Nerd Nite 70: Variety Pack

Themes are hard to come up with, especially when our nerdy community is so diverse, so we’re going for a generic title. However, there is nothing generic about our nerds this month. We intend the blandness of the title to act as an ironic indicator of how non-generic our speakers are. Did it work?

When: February 23, 2023, at 7:30 pm

(Doors & bar open at 7:00pm and the Fringe Grounds Cafe is open until 8:00!)

Where: Fringe Theatre Adventures lobby

ATB Financial Arts Barns building, 10330 84 Ave NW, Edmonton

How much: $25

Ron Byers: Capturing and Sharing Edmonton’s Queer History

Founder and Co-Director of Rainbow Story Hub Ron Byers will share the journey of capturing our 2SLGBTQ+ communities’ history in Edmonton and the people, projects and organizations who have brought this to life over the years. He will also give some insights into some new projects and the future work of bringing our rich history to life in ways that the public can access, understand and celebrate. It is important that our challenges and achievements in becoming an equal and respected part of society be recorded for the youth of today and the future.

Ron Byers is a community leader, storyteller and Queer historian. Decades of work in Edmonton’s non-profit sector have given him an extensive resume of community service and a unique viewpoint on our city and its history. With a professional background in Customer Service Management he has shared his skills in several City festivals and organizations. Ron has been actively involved in the 2SLGBTQ+ community for over 50 years. He has seen our Queer community evolve from congregating behind closed doors to dancing and parading in the streets. And has celebrated as we grow closer to being treated as equal under the laws yet acknowledging the inequities we must still overcome. Ron is the founder of the Rainbow Story Hub Foundation which has allowed him to share stories on Edmonton’s queer history with insight and passion.

Clive Coy: How to Enjoyably Misspend Forty Years

“In 1980 a friend showed me a dog-eared copy of The New Conquest of Central Asia written by the explorer Roy Chapman Andrews. The official narrative of the Central Asiatic Expeditions, a hefty 678-page volume, was exciting to hold. The exquisite foldout photo-panoramas of Mongolian scenery excited my imagination, and I enjoyed his unpretentious, quick-paced style. I wanted to know more – what else did he write? Searching and collecting ever since, the answer grew from twenty-two books and more than 200 magazine articles to original photographs, letters and artifacts. I have built the world’s largest private collection related to Roy Chapman Andrews, his expeditions and contemporaries, and have worked at many of the places Andrews pioneered. It has been observed: put enough similar books and related materials together in one place, and they take on a life of their own. What began as simple accumulation, became meaningful beyond the sum of its parts. Now, it’s time to consider – what do I do with my collection when I too inevitably shuffle off this mortal coil? This is the first public sharing and airing of my passion [mania?] where I will endeavour to give a sense of why I did it, how I did it, how much fun it has been, and reflections on lessons learned along the way.

A founding member of the team that built the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Clive has been a professional dinosaur hunter for 43 years, and now runs Dino Lab at the University of Alberta. His work has taken him through Asia, Europe and South America. When not in the field or laboratory, Clive is most often found in antiquarian bookstores or art supply shops pursuing his other deep passions.

Crista Gamage: Farts in Space

Why did NASA once try to stop astronauts from farting? Why does staying healthy become so difficult in space? What does the microbiota of astronauts tell us about our future in the stars? Come find out more at my talk on “Farts in Space.”

Crista is 39 trillion microbes in a trench coat. She’s a card-carrying member of the Alberta Mycological society, a huge microbiology nerd and an advocate for the importance of public health. She is currently a student at MacEwan University working towards becoming a science communicator.

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