Chautauqua - Week 2 - Entry 2 - Finally!

Oh the internet woes! Since I've made it one of my goals to spend as few hours of the rest of my life as possible in the state of frustration, I just had to stop last night as the connection kept kicking out on me. I've carved out an hour this afternoon and found that sitting outside the closed library offers a great strong signal (aren't libraries wonderful?), so I will blog my little heart out! But understand if there are not daily entries.

Today I shall relay what I've been doing, and save the description of First Night (which is tonight and apparently very memorable) for tomorrow!

This week feels very different from the first week. New place to stay, new people to meet, new routine. I'm not as connected to people this week for various reasons, but still it is a great time. Can't believe it's already Tuesday!

Considering that I'm having my gate pass provided for me by my duty in the choir, I got off easy this week. Since tonight is a special occasion, our regular Tuesday night rehearsal has been cancelled. We don't sing in church tomorrow morning for the same reason. And I won't be here on Sunday so I don't need to go to the evening rehearsals for that, but I probably will anyway. I feel like I'm cheating them, and maybe I can sit next to someone who needs help learning the parts. . . the weekend choir invites anyone to participate, and some of the people are not regular singers elsewhere. The director chooses pretty challenging music.

The theme for the week is Movies. Yesterday and today were absolutely memorable in terms of who we've heard speak so far. I'm having a fit because I want to tell you the first lecturer from yesterday who was fabulous but his name has flown out of my head. But he is a famous film professor at NYU and has had a program on A&E where he interviews actors. He has interviewed EVERYONE from Katharine Hepburn to Jimmy Stewart and absolutely everyone else. He was hilarious and so fascinating with his stories. And then last night we had An Evening with Ken Burns. What an amazing, gifted, articulate, brilliant, nice man he is. His new documentary series which starts on PBS on Sept. 27 (how come I can remember that?????) is The American National Parks. We got to see a 14 minute clip of that. When you consider the wide range of topics he has covered in his legendary documentaries (Baseball, Lewis and Clark, The Civil War, etc. etc. etc) it's hard to believe how prolific he has been. And he has many new exciting projects in the offering. Ken Burns is truly a man who has put the notion of "I Can" into action.

This morning we heard the actor Matthew Modine who was sensational. What is really cool is how choked up all these famous people get when they step into the full amphitheater to speak in this legendary setting (I have now used the word "legendary" twice. . . .this is a first I think). Matthew Modine was just quite simply adorable. He seems quite smitten with his wife of many years, so I guess stalking would be in bad taste. He had wonderful, colorful stories about his theater studies with Stella Adler in New York, as well as movie making experiences.

For my class this week I'm taking "handweaving" which is basically weaving on a loom. We finished the second class today and I'm well on my way weaving a sort of a dish towel. The class got off to a slow start yesterday, and I had my doubts, but now that we're working, it's lots of fun. I'm totally a "process" person. I don't really care what I make as long as I'm trying out the skill. Loom weaving is very complicated in terms of set up, but relatively simple once you get to actually weaving. They have all the looms set up, so this would not be a skill I could take home and continue doing without more instruction and equipment. I'm rather famous for getting totally excited about my new art form, buying all kinds of supplies, and then losing interest. I'm thinking back on all the supplies I have at home for making fishing nets from several years ago!! I'm kind of glad this one will be impossible to go home and spend my life savings on! But I will be happy to have a "product" at the end, and the class is offered every year so I could do it again.

I've worked out in the gym three times already! My cute trainer, George, gave me a workout to do and I've stuck with the program. Also, by working out every day, I can shower at the gym and not wait in line at my house! The payoff for all this working out is really showing. I sat in the bleachers for three hours at that demolition derby and never got tired. I used to get tired arms from applauding too long. . . no more! All this grunting and groaning is paying off.

So stay tuned for my description of "First Night" which promises to be pretty funky and mildly strange. In a nutshell, First Night is the Chautauqua birthday party since the first year the place opened was on the second Tuesday in August, 135 years ago. Here at Chautauqua there is a huge amount of reverence for the past, and they take opportunities to follow traditions that are over 100 years old. Needless to say, some of those are not in keeping with current times. But that's one of the reasons to be here. I'll try to get up here tomorrow to fill you in. . .however here are some teasers: think candles, think ancient rituals, think brass bands, think dropped handkerchiefs, think men in costume carrying giant keys. Now aren't you curious?????? RP