that brings together intellectuals, artists, and death professionals to share their work in the culture of mortality and mourning. Death Salon New York will be held at Morbid Anatomy Museum in October 2015. Megan is currently traveling and doing research for her first book in medical library special collections.

“Alcohol Induced Science” by Cole Smith

“Eat Bugs, What?” By Isa Betancourt

A year ago the United Nations stated that we ought to be munching and crunching on more 6 legged critters. Say what? For many people, the FDA limit of 4 insect larvae per 1lb of frozen berries adds more than enough bugs to their diet. We’ll explore why we should increase the number of bugs in our diet. Let’s flip that around… Why aren’t we eating bugs? About 2 billion people on the planet eat bugs normally and our primate relatives chow down bugs. So what happened to us?

Hey Friends, are you ready for a fantastic Nerd Nite? We know we’ve been missing all of you plus the fine beers at Frankford Hall during our hiatus. So we’re back and better than ever. The ever important logistical details:

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

doors at 7pm, show starts at 7:30pm

Frankford Hall at Frankford and Girard

$5 cover gets you a night of nerdy edutainment, plus food and drink specials.

The talks at hand are as follows:

“Love, Pixels, & Exploring Romance in Video Games” by Eric Smith

If someone were to ask you what the Greatest Love Story of All Time was, and what it was that made said story so great, what would be your answer? Chances are, you might not bring up Shadow of the Colossus or Final Fantasy VII. Which is ridiculous, because come on. In this talk, we’ll explore the oft forgotten romantic genre… of video games.

Bio: Eric Smith is the co-founder of Geekadelphia and the Philly Geek Awards, and the social media manager at Quirk Books. He’s the author of The Geek’s Guide to Dating, and his debut YA novel, Inked, is due out this Fall with Bloomsbury Spark. He’s written for The Huffington Post, Boing Boing, BuzzFeed, BookRiot, The Bygone Bureau, Geekosystem, and more. He enjoys bad movies, good books, and old fashioned cocktails. Hi Nena! <3

“When the Stars Align – The Convergence of Art & Science” by John Caperton

The Print Center’s Demetrius Oliver exhibition, Canicular, is conceived in direct response to the curator’s request for the artist to think as expansively as possible about what constitutes a print (printed work being the core of The Print Center’s mission), and reflects the artist’s longtime desire to create an installation requiring a radical shift in the typical functions of an organization and its gallery spaces. In this case, the artist essentially converted the gallery spaces into an observatory which will only be open for one hour each night (Tuesday-Saturday 7:00pm-8:00pm, weather permitting) to coincide with the rising of Sirius in the night sky. Canicular is a new video installation that will consist of a projected, live-feed from a high-power telescope focused on Sirius (the brightest star in the night sky). The video, a live-feed from a telescope mounted on the roof of the Franklin Institute, will be projected in a round structure, built within one of The Print Center’s galleries to resemble a small observatory.

Bio: John Caperton, Jensen Bryan Curator of The Print Center, curated a solo exhibition by New York City artist Demetrius Oliver entitled Canicular on view through March 22 at The Print Center. Oliver is known for creating elegant, improvisatory, site-specific installations using photography, sculpture and video to record the act of sidereal observation itself. His work draws heavily on a variety of disparate intellectual interests related to interpreting phenomena, including American transcendentalism, music of the spheres, and the history of cosmology, weaving them into spectacular, cohesive works of self-exploration and expression.

“True Love Never Dies: Victorians, Burials and the State of Amour” by Alexis Jeffcoat

The woman who left behind her heart, the ashes that were pulverized to make room for two souls; the pomp and circumstance of arctic explorer’s burial with the sad state of his lover in a pauper’s grave. These are love stories. And hate stories, too. Lust, loathing, passion, devotion; all of it follows us to the grave. Be it all-consuming, romantic or even scandalous; love does not end with death and no one was surer of that than our Victorian predecessors. Sit back, grab a drink, and snuggle up: we’re about to gossip like its 1872. The dresses were long, the love was torrid and the burials? Dramatic.

Bio: Alexis received her undergraduate degree in Psychology and European History from Temple University and her Masters in Arts & Humanities from Arcadia University. She manages marketing and programming for the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Laurel Hill Cemetery as a historic site. As a fan of history, Alexis enjoys sharing the stories of the cemetery’s varied “residents” and no, she has not yet seen a ghost.

Plus Joey Sweeney with some sweet acoustic sounds.

See you fine Nerds there!