The Caja Negra Coffeehouse

I am making adjustments and basic changes to the way that this site is organized and communicated to the reader and the listener. Basically, there are three areas that you will be able to choose podcasts from, and they will all be housed here, at The Brown Tent. The Caja Negra Coffeehouse is where you will find all things entertaining; art, music, theater, book reviews and more.

This podcast is an introduction to the space, the Caja Negra Coffeehouse, and a little about where it came from and how it might evolve.

Thanks for checking it out.

The Coming of The Brown Tent - Episode 1

Welcome to the Brown Tent.

Since this is my first podcast, I wanted to take an opportunity to introduce what I am trying to accomplish with this show and work out the technical details of producing and publishing. This podcast is short and contains some basic information about Chautauqua, the tent revival circuit that inspired this series, how this podcast came to be called "the brown Tent," and some rudimentary information about what to expect.

Disclaimer
I want to include a note before this all gets started: This is not a Chautauqua. It's a podcast. I say this because I know that when I invoke the name Chautauqua, I am sort of asking for a torrent of accusations that I am not being true to the tradition and that I am distorting history. I am not a historian and I am not trying to replicate the Chautauqua series in any way. I am inspired by the spirit of the great brown tent assemblies and I hope to leverage that inspiration to create something interesting. That's all.

Please feel free to listen and check out some of these links that relate to the show:

• What was Chautauqua?
• "The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance"
• A Virtual Chautauqua
• in case you missed Storytellers...
  
• Coralville, IA

You can find some of my other writings and ramblings here:

• the iowa diaries
• the fireside
• yesterday's coffee

get the Brown Tent mp3 file here.