Me and the King.

Acting. I've never been in a musical. But I have twice appeared in plays. I was Edgar Allen Poe, actually a sort of M.C., in a Night of Edgar Allen Poe (or some similar title), in high school. My performance was somewhat disappointing, a crushing realization considering the very low bar in high school production. I apparently did not command enough presence to be heard.

I imagine that from the audience's perspective, the play's acts were punctuated by a morose blond roaming around the stage quietly mumbling to himself. That he, I, was actually the author of the scary texts, probably never occurred to anyone. Regardless, considering the subject matter, a depressed figure wandering around quietly raving was probably very appropriate. A sort of silent satyr chorus, the chorus as spectator and all that.

That was my second performance. My debut on the stage came much earlier, and with much more success. If my Poe performance was a brooding period in my acting career, my debut was bright and shining. I was an onion; not figuratively, but a character, "the Onion - Michael Waller", said the program. I was also 3 years old.

The King and I. But tonight, I was, and will be for a couple weeks of rehearsal, the "Interpreter" in the King and I. In fact, though I was asked to play the role on Sunday, there is a rumor that the programs were printed much earlier than Sunday. Clear as day: "The Interpreter - Michael Waller."

Tonight was the second night of rehearsal. I missed the first. They begin at the shockingly early hour of 5 or 6 p.m. I arrived, and was treated with some fanfare by the producer. It was the fanfare only given to those talentless that play bit roles as a favor to production officials.

It is an interesting position to be in, because no one actually believes that you might find the experience personally rewarding in the selfish sense. You are instead a selfless participant; as opposed to the talented, who "feel more alive" when acting. This belief is based on another assumption: that you realize your lack of talent and you are suffering through your embarrassment as a form of martyrdom, being stoned to death by silence (or courtesy laughs and applause), as a favor to the arts, i.e. the other actors, directors, etc.

As horrible as it sounds, it's somewhat liberating, as low expectations always are. But it also means that you might also be willing to embarrass yourself in other ways, like sing in the operatic chorus. And so, I may also be making my operatic debut.

But here's the confusing part: I'm in two different productions. I'm in the "Interpreter" in the King and I, and to be in the chorus of something totally different. As I was sitting in one room rehearsing some song or sitting in another waiting to say my one line, people would argue and discuss the various lines, staging, musical interpretation, etc. I quite literally had no idea what anyone was talking about. My ignorance was a perfect compliment to my general station as talentless favor-doer, and it was also a perfect foil for potentially stressful vocal parts.

But I am to do this for two weeks. My "speaking" role will be rehearsed every night. My "singing" role - just once. I could never find an appropriate moment to explain that I felt rather prepared to speak. I practice it more than any other activity besides breathing. But singing, shouldn't more time be devoted to that?

Though I remember being forced to see the King and I with my mother at some point, I can honestly say that I have no intimacy with the story. And, as a practical matter, I still have no script. (That confession elicited a resigned, though clearly compassionately intended, sigh from the Director.) Fortunately, the lines are simple, and all of the prostrating has been removed from the script, apparently due to the fact that the royal character that I serve is over a foot shorter than me, and the director honestly believed that it would be very "difficult" for me to "get all the way done to the ground and back up again."

My role is miniscule. The other participants are very talented, both in acting and voice, and with an honest and sincere engagement and identification with the story. And they are impressive. They all instantly become their roles at its slighted mention. With all that talent, it was difficult not to stare, especially since one young woman (probably in high school) was a knock-out. Of course, staring as an audience member - no problem. As a cast member - creepy.

Why am I here. I spend my work day researching variable annuities and wondering (on a purely professional level, since I do not have the money to have a personal stake in the question) whether they might be broken down into component features for the purposes of a preemption argument. On the train home, I finish a chapter on cattle grubs and their effective treatment, only to arrive in Bethesda to sing opera and pretend to speak pidgeon English as a Siamese interpreter might in the 19th century. I arrive home late to watch a Western and eat canned fish.

What does it all mean?

Today's rule: to never purchase a variable annuity.

Cow comfort

Beef cattle. I'm flirting with the idea of leaving all this for a quieter job in a quieter place on a little cattle farm. Just taking it easy with my beeves (yes, that is a word). Waiting eagerly for it to be cold enough outside to see the cows' 101.5 degree breath. There'd be an unbelievable rush of self-sufficient ruggedness the first time you witnessed that, I'm convinced of it.

Especially if you were leaning against a corral post wearing your barn jacket that'd never been washed. Turns out, you should never wash your barn jacket. The cows are more comfortable with you if it's caked in your sweat, cow urine, birthing fluids, etc.

Today's rule: attempt to cultivate friends and acquaintances that care as little about your fashion acumen as the beeves.

Dirty Cow Milk

Last weekend sent me spinning a little. And it wasn't just because Pinya, the cow I was milking, put her foot not once, not twice, but three times in the bucket of milk. No, it was sitting outside on a cool night, totally relaxed with people I barely new, sitting on a stump that had soaked in that day's warmth.

It had something to do with the fact that as I was milking the cow, my Mennonite companion and I were discussing whether theology in isolation, away from community, can be anything but a morality of practical strategies for survival. After all, nature doesn't care about your kindness, right?

We didn't come to any conclusions that would interest anyone else (we would have been very interested indeed if we had come to any conclusions), but I know the conversation was a serious and fruitful one, because at one point someone said something about reading the "fabric of the cosmos." Occassioned by a fierce nodding of the head by the other person.

Honestly, the fabric of the cosmos is serious business.

Back in the City, back on the Metro. So Nietzsche said that "the common good" is a meaningless phrase, one that hides its inherent contradiction within itself so well as to fool even the nicest philosophers that embrace it as a goal, or a workable concept. That which is common is never that good; that's why it's common. And we all strive to be uncommon. Okay, I'll accept this.

My wife heard Bishop Peter Storey speak the other day, and he said that humans were addicted to division amongst themselves, and so we've been since our origin. And so, Storey and Nietzsche agree. Okay, me too.

Nietzsche described the danger as the submission of that drive, and Peter Storey cited it as that which has created so much misery until now. That's okay, I can fit them both in. As the German one wrote: "my answer is my answer."

The fact is: I don't want to be common, but nor would I like to contribute to the self-absorbed fear of being deemed merely "common," a fear that seems to drive so much of the world's mean yen-yang of indifference and hate. Perhaps I'd like to be the humble exception, a quiet contrarian. Does that result in being merely the loyal opposition? I don't know, but in my dotage (I turned 30 a few weeks back), I'm beginning to think that I don't care about being a loud revolutionary. (Maybe that's what happens to young men who find their passion too late for that crazy curve of sanguine to self-loathing to sanguinary that marks revolutionary worldviews imagined by twenty-something-year-old males.)

In fact, I think that I care only about settling in somewhere. But when I write that, I mean something like settling into a self-built palace surrounded by the warmth of some quiet, green world of ideas, or grass and trees and earth, and love all showing my own eccentric stamp. I mean settling-in in grand style. Michael Pollan described Alice Waters's brilliantly bright, but soft and quiet food revolution as something akin to gently subversive. And you know, gently subversive, slowing...that appeals to me. I've no evidence of this, but I imagine that humans are the only animals that can make love gently. If that's true, we should really run with it...take it to its logical conclusion.

Being the gentle subversive, I think I would have a rich family history to draw from.

Turns out, I come from a family of quiet crazies, pulling and tucking their little pieces of earth into rich loamy folk art. My father built our house (with some help), stacking the logs to fit my mother's vision. She chose large canvas for her works: our home; the endless repetition of artisanal crafts, and sets and backdrops for theater productions and Mardi Gras balls. Her father literally conquered the world, coming from nothing and nowhere to education, respect (he was a elementary school principal), and eventually back to where he came from, rural land big enough for his books, garden, memories, and personality to merge into a well-crafted plan for humble living. My grandmother's father built homes, a church, and an ethics for his daughter that included charity and gentility to his darker skin neighbors (an uncommon feat in Alabama of the early 1900s). Cousin Charles, like a mad physicist with one hand in the cosmos, and another grasping the most minute quark, carves the most intricate tininess into his mandolins and guitars and then moves the earth around his humble hand-made home to create lakes, ponds, damns with a bulldozer drug from the local dump. There are many other examples. The fact is that everyone of us is drawn to the giant and the miniscule, and our place somewhere between as little creator. Not always with happiness or success, mind you. But maybe that could be my contribution.

Today's Rule: Figure out why Billy Graham was utterly and horribly wrong when he said that war doesn't create any more death. And then figure out why the crowd clapped and cheered when he said it. Crazy people.