Camp Chautauqua

The definition of the day for Chautauqua is “a summer camp for adults.”  
 It happens to be a summer camp for kids as well, but I’m going to ignore that part for lack of personal experience.

At Chautauqua there’s always something going on, and there’s likely to be more than one thing happening at any moment.  A report on Chautauqua experiences therefore depends on the idiosyncrasies of the reporter.  If my husband were writing this, you’d hear in detail about a fascinating talk sponsored by the Science Circle.  It was entitled “From Nanotechnology to Cosmology.”  It was, I think, a long talk.

Another person might report on the “bat chat.”  I’m not sure if bats were chatting, or if people were chatting about bats.  Maybe they sat around eating insects.  I don’t know.

One thing I love about Chautauqua is the food.  It so happens that our food comes from a community kitchen – that’s not the case for everyone.  We stay at the Ecumenical Community of Chautauqua, a complex of three houses with community kitchens.  There are about 24 people in ours, and although we prepare our own meals and have assigned tables and refrigerator space, there’s sharing of information, ideas, and even food.  Our meals are simple, yet special because of the sharing.

Music is a big part of life here.  The day begins with a carillon of bells down by the lake.  During morning devotions there’s choral singing from people who are in choirs back home, and at Chautauqua they just have to get together and sing. They are supported by choirmaster and organist Jared Jacobsen, whose love of music is conveyed every time he sits at the console of the 5,640-pipe organ.

The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra has a tradition of inviting members of the community to join the professionals for one performance, and last night 50 extra chairs were crowded onto the stage.   With scant time for rehearsal, amateur musicians had to practice at home.  I think that weak players were intimidated by the sheet music and didn’t show up – everyone on stage did a super job.

There’s more to say about music here, but I’m going off to another program.  As a final thought to convey the breadth of activities at Chautauqua, I scanned the list of Special Studies offered this week.  There are 97 programs, most with daily events.  I didn’t sign up for any of them because there’s so much else to do.  But I did consider the workshop on humor writing.  And another on plotting a murder mystery.  If I took both I might be able to write a humorous murder mystery…