A year ago, archivists at Columbia University thought it might be a good idea to begin collecting information on a new disease that was emerging… something called Covid 19. Wayne Gersen introduces his son-in-law, Alex Thurman, whose been the lead archivist tracking web information on COVID. He’ll describe the trove of information he’s collected and how it is and will be put to use. 

 

 

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 882 2958 2283

Password: 254494

 

The Zoom Room opens at 11:45 AM.  After the Pledge of Allegiance and opening Password Todd will introduce our speaker. 

 

They are recorded in “speaker view” which means if you do ask questions during the Q and A session you will appear on screen unless you disable the camera. 

 

 

Todd Allen read a thank you letter from Rotary Scholar Brittany Richard who expressed her deep gratitude for the scholarship our club provided for her four years at Merrimack College.  

 

Todd Allen remined club members that our COVID 19 fund would be earmarked for Willing Hands in the coming months and encouraged club members to click on the link to make a donation in lieu of meals. 

 

Tom Csatari offered a Happy Dollar in honor of his high school teammate Drew Pearson’s selection to the Football Hall of Fame.  

 

The Raffle Management Team (RMT) awarded its $10 in-kind donation to Willing Hands to Deb Blanc for her astute guess that “most” Rotarians owned pets… a guess that was validated by a show of hands indicating that over half did in fact own one.  

 

 

REMINDER: Here’s the link to make your donation in lieu of paying for meals at Jesse’s AND the place to donate your Happy Dollars! As Todd announced at the meeting last week, the funds will be earmarked for Willing Hands. https://hanovernhrotary.ejoinme.org/COVID-19.

 

 

Todd Allen introduced John Bowman, a professor at USC whose specialty is humor. John shared insights on how to write a joke, acknowledging that when jokes are analyzed the juice can be squeezed from them. He used the “monologue joke” to illustrate how a joke is created, noting that they fall into two broad categories: a “superiority joke”- like Jay Leno’s man-on-the-street schtick (or the many “Florida man” jokes that keep showing up on my Facebook friends pages) and “surprise” jokes, where a punch line offers an unexpected twist to a current news story. He noted that he found the monologue joke far more difficult to write than sketch comedy, in large measure because it requires concision. He described the process used on various shows he worked on, where a bunch of writers sit in a room surrounded by newspapers and brainstorm jokes the host of the show can use. He noted that the nature of the humor will depend on the host--- with Johnny Carson, for example, using a very different slant than David Letterman… and then there’s Samantha Bee!  

 

He offered several examples of jokes that were used on the air and the kinds of responses each one received. He then invited club members to examine the newspapers or news feeds on their phones to find a story that lent itself to a monologue joke and to share that joke with the club. This resulted in several cat puns (the attorney who appeared as a cat in court was one of the lead stories) and a large number of collective though muted groans. 

 

Your humble newsletter writer offers this headline from a news story from over the weekend as an opportunity to write a punch line. While most national networks were riveted on the presentation of evidence at the impeachment trial, Fox News offered this: “Border Patrol agents confiscate nearly 200 pounds of bologna found in car at New Mexico border” You can take it from there! Maybe Todd Allen of the Raffle Management Team will offer some sort of prize for the best response. 

 

 

February 24 – Todd Allen will introduce Eric Benn who will tell us about how we are being spied on from space.  

 

March 3 – Todd Allen will introduce Tracy Hutchins from the Upper Valley Business Alliance who will give us some insights on how the pandemic is playing out in our region.

 

March 10 – Len Cadwallader introduces Jim Rubens whose talk, American Promise, will offer some ideas on how to take money out of politics.

 

March 17 – Dick Podolec will introduce Phil Hanlon, Dartmouth College President, who’s talk scheduled for election day was moved to this date. 
 

March 24 – Todd Allen introduces Christine Pederson who will tell us about the Easter Seals campaign in New Hampshire

 

March 31 – Todd Allen brings Noel Pauili, a Senior Scientist at Adimab to tell us about his firm’s efforts to “…turn good molecules into best in class molecules”.  

 

We’re now booked through mid-May but have open dates from May 19 forward…. Do YOU have any ideas for speakers to fill in the blanks moving forward? We’d love to hear them!

 

Wayne Gersen