We had a fine evening here at Bates College in Maine, and here’s our group photo of the elites who gathered for calamari, Maine food, and beer afterwards. Note satanic red glowing eyes.
You may notice that some of us are wearing an interesting orange necklace. That’s a cephalopod from Noadi. Not only are they pretty, but I can guarantee that they ward off vampires.
Oh, and you can get an account of the talk here. It was all about blasphemy.
Today was a big day for revision and cleanup — I cut out some of the weaker stuff I’d written before. I think deleting words ought to count for just as much as adding words, but I’ll refrain from complicating the tally that way.
Productivity for Sunday, 27 September:
1651 shiny new words, one brand new piece added to the pile, a few other pieces buffed up.
I’m trying to have some serious writerly discipline here, so I’ve been hammering at the keyboard all day, and will do more tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, etc., until it’s all done (my goal is to wrap it all up within a month). As part of the process, I’m going to start posting a summary of my output at the end of each day.
So, productivity for Saturday, 26 September:
4105 words, three pieces mostly complete; one’s a little rough and needs some overall polish, another has a weak ending that needs some tightening.
I’m finding the stuff I write in the morning to be a lot cleaner than the later work, so I don’t expect to get quite those numbers tomorrow; I’m going to sink some time when I’m fresh to just sharpening up the clumsy bits.
More travel this week: I’ll be in Lewiston, Maine to speak at Bates College, at 5 p.m. Tuesday, 29 September, in Room G65, Pettengill Hall. And from there I’ll be flying to Los Angeles for the AAI convention.
Lots of flight time is lots of writing time, right?
Jebus, they can’t shut me up. Just got back from the afternoon discussion, which went on for two hours. It was great fun. Of course…
My opening remarks were about being assertive atheists who challenge conventions and do things like desecrating crackers…
…and a priest, complete with clerical collar, was right there in a good seat smack in the middle of the auditorium.
He looked a bit peevish, but didn’t say very much. A few of the other Catholics around him expressed how offended they were, which was fine. They could have taken more time to state their case, if they wanted.
Good times. You should have been there.
Remember, tonight, 6:00, Fargo Theatre…it’s your last chance to get a piece of me. It’s small and it looks like a big crowd might turn out, but if you want to give me a piece of your mind, I’ll be available just outside the theater around 9:30 for a bit. The price for telling me how wicked I am is one beer.
I’m keeping busy here — we had a packed house at my talk (which was all wonky sciencey biology stuff) last night, I did a press conference this morning which might get a few soundbites floating around North Dakota, spent a little time on the Christopher Gabriel show on WDAY radio, and now get a brief break before I head over to NDSU for a 2:00 discussion session on atheist activism, which should be fun. I plan on briefly discussing the Creation Museum trip and desecrating communion wafers, and then let other people howl back and forth for a while.
At 6:00, it’s time for the Fargo Theatre and Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God, and I need to warn you: it’s a small theater. The audience I had last night would not fit in it. If you’re hoping to go, either go early to get in line, or just figure on going to the 9:30 showing instead and missing my post-movie talk. I’m not planning on posting the talk here, as I usually do, either — I’m writing a book, you know, and a polished and slightly expanded version of this talk will be going in there, so you’ll need to buy my book if you can’t get into the theater.
I am venal and cruel, I know.
I’m traveling to Fargo on Wednesday for a series of events. I think I know what I’m doing, so let me spell out as much as I know.
On Wednesday at 6:00, I’ll be speaking at Minnesota State University Moorhead, in room 118 in the Science Lab building, on the subject of “Darwin and Design”.
Wednesday evening afterwards? I don’t know. Somebody will probably take me by the elbow and lead me to beer.
Thursday morning I’m doing a press conference with the Red River Freethinkers, and then at 11ish, I’m going to be on WDAY radio for a short while. Tune in!
Thursday afternoon at 2:15 2:00, I’ll be engaging in an informal panel discussion at NDSU (location to be announced). I’m planning to talk about godless activism, but I’ll also address questions, so who knows, we could find ourselves walking down some strange paths.
I just heard from the organizers: here’s update information on the Thursday panel.
Jason did all the advertising and scheduled it for 2:00pm 9-24-09 at the Century Theater at NDSU. The century Theater is located upstairs in the Memorial Union on campus. 12th ave is torn apart. I would advise anyone to take I29 North to 12th ave North and go right. On 18th Street go left and then go right on Centennial BLVD. If they have to come from downtown, AVOID Main ave bridge connecting Moorhead to Fargo!
Thursday evening at 6, we’ll be watching Julia Sweeney’s movie, Letting Go of God, at the Fargo Theatre. After the movie, I’ll be making some remarks — I’m going to talk about narrative and story-telling, and its value to atheists.
Sometime after 9, elbow, beer, somewhere, again.
It should be fun! I shall be talked out, all of North Dakota will be tired of me, and I’ll go home the next day to shackle myself to the book again!
I give you all fair warning: my daughter Skatje has passed her driver’s test, and has a license to drive. Alone. Without her father sitting by her side, hands clenched tightly to the armrest, feet pounding the floorboards to hit imaginary brakes, and using the force of his indomitable will to prevent collisions, explosions, squirrel-squishings, etc.
You might just want to stay home for the rest of your life.
Today is 10 September, which happens to be the birthday of the Trophy Wife (I won’t tell you the birth year because she will give me the evil eye, but I will say that she is much, much younger than I am, as a Trophy Wife must be). It would be very nice if she got home from work tonight and, as she usually does, sits down and checks out the blog to see what horrors and outrages I have perpetrated today, and discovers that a few of you had written her birthday best wishes, instead.
I’m going to be on the radio tonight, at 10pm Central time, on a program radiating out of Missouri State University called the All-American Gun Show. The host is JT Eberhard, a dangerous rascal, and I think he’s planning to harrass me fiercely. Here’s the blurb for the show:
PZ Myers, biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the science blog Pharyngula. Myers is known for his criticism of creationism and religion, including an appearance at Skepticon I on the Missouri State campus last October and a return to the campus this November for Skepticon II.
   The notorious Dr. Myers, a liberal by admission, is famous for his atheist shennanigans that include throwing crackers in the trash. We plan to pin this kingpin of the secular mafia down with fine-tuning arguments and universally accepted facts of science like the absence of any transitional fossils in the fossil record. Pwnd.
Tune in if you’d like to hear me raked over the coals.
My evil plan worked. They thought they were drawing me into a trap, but I knew that all I had to do was link to them and my henchpersons would bring their servers to their knees. Mission accomplished.
They were recording, and said the interview will be up on their website in a few hours…at which time you will all crash that! Bwahahahahahaha!
