Seminar

A Scholarly Inquiry into Form, Shell, and Substance
Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Symposium

Introduction by Academician Dark Sun, PhD, ScD, DMV:
 
Ladies and gentlemen of the ERI — the Elderly and Restless Intellectuals — it is my pleasure, my honor, and frankly my only social engagement this week, to introduce our distinguished chairman, Dr. Shmul Schmaksler.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “We already know Shmul. We’ve known him since the Carter administration.” Yes, but for the benefit of our vast YouTube audience — all seven of them — let me offer a brief biography.

Dr. Schmaksler was born in Dagestan in 1948 to a modest civil servant named Shaytan Ogly and his wife, Sara Moiseevna Schmaksler, a woman who could clean a room so thoroughly that even the cockroaches filed relocation papers. Shmul was a gifted student. At eighteen — when most of us were still figuring out how to shave without bleeding — he earned a PhD degree in the General Theory of Triple Procrastination under the legendary Professor M.K. Mouse, who is now, sadly, unavailable for comment.

By thirty, Shmul was already heading the Department of Space Technologies and Galaxies at the editorial office of Brainy Child magazine — which, as you know, is where NASA scholars sends their grandchildren for preliminary training.
Later, he served as Senior Research Fellow at the Moscow Institute of Natural Fertilizers and Arts — an institution whose acronym, MINFART, sounds exactly like what happens when you inhale their products. During this period, he also wrote his groundbreaking monograph Slavery in Russia: A Look into the Future. The Russian authorities rejected it, of course — apparently the future was classified — but Mongolia published it in a run of 2,000 copies, all of which were immediately distributed across the steppes, presumably as sanitary products.

After a failed attempt to reprint the book on sandpaper — don’t ask — Shmul emigrated to Israel, where he became the third assistant editor of the journal ;;;;; ;;;;; ;;;;;;, which in Hebrew means Fresh Thoughts from the Test Tube. In 2015 he was dismissed with the official designation ;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;; ;;;;; ;;;;, which roughly translates as incurable chronic idiocy and moved to New York, where he founded our beloved ERI club and became its chairman.

And now, with great pleasure — and mild anxiety — I give the floor to Dr. Schmaksler.

Thank you, Academician Dark Sun, for that warm introduction. Members of ERI, I’m delighted that thanks to modern technology — Zoom, the Pennsylvania Council of retarded, and Google, which knows more about us than our own children — we can meet without leaving home, regardless of distance, weather, or magnetic storms. According to Rabinovich and Antisemitmann [33], as well as Kim and Burp [36], magnetic storms can temporarily suspend human intellectual activity. Which explains some Congress sessions.

I’m proud to report that our club now has 98.75 permanent members — the .75 being Sam Trepman, who is fully disabled, and Rosa Prostata, who is currently in a psychiatric facility but attends spiritually.

I’m delighted to see Tatyana Procreatti joining us despite being in labor — talk about commitment — and Aron Zaltsman, who heroically pushed aside a table full of liquor and roast piglet to be here. A special greeting to our romantic retirees, Mary Hornier and Zack Fockkins, who are joining us from under the blanket of their marital bed. Please take your cameras off.

Now, to the subject of my lecture:

As the great Russian scholar encyclopedist Lomonosov wrote in Volume III of his monumental work Nothing in the World Is Accidental [38]: “…everything in the world is convex…” A thought immediately supported by the great American scientist of Jewish origin, Einstein, who famously said: “…everything in the world is relative…” [39]

From this we can confidently conclude that the object of our study is round. NSF funded research agrees. I reject entirely the claim of Stinker Solodovnikov that the object is square [40], and I have serious doubts about I. Drunkenstein, who claims to have seen triangular specimens and has blurry photographs to prove it [41]. Blurry photographs, as we know, often are in the foundation of modern science.

I will allow that under the influence of non-linear geometry — and certain mushrooms — some researchers may deviate from accepted views [43–45].

As for the shell — the debates continue:

Emptheadoff, Katz, and Omnivour insist the shell is intact, even if it has microscopic holes [46], [47]. Mendoza argues the shell is fragile, especially in our era of wars, disasters, and cable news [48]. Friedman proposes that inside every outer shell there is a larger inner shell, whose holes never align with the outer ones — which is also how marriage works [49].

In recent years, researchers have been drawn to Professor Girkin’s article, “On the Class-Based Approach to the Analysis of Shell and Form,” published in the journal Mountain Rumors, Tbilisi, Georgia. The author argues that shells and forms generally belong to different, poorly defined subclasses of protein matter, and therefore cannot coexist in the same reality [50]. This explains my last relationship.

Since no consensus exists, I maintain — as I wrote in Slavery in Russia: A Look into the Future — that holes in the shell do exist, and their size often exceeds the shell itself.

And now, the contents:

Nothing fascinates researchers more. Some compare the contents to a galaxy, the solar system, or at least the structure of Earth [51–54]. Such assertions can be found in the works of ancient and modern philosophers, physicists and poets, zoologists, musicians, and astronomers; see [51], [52], [53], [54].

Professor Zhivoglyadov of Kirgizstan compares it to the eyeball of a higher primate [55], [56]. Dietitians, however, insist the contents do not exist at all — which is also the conclusion of my refrigerator.

For a variety of scientific and semi scientific reasons, I tend to agree.
And with that, I conclude our discussion of the form, shell, and contents of the hollowed out egg.

Our next seminar will take place…