TEDxBloomington -- Arbutus Cunningham -- "Big Mystery" July 1, 2011

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In her own words, Arbutus Cunningham is a mendacious and crabby old woman of aquatic antecedents who emerged fully formed and slightly damp from the forehead of a large pelagic frog off the coast of Sumatra shortly before the eruption of Krakatoa. Following the sad demise of her parent, who croaked, Arbutus was given as an oblate to the Church of the Blessed Pomegranate where she labored faithfully to bring many souls to salivation. Alas, in 1907, the abbess apprehended her in flagrante delicto with an apricot tree and promptly exiled her to Texas, a place rife with ecclesiastical error, not to mention moral turpitude. There she entered into a distressing liaison with a puff adder; this brief union produced three tadpoles and a real snake in the grass.

After her children variously hopped, swam, and slithered away from her tender care, Arbutus moved north, to Indiana, where she accidentally invented both the methane bomb and the Internet one afternoon during a vain attempt to drive a colony of porcupines from her privy. Sadly, most of her notes were lost in the ensuing conflagration, and those that survived smelled so very bad that she was forced to bury them out behind the barn.

Arbutus can be heard (but not seen) on WFHB Community Radio almost every Saturday morning where she and her co-host, Col. M. Kelsey, USBFD (retired), tell lies and talk bad about the government. Her motto: Hic jacet Arbutus... semper.

Opening the second half of TEDxBloomington, Arbutus told of "Big Mystery." "Before there were charts or maps or ways to go, there was only here, an enormous big here, and Big Mystery in the middle of it all, having his hair braided."

About TEDx In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxBloomington, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxBloomington event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.