The cool autumn air draws near and the leaves begin to change – alas, summer is winding down. But as the Spooky Season draws near, we’ve got one last blast of hot summer content for you: sweet sizzling nerdery! Three bold speakers will be at Rickshaw Stop on September 23rd, starting at 7PM to share stories about strange animal sex strategies, how air pollution makes us sick, and how you can be funny in a non-native language. Join us!
Can You Be Funny in Your Second Language? My Adventures in Taiwan’s Stand-Up Comedy Scene
Carter Helschien
After graduating from Yale, Carter (a white American whose only connection to Chinese culture was getting takeout on Christmas) moved to Taiwan to become a Mandarin-speaking stand-up comedian. He arrived just as Taiwan’s Mandarin comedy scene was beginning to break into the mainstream, forcing him to learn not only a new language on the fly, but also the invisible rules of making another culture laugh. Through jokes that landed, jokes that died, and near-daily public embarrassment, Carter explores how grammar, culture, and comedy change across languages—and how he eventually found success in places he never expected.
Professionally, Carter Helschien spends his day deciphering Gen Alpha slang so he can ban it (at Roblox). He comes from a family of professional gymnasts, but at 6’3″, was genetically disqualified from joining the family business. Instead, he spends his time cooking, crocheting, building community, and mentoring low-income high school students through Minds Matter. He recently moved to San Francisco and is now looking for his soulmate; or, at minimum, “someone I can put on my shoulders in a trench coat so we form a mega-person.”
The Freaky Ins and Outs of Animal Reproduction
Tokay Alberts
Beyond the birds and bees, animals of all kinds have been getting freaky around the world. Time to learn the ins and outs (and back in and back out) of how animals get it on.
Tokay Alberts is a Masters student in the SFSU Boria lab studying urban ecology and genomics of small mammals in the Bay Area. He is also an animal reproduction enthusiast.
The Atmosphere is a Slow Flame: An Introduction to Air Pollution and Human Health
Becca Wernis
Sure, there’s a lot of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, but the trace gases (present at parts per million, billion, or even trillion) are where the action is really at. We’ll explore the complex interactions between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and free radicals, the impacts of air pollution on human health, and the techniques we use to quantify and understand which chemicals are airborne and how they got there.
Dr. Becca Wernis is a systems engineer developing advanced VOC measurement equipment at Picarro. Before that she developed (different) advanced VOC measurement equipment during her Environmental Engineering PhD at UC Berkeley. When not worrying about measurement precision and firmware bugs, she loves to ride public transit, fix strangers’ bikes, and advocate for safer streets.
Featuring Friends of the Show:
The SF Public Library
The SF Wikipedians