Composing a pictorial essay to promote the performing artform of Chautauqua ain’t easy. But I’ve had the capable hand of Nevada author and all-around good guy, Michael Archer to help get it done, and we’re almost there.
First we had to learn how to spell Chautauqua, then we needed to learn how to pronounce Chautauqua, then we had to learn what Chautauqua is, and finally we needed to learn how to present Chautauqua.
With the advent of social media and AI, many of us denizens of 2026 are craving eye contact, body language, real human smiles, and the great out of doors. So living history could be a magical cure-all for maintaining mental health. Also there is the likelihood that the attributes of a character one chooses to portray will be absorbed, and will make that Chautauquan a better person.
As a quick example, Mark Twain tells us about a dying Ulysis Grant, “To a manifestly great man, dying is nothing.” Over the decades I have tried to become brave enough that dying is nothing, and I think I might be closing in on it.
So we encourage you, the gentle reader, to find someone you admire who’s been dead for awhile, study that person’s life, have some clothes made that that person might have worn, and bring that person to life. It will not only please those who witness this transphormation, but it will give you a second life, and one life is not enough.
Then too, those lucky Chautauquans like Doug Mishler and Kim Harris, who can portray more than one character, are the happy recipients of the best characteristics of their historical personas, and they have become better people in the bargain. The important thing, the essential thing, is that we remain caring beings, just brimming with the milk of human kindness.
When I lived in the Islands, I learned from the Hawaiian people to think with the heart, and thinking with the heart has served me well over the years. So I guess my next question is, “How does an AI character think with the heart?”
Chautauquans become problem solvers. Sometimes solving a problem requires putting oneself into somebody else’s shoes, and to the experienced Chautauquan, this is an easy task. Problem solved.
Over time I have met dozens of Chautauquans, and never have I met even one who was not likeable in their red corpuscle selves. I have to believe that becoming someone else brings out the best characteristics in our twenty-first century identities. So please give it some thought. Not only will you learn much about a certain historical person, but you will gain the extra appreciation of the life and times of those personalities who surrounded that character of yours.
Wish us luck if you will be so kind, and we should have a pictorial essay available soon that you can give to your favorite aunt who is about to retire, and might be the perfect candidate to become everybody’s favorite Chautauquan.
Want to hear McAvoy Layne tell it? Go here for an audio version of this column. For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”
