Non-Motivational Speaker Series

PERIOD PIECE Alan Abel demonstrates how to alienate your fellow passengers.

Photograph: Joel Grabois

Happy Ending; Thu 29 at 8pm

As its sardonic title suggests, this monthly lecture series sponsored by Gelf magazine doesn’t offer uplifting bromides from Tony Robbins types. It’s more of a forum for idiosyncratic personalities overlooked by mainstream media (and a chance for the arts-and-culture webzine to score some publicity). In April, infamous hoaxer Alan Abel, who once fooled Walter Cronkite into covering the facetious Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, discussed the merits of culture jamming —the extent of his advice involved behaving erratically to get a better seat on an airplane.

This Thursday, the lineup spotlights two novel perspectives on religion: First, Daniel Radosh (Rapture Ready!) recounts his journey into the world of WWJD merch, Jesus rock and other hallmarks of Christian pop culture. Then, erstwhile Gambino-family insider Louis Ferrante (Unlocked: A Journey from Prison to Proust) reflects on his eight-year incarceration and conversion to Orthodox Judaism. (Guess not everyone finds Jesus in the big house.) While the authors won’t be imparting any self-help strategies, Gelf editor Adam Rosen suspects that they’ll engage the audience nevertheless: “We hope the speakers will both inform and make people laugh. We’re poking fun at the idea of paying money to be told commonsense things.”

For details, visit gelfmagazine.com.