Over the last month I escaped from a straitjacket and preached the evils of Spiritualism as a ruse for swindlers in the guise of Harry Houdini for a full house at the Spartanburg, SC, library, taught several hundred folks the basic physics and philosophy of Albert Einstein for the library in Stuart, FL, and will soon be explaining the idiosyncrasies of Winston Churchill to a gathering of Mensans in Greenville, SC.
Apart from assorted hair issues of hairline variations, textures, lengths, and colors (since I have been working with only my own real hair), there were several friends who questioned my sanity for trying such variety in such a time frame. I can only report that the audiences seemed pleased, but had I not spent so much time preparing and performing each of them over the last few years, it really would have been impossible.
The week before each presentation was spent in thorough review with an eye to discovering something that I did not already know about each. For Houdini I learned a bit more about the particulars of his less that appropriate romantic conquests – for Einstein, I brushed up on my understanding of Rienmann manifolds and other advanced mathematical components of his field theory equation – for Churchill, it was the inside dope on his dealings with Stalin as the two decided the fate of assorted nations for the post-war world.
And that’s what I find fun about Chautauqua scholarship!