Author Archive
Night of the Living Nerds
Where:
Tangent Gallery / Hastings Street Ballroom
When:
October 23 – 7:30pm (Doors open at 6:30)
Cost:
$10 (Cash/credit at the door, or buy in advance here)
Join us for a special Halloween treat!
Local author John G. Rodwan, Jr. will be telling some spooky stories.
Maggie McGuire, our resident zombie movie expert, will introduce Night of the Living Dead with a short talk on how the film revolutionized low-budget film-making.
Then we’ll screen the film, accompanied by the Andrew Alden Ensemble.
Throw in a costume contest, other Halloween-y activities and Monster Mash loaded mashed potatoes from Sidecar Detroit, and we’d say that’s a pretty fun night.
Cover is $10, all ages welcome!
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Back to School Special
Where: Tangent Gallery
When: This Thursday (Sept 25th)
Cost: $5
Nerd Nite Detroit is back for the fall with our Back to School Special! We have a PHENOMENAL lineup..you don’t want to miss this!
Bill Warters, a communications professor at Wayne State University, will give the talk Working With and Learning from Conflict: Tales from the Field. We’ll review some key concepts related to conflict, community building, and the development of local cultures of dispute resolution.
John Zawiskie, the Curator of Earth and Life Sciences at Cranbrook Institute of Science and an Adjunct Instructor of Geology at Wayne State University will be guiding an exploration of the major types of meteorites, what they tell us about the early history and origin of the solar system, and some effects of asteroid impacts on the Earth.
Meghan Courtney is the AFSCME Archivist at Wayne State’s Walter P. Reuther Library. She’ll be talking Labor in Detroit: From The Battle of the Overpass to Bankruptcy. Detroit has always been a working-class town, but it became a seat of the labor movement during the height of U. S. auto manufacturing. Like the rest of the country, Detroit has seen jobs shift away from manufacturing and toward service work. This talk will show the path from the heady days of sit-down strikes to labor’s place in the largest municipal bankruptcy case and beyond.
Also, we will be collecting school supplies to donate to local schools in Detroit. Bring some pencils, crayons, or other things to help kids learn.
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We’re living it up while the days are long and the nights are warm! Help us wrap up this year’s season of Nerd Nite programming with an old school block party. We’ll have food, old school games (electronic AND board), music, and of course, drinks.
Alibi Crew will be on hand with tunes & Sidecar with food. See you then!
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Nerds Under the Rainbow
This month, Nerd Nite Detroit will be contributing to metro Detroit’s LGBTQ* celebrations with a night filled with science and discussion. We invite you to come out and hear some great speakers as they help us understand some of the issues, history, and biology of gender, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ* communities.
Leading our scientific discussion will be Dr. Marc Breedlove from Michigan State University. His project “Whom Do You Love: The Biology of Sexual Orientation” completed a successfulKickstarter campaign to fund a documentary to “explore the evidence that non-social factors, like the prenatal enviroment and hereditary factors, affect the likelihood that a person will grow up to be gay.”
Our second talk will focus on the history of the Women’s Music movement from the 1970’s through the 1990’s, with an emphasis on the role women’s music played in challenging structures of domination and in creating visions of a more just world. It will be presented by Shea Howell, a community based activist in Detroit for the last 4 decades. She is a co-founder of Detroit Summer, Boggs Center, and writes a weekly column for the Michigan citizen.
Alibi Crew will be on hand with tunes & Sidecar with food. See you then!
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Out of the Pages: Looking at Literature Beyond Books
This month we’re partnering with Lit in the Mitt to bring you a great night of literature beyond books. We’ll have details soon, but there will be talks covering film and video games along with other topics and great activity.
Alibi Crew will be on hand with tunes & Sidecar with food. See you then!
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 Click the image to view the full Lit in the Mitt Schedule |
Beer, Textiles, and Wood: When Passion Meets Industry
We’re back for April with a great line-up of talented craftspeople. Rescheduled from our January event, we’ll have Isaac Gilman presenting “Miracle of Detroit: Turning Water Into Beer” along with Karen Buscemi and Mark D’Andreta giving their presentation “Industrial Sewing: Bringing a Lost Trade Back to Life.” We’re also excited to welcome James Willer from Workshop – presentation name TBA.
As usual, Alibi Crew will have music and Sidecar Detroit some fabulous food. See you there!
Nerd Nite’s Birthday!
Hey, we’re turning one! It’s a big birthday for us and we want to celebrate with you. This very special Nerd Nite will follow a different format: in lieu of speakers, we’ll have all sorts of nerdy carnival attractions for you. From demonstrations to performances and food, Tangent will be jam packed with fun!
Bring your friends, bring your families, and come out for a great time, oh, and cake!
Politics, Policy, and Polyamory
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Doors at 6:30PM Event from 7:30 to 10:30
@ The Tangent Gallery
Get Directions
Preview:
Presidential Campaign Songs |
| Liza Roe and Doug Brooks |
 Every election season, presidential candidates select songs they hope will inspire, motivate, and energize voters. Some candidates use songs that are already popular, whereas others have musicians craft songs exalting the candidate’s positive qualities while vilifying their opponent. Over time, the art of the campaign song has evolved in response to changes in technology, the expansion of voting rights, and the entrenchment of the two-party political system. From the ludicrous lyrics of “Get on a Raft with Taft,” to the vitriolic verses of “Rockabye Baby, Daddy’s a Whig,” the history of presidential campaign songs is rife with political intrigue, legal landmines, and mudslinging merriment! Liza Roe received her history degree from the University of Michigan where she studied Presidential Campaign Songs as part of her senior research thesis. A lifetime political wonk, she also enjoys collecting presidential campaign buttons and other memorabilia.
Doug Brooks is a local musician and performs around the Detroit area as a part of buzzbangpow and The Bardsong Renaissance Band. |
| Facebook – Buzzbangpow Soundcloud – Bardsongband |
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Detroit – Challenging the Narrative |
| Mary E. Byrnes, Ph.D., MUP |
 The focus will be on these three myths: 1. Detroit was doing fine until one day in 1967. There was a big riot and everything fell apart. 2. Through actions, words, and policies, Detroit’s first African American mayor, Coleman Alexander Young, who took office in 1974, created the racial divisions in this region.
3. Unemployment, poverty, crime, and vacant buildings all stem from character flaws in people, and, obviously, from the residents of Detroit. This presentation not only interrogates and “busts” these three myths but also examines the implications to policy making.
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| Facebook – Institute for Detroit Studies Marygrove College – Detroit Studies |
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Amy and Chris are involved in a polyamorous relationship. Chris is a graduate student at the University of Michigan and advocates for sexual equality and expression with the Rackham Student Government. They are involved in the Bureau of Erotic Discourse (Michigan Chapter), which promotes safer sex practices and consent in a sex-positive atmosphere.Nerd Years Resolutions
Join Nerd Nite as we celebrate the new year!
Thursday, January 16, 2014 from 7:30 PM to 10:30PM (EST)
Preview:
Detroit – Challenging the Narrative |
| Mary E. Byrnes, Ph.D., MUP |
| The focus will be on these three myths:
1. Detroit was doing fine until one day in 1967. There was a big riot and everything fell apart. 2. Through actions, words, and policies, Detroit’s first African American mayor, Coleman Alexander Young, who took office in 1974, created the racial divisions in this region. 3. Unemployment, poverty, crime, and vacant buildings all stem from character flaws in people, and, obviously, from the residents of Detroit. This presentation not only interrogates and “busts” these three myths but also examines the implications to policy making.
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| Facebook – Institute for Detroit Studies Marygrove College – Detroit Studies |
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Adam, Eve, Noah and Able
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| Bubba Ayoub / Juggable Offense |
 A brief history and explanation of modular synthesizers, followed by a demonstration of Adam, Eve, Noah and Able, which are 4 of the major pieces of an analog and digital modular synthesizer used to make/destroy sounds that sometimes come out as the music heard here: www.soundcloud.com/juggableoffense. |
| Facebook – JuggableOffense Soundcloud – JuggableOffense |