December’s Nerd Nite certainly brought the year to a solid close. Three fascinating discussions given to a packed house had a little something for nerds of all varieties, from Comic Nerds, to Math Nerds, to James Bond Nerds (or at least the Q wannabes). Nerd Nite continues to walk a fine line between that feel of professional polish, and a homey anything goes atmosphere, and I think that bit of tightrope walking is what continues to keep people coming back for more, not only here in New York, but in all of the other various satellite cities to which Nerd Nite has spread.
For those of you unfamiliar with Nerd Nite here is how it goes. You show up at Galapagos Art space either with friends in tow, or all set to sit down and make friends. You get yourself a drink (After all they advertise the show as “the discovery channel with beer.”) and you plunk yourself down in the nearest booth, table, stool, or metallic patch of floor. Just don’t sit in the giant pools of water…they frown upon that. The show then begins, and it’s time for learning. You get three lectures, with an intermission between each. The lecturers are always surprisingly good at letting the peanut gallery have its fair share of input so the whole thing has a nice active feel to it. I can’t say whether this is planned or just a testament to the obvious presence of a lot of “front seat in class nerds” aka “arm flailing nerds”. Either way the crowd never feels ignored when they voice their desire to hear more about something, or go back to a favorite point of interest.
This month’s lectures were on WWII Code-breaking, Wolverine, and NY Census Data. I found the code-breaking section to be the most fascinating, though I’ll admit it is an area I have always had an interest in. There was a lot of good stuff about the Enigma machines, how they worked, how they were cracked, etc… In fact there was so much info the lecturer had to skip around a bit in order to not overrun his time slot. I was definitely left wanting more and as soon as the lecture was over I downloaded the enigma iPhone app and have been playing with it ever since.
The second lecture on Wolverine gave a more lighthearted addition to the evening, letting everyone laugh at the silly pictures of Wolverine’s “Samurai Phase” back in the 80’s, as well as his “giant bone claws.” At it’s heart though the discussion was a interesting historical review of how Wolverine has gone from the short, hairy, violent underdog character, to the handsome muscle-bound alpha male that he is now (Mostly due to Hugh Jackman). Some great comparisons were also drawn between his love triangle with Jean Grey and Cyclops, and those found in other series (I’m looking at you Sawyer, Jack and Kate on Lost!).
The final lecture of the night revolved around the basic workings of the New York Census and cool s#*$ you can figure out by looking at their numbers. An attempt was made to answer the all important question “How many Hipsters are there in Williamsburg?” and “What New York City neighborhood is the closest match to the socio-economic breakdown of the entire city?” The answers were, somewhere around 16,000, and the East Bronx. I also learned that apparently the 4th highest reported religion on the British Census is “Jedi”…which is funny since I thought all the Brits were imperials…
So as usual Nerd Nite was a blast. I actually went on my own this time and met some cool new nerds, something the event seems to be pretty good at fostering. In fact they have even started throwing speed dating events before Nerd Nite proper, so kudos to them in helping to get us silly nerds socialize more!
