Categories: Evanescent Riders

Strack to Lead New V-Studies Initiative at McMaster University

La Vie Velominatus is set to become the subject of intense scholarly analysis next week, as Frank Strack will receive an honorary PhV from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (chapeau to @ten B for the PhV). It’s been a heady week for the cycling types around these parts; Strack will close out festivities that included the Bike Snob and Mario Cipollini. Too fat and slow to overlap with and give Super Mario the reach around, Strack will settle for regaling an audience on the Rules, Lexicon, and the finer details of la Vie Velominatus as the second speaker in the McMaster Rolling Seminar: La Vie Vélo.

On Thursday, October 4, he will sit down with Herr Professor Doktor Steampunk for a conversational interview in front of an enthralled public audience in the lofty and musty confines of McMaster University’s University Club (bow ties & elbow patches are a part of the dress code and polysyllabic pedantry is the language of choice””word is Strack will be sporting an orange ascot). This is a big moment for the Velominati community; as you all know, recognition from within the ivory tower (in all its cloistered wisdom) is the quintessential symbol of success in some cultures. Of course, now that the Velominati are under the intellectual microscope, they will be scrutinized, deconstructed, and proven to be nothing more than some post-modern, fictitious expression of postcolonial angst that doesn’t really exist. Tant pis.

In addition, Strack will also spend an evening at Café Domestique to imbibe fine beers and share his wisdom with the locals in what should be a rip-roaring good time. Come one; come all. This is, in effect, an intellectual Cogal of the mind. Sort of. Not really. But it should be great.

The details:

Seminar Session (open to the public)

When: Thursday, October 4 @ 2:30pm

Where: University Club’s West Room, McMaster University

campus map

Soirée @ Café Domestique (Millers Lane, Dundas)

When: Thursday, October 4 @ 8pm

Both events are free and open to the public, and everyone is encouraged to attend. The series is sponsored by the Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award. Further inquiries can be sent to egan(at)mcmaster(dot)ca.

Steampunk

In never-ending search for la volupté, Steampunk is an unreconstructed Canadian west coaster transplanted to Ontario, where he rides on every opportunity and sometimes shows up to work as a professor of history. He is a careful student of the Rules and la vie Velominatus, but is not beyond (occasionally) distilling them down to a single path: la vie Cognoscentus. The BFGs are always locked and loaded (that sound you just heard was your soul being crushed by their power). On a more serious note, he is a staunch advocate of commuting by bike and he also fundraises for Bikes to Rwanda.

View Comments

  • Cipo, RTMS, Strack? This. Is. Awesome.

    I hope to god there are some hipsters in the audience wearing caps...

  • @Steampunk Chapeau Herr Professor Doktor. Does who ever gave this the green light realise what they've actually done? Should young Strack not wear a gown and motarboard for his investiture?

    Can't wait for it to appear on YouTube to see which of you will lose it in a giggling fit first. 

  • @PeakInTwoYears

    I am dying to know how this goes. Nearly empty conference room, with one tenured faculty member and Frank conversing in front of half a dozen confused and defensive grad students?  Well-attended informal gathering with faculty and their entourages of wide-eyed acolytes in tow, metric shit-tons of Freudo-Marxist and Derridean terminology launched like volleys of spitballs in a middle-school classroom?

    Whatever happens, I suspect that these men will leave it all in that room.  I wish I could be there.

    Sreamy, please make sure the videographers capture for posterity the point at which an enraged V-fessor Strack leaps from the lectern to the pompous postgrad in the audience asserrting a post-modern theory of the cycling aesthetic with a scream of 'Decomstruct THIS, Motherfucker' before being escorted from the room.

    Fantastic initiative. Surely this is only the start of a worldwide lecture tour. TED, anyone ... .

  • Questions regarding this august event:

    Will all the undergrads assigned to cater to Frank's every whim be  vetted to ensure rule compliance?

    Will attending Les Discourses de Strack be valid extra credit for a class?

    Will there be a powerpoint so the poor students understand the pantheon of gods Frank refers to?

    Will there be a quiz?

    Will anyone wearing a cock ring on their arm be barred from entry?

  • This is really just a step away from a TedTx. Well played, Steampunk. Giving him some beer before the event may or may not be a good idea depending on how you look at it.

  • @G'phant

    @PeakInTwoYears

    I am dying to know how this goes. Nearly empty conference room, with one tenured faculty member and Frank conversing in front of half a dozen confused and defensive grad students?  Well-attended informal gathering with faculty and their entourages of wide-eyed acolytes in tow, metric shit-tons of Freudo-Marxist and Derridean terminology launched like volleys of spitballs in a middle-school classroom?

    Whatever happens, I suspect that these men will leave it all in that room.  I wish I could be there.

    Sreamy, please make sure the videographers capture for posterity the point at which an enraged V-fessor Strack leaps from the lectern to the pompous postgrad in the audience asserrting a post-modern theory of the cycling aesthetic with a scream of 'Decomstruct THIS, Motherfucker' before being escorted from the room.

    Fantastic initiative. Surely this is only the start of a worldwide lecture tour. TED, anyone ... .

    Awesome.  +1.

    I also agree that Frank needs to show up in full V-kit, as a visible demonstration of how to do it right. 

  • @wiscot

    Questions regarding this august event:

    Will all the undergrads assigned to cater to Frank's every whim be  vetted to ensure rule compliance?

    Will attending Les Discourses de Strack be valid extra credit for a class?

    Will there be a powerpoint so the poor students understand the pantheon of gods Frank refers to?

    Will there be a quiz?

    Will anyone wearing a cock ring on their arm be barred from entry?

    agreed!

    Also, will it be streaming over the internet for public viewing like on the independent lens and public tv for us lessers who cannot travel to write names on the sidewalk entry, or to inquisitively ask these Masterful questions?

    What would Eddy do?

  • @brett Oi! The steel mills are in the east end, and McMaster is in Westdale. Which is also sort of known as west Hamilton And that's how they're called: the east end, and west Hamilton. West Hamilton isn't the "west end," and to call it that would be needlessly dramatic. Heh heh...

    It's in a lovely part of town, no steel mills visible or smellable, and it's closer to the fantabulous hills of Dundas, wherein exists the essential Cafe Domestique whch has been written up on these boards.

  • There was a person in too many of my Master's degree courses who would proclaim each week that she was "taken aback by" something the author had written. To this day I get woozy when I hear this phrase. I hope Frank does indeed jump in the face of anyone trying to deconstruct The Rules.

    On another note, does McMaster U. have a culinary degree program? If not, maybe these lads can co-teach it.

  • @Ron

    There was a person in too many of my Master's degree courses who would proclaim each week that she was "taken aback by" something the author had written. To this day I get woozy when I hear this phrase. I hope Frank does indeed jump in the face of anyone trying to deconstruct The Rules.

    On another note, does McMaster U. have a culinary degree program? If not, maybe these lads can co-teach it.

    Looks like they're just missing Basso - they could be cooking up some "SIDI....cycling shoes".

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