10 Community Center Classes To Take This Winter

MS Paint 102, with Janine Salway-Shuppert

Do you have to spice up a PowerPoint presentation? Create an invitation to an office party that no one wants to attend? Or just sincerely express your artistic passions in a fashion that will almost definitely be mocked by teenagers on the internet? Then MS Paint 102 is for you! Build on all the basics that you learned in MS Paint 101, with more advanced techniques like “blobbing,” “scribbling,” “lines,” and “drawing lumpy, distorted versions of beloved Disney characters that will make your toddler nieces weep.”

*Special scholarships available for weird aunts with lipstick on their teeth and sweatshirts that say “Don’t worry, be crabby”

Basic Cake Pops, with Donald Schletti

What is a cake pop? We’ll spend this six-week course finding out. I have my guesses, but I thought it would be best if I found out the same time you all did—less possibility for “spoilers” that way! I know everyone hates “spoilers” these days!

$15 supplies fee

Put a Lid on It, with B. Pantzer

A pot without a lid is like a child without a mother—incomplete, liable to spill, and fucking up its marriage to a good woman who never asked for any of this. In this class, we’ll explore the wacky world of creative, inventive pot lids, made from clay, plastic, and balsa wood. Don’t they say that marriage is about accepting your spouse for who they are? Yeah, they say a lot of things.

Talking About Bass 1, with Stephen Nupdal

It’s bass the fish, not bass the instrument. Remember that. We don’t want a repeat of last year.

Talking About Bass 2, with Mitchell Faurout

Don’t listen to that old crank Nupdal. We’ll talk about whatever we want in Talking About Bass 2. Fish, instruments, the last time you made love. The time you watched a movie that everyone else liked, and you hated it but were too scared to admit it. Admit it here. I’ll teach whatever I want, Stephen, you irascible old asshole.

*Prerequisite: Successful completion of Talking About Bass 1, or equivalent written exam.

Remembering Max Headroom, with F. Carl Widerski

Do you remember Max Headroom? He was this TV host from the 80s who pretended to be a computer program! He originally started as this British comedy thing, but then he got famous over here as the spokesperson for New Coke! Then he got an American TV show, but it wasn’t successful, because he lived inside a computer, so he could never really go to different places on the show, or even to other rooms.

Gorgeous Gold Leafing, with B. Pantzer

Gold leaf is the essence of old-world elegance. Your mother wanted you to become a doctor. You wanted to become an architect. Instead, you became a middle school history teacher, so that you could be sure that neither one of you would ever be happy. She said it didn’t matter to her, but you can see it in her eyes–even now, when she’s so old that you can barely see anything in them at all. But you can see that. Everyone can.

Exploring the Internet, with Martin Damrosch

Listen, your children love you more than anything. You taught them to read, you taught them to drive, you taught them right from wrong. But if you don’t take this class, they’re going to come home for Christmas, use the “family computer” in the den because you still refuse to get Wi-Fi, and then find out that you basically spend all of your non-work hours watching barely legal teens in “Avatar” costumes do really messed up things to each other.

Clay 1, with Maureen Bebchuk

From the beaches of Los Angeles to the bustling streets of New York City, everyone is talking about clay! Could clay sculpting be the hobby for you? Drop in and find out!

Zumba-cize, with Lonnie Wasser-Ennis

From the beaches of Los Angeles to the bustling streets of New York City, everyone’s talking about clay! But after that whole business at the CVS up in Unionville, everyone felt a lot better just having Lonnie teach zumba from here on out. I mean, yes, I’m sympathetic to how much Lonnie cares about clay, but a lot of kids take that clay class, you know?

Learn to Draw What You See, with M. Pantzer

You’re a forty-three-year-old man, for god’s sake. What kind of forty-three-year-old man lets his mother have that kind of hold on his life? And you think having a baby is going to solve this mess? Bill, we’ve got a lot to figure out before we bring a baby into this. A LOT. For the love of pete, at least look at me while we’re talking!