I am really excited about our lineup this month:

Elna Baker, Babies Buying Babies: Observations from FAO Schwarz
Elna Baker is a writer, comedic storyteller and monologist. She’s performed her stories for This American Life, Studio 360, The Moth, Upright Citizens Brigade, and at many other comedy clubs throughout New York City. Her memoir, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, will be published by Penguin in 2009.

Gaylord Fields, Yeah Yeah ... Uh, No: Exploring the Audiovisual Phenomenon of Beatles-Lookalike Long Playing Albums
Gaylord Fields, the senior editor at AOL Music, has previously worked at Rolling Stone and Spin. He also currently hosts a free-form radio program on WFMU in Jersey City every Sunday evening. He has met one Beatle — and three Rutles.

Julie Klausner, Cats, Musicals, Fan Fiction and Fan Fiction about Cats: The Musical: The Fan as Demented Creator
Julie Klausner is a lover of cats, musical theater, and at least three other things that are not fascinating to heterosexual men, including heterosexual men. She’s written for the New York Times, Salon and The Huffington Post, and she co-hosts the monthly show Obsessed at the UCB Theater. Her latest endeavor, a monthly live Soap Opera called Wasp Cove, stars David Rakoff and runs at Comix in monthly episodic installations.

Carrie McLaren, The Media Made Me Do It: The Human Being As Copycat
Carrie McLaren founded Stay Free!, curates Adult Education, and blogs sporadically at Hawthorne Street. Her book Shopping for Cancer: A Field Guild to Consumer Culture, will be published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux in 2009. Ms. McLaren’s last lecture for Adult Ed was “How NOT to Raise a Chimp in Your Home: the Legacy of W.N. Kellogg.”

And your host, Charles Star, talking about something or other
Charles Star is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition. He lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a fetus who is already tracking well above grade level.

Adult Education is a monthly lecture series organized by the Brooklyn-based nonprofit, Stay Free! Each month is devoted to a given theme, and 4-5 speakers will address some aspect of that theme using visual aids.

| Pamela Paul, “Baby Gear Your Mother Didn’t Have”
| Daniel Radosh,"Marketing to Christian Kids or The Secret Identity of Bibleman”
| Charles Star, “A Short List of the Worst Children’s Toys Ever”
| Gary Drevitch, “How Princesses and Pokemon Conquered America”
| Susan Gregory Thomas, “Barbie Goes Vertical: How the Marketing Industry Brands Infants and Toddlers”

DANIEL RADOSH is author of the new book Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and a contributing editor at The Week magazine. His writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Playboy, Esquire, and GQ. In the early 1990s, Radosh was a staff writer and editor at Spy magazine.

PAMELA PAUL is the author of Parenting, Inc: How We Are Sold on $800
Strollers, Fetal Education, Baby Sign Language, Sleeping Coaches, Toddler Couture, and Diaper Wipe Warmers—and What It Means for Our Children. She writes for Time magazine and the New York Times Book Review, and is the author of two previous books, Pornified and The Starter Marriage. She and her family live in Harlem.

GARY DREVITCH produces the parenting Web site freelancedad.com, contributes to magazines like Parents and Jewish Living, and writes non-fiction books for children. He is also the senior editor of
grandparents.com. A father of three, he has become part of the Pokemon problem, and now seeks its solution.

SUSAN GREGORY THOMAS is an investigative journalist and broadcaster. Formerly a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report and co-host of public television’s Digital Duo, she has also written for Time, the Washington Post, Glamour, and elsewhere. She has two children, seven and four years old.

CHARLES STAR is a sometimes lawyer, sometimes comic, and host of Adult Ed. But he is mostly known for his excellent cat.

I’m hoping for a 12 seed, but expect a 13. This could be the first NCAA win by an Ivy League team in 10 years. (But I’m not holding my breath.)

On March 1 I am going to be in the Laughing Liberally show as the token in the Black Comedy Experiment. My show is one of a slate of great shows going on throughout the Leap Day weekend. The Laughing Liberally show includes me, Leighann Lord, Robert George, Elon James White and host Baratunde Thurston.

The Black Comedy Experiment
The Tank @ Collective:Unconscious
279 Church Street
$5 or $8 for a single show; $15 for a day pass; $25 for a weekend pass
Buy tickets here.

Match Game 2008
March 20 at 8PM
Magnetic Field
97 Atlantic Avenue between Hicks and Henry
Free to watch (fun!) $5* to play (more fun!)

* All entry fees go into the prize pool.

See you on the 22d?

The first show, “Micro-genre” is about genres that are so specific that you probably didn’t even realize that they were genres. I’ll let Carrie’s description take over from here:

Adult Education
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 8PM
Union Hall
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave (Park Slope)
FREE!

On YouTube, there are scores of toddler’s expressions after sucking on lemons. Entire groups of flickr photos are organized around photos of people wearing sweatshirts, photos of painted trains, photos of body hair. You could fill a small bookshelf with fake children’s memoirs. In this show, we discuss several examples of what we’re calling “micro-genres.”

Liz Clayton: The Architecture of Converted Fast-Food Restaurants

Paul Lukas: On Elevator World, American Jails, Nut Grower Monthly, and other obscure trade magazines

Heidi Cody: First National Icons: Native Americans in Grocery Brands

Jim Hanas: On meta-tourism: photos of tourists taking photos

Russell Scholl: On TV Commercials for Personal Hygiene Products

With HOST Charles Star

BIOS

LIZ CLAYTON is an obsessive-compulsive who tries to contain the world in words and pictures. Her work has been published in the Globe and Mail, Time Out New York, and on three million websites. She recently moved to Brooklyn from Toronto, where she ran the Pontiac Quarterly reading series.

HEIDI CODY is a Brooklyn-based artist and founder of CHOW

JIM HANAS is a freelance editor and writer who lives and works in Brooklyn.

PAUL LUKAS is a freelance writer and former zinester (Beer Frame) in Brooklyn. His Uni Watch column currently runs on ESPN.com

RUSSELL SCHOLL is a New York-based media archivist. He assembles moving image programs on a wide variety of subjects (the history of animation; early jazz shorts; burlesque; educational and propaganda films, etc.) and exhibits them at Barbes in Park Slope and other NYC venues.

CHARLES STAR (HOST) is a Brooklyn-based comedian who has written for the Onion News Network and Stay Free! magazine. Charles hosts the comedy show Pant-Hoot on the third Tuesday of every month at Magnetic Field.

Meanwhile, two Goldman managing directors acted as liaisons, helping bring Alex Rodriguez back to the New York Yankees baseball team, a classic Goldman deal that enhances the value of the firm’s 40 percent stake in the YES network - which it is trying to sell - while also pleasing Yankee fans. The symmetry was perfect: like the Yankees, Goldman, more than any other bank on Wall Street, is both hated and revered.

So now you tell me: did A-Rod approach people at Goldman Sachs on the advice of Warren Buffet? Or is it more likely that Goldman Sachs approached him, with an assist from Warren Buffet? Or asked A-Rod to give Warren Buffet a call.

I have a feeling that ARod may be making $30MM a year after all, with a little help from friends that aren’t the Yankees. Scott Boras is no dummy. He knows how important the sale of YES is to more than just the Yankees.