If you don’t count job interviews, it had been a long time since I’ve auditioned for anything. (I don’t count job interviews).

In elementary school, participation in annual musical was mandatory. Maybe you were a lead, maybe you were a tree, but you were definitely there. I was many things then — among them: young, blond, full of first-born confidence — so I almost always auditioned for the lead.

I played the Frog Prince in… “The Frog Prince” (my core memory from that show was how enraged the director became when, in rehearsal, performing the all-important kiss proved too much for me and my co-star; we settled on exchanged a giant wrapped Hershey’s kiss, which we managed without giggling too hard). I portrayed Sheriff Billy Bold in “Rogue of the Railway,” a down-the-middle Western featuring a damsel tied to the railway tracks (very much distressed), the titular rogue, and an aw-shucks hero. In 7th grade, I again captured the eponymous role for “Bugsy Malone,” a Prohibition-era gangster musical (as fun and weird as it sounds — originally conceived as a feature-length film in 1976, starring a 14-year-old Jodie Foster!)

Using the metric of “amount my mom cried”, my acting peak came in kindergarten, when I was Frederick (the mouse) in a stage adaptation of the Caldecott-award-winning book of the same name. Frederick comes in for some criticism from his fellow field mice because he doesn’t gather his share of food during the spring and summer. He mainly just lazes around with his eyes closed while his friends and family are working to secure seeds and nuts. But when winter arrives, and the mice cannot remember nor imagine spring, Frederick gives them hope with his stories of warmer and more colorful times. I had a reputation then, one I’m not sure I’ve left behind, for being a bit of a daydreamer, so the role was a personality fit. I’m proud to report I can still bring Spring-Frederick energy most days.

The year after Frederick, I played a tree. The year after Sheriff Billy Bold saved the day, I played a drowning mouse in Alice in Wonderland. They had to let someone else have a chance every few years.

The careful reader will have been alert from the past-perfect tense in the first sentence to some foreshadowed recent audition. Indeed, the stakes were lower this time — mere money, rather than status — and the performance on camera rather than stage, but the rejection still smarted.

Perhaps some of that 4th-grade confidence had found its way back, because I thought myself a great choice. I was already picturing our future together when I received the “you’re not the right fit” email.

Here is one take from my audition:

I know, right?

A new addiction

Thanks to a series of unfortunate events, I am now addicted to eBay. Buying is nice, but selling… what a rush! Walking across the street to FedEx to print the shipping label, packaging the merchandise, writing a cute note with my store name to put into the envelope — I love it all.

I deal in cardboard, specifically, shiny cardboard with a picture of either man or monster printed on them. The monsters are “pocket monsters” a.k.a. Pokémon, and let’s pause a moment to appreciate what Pokemon is.

Yes, staying on theme of hearkening back to elementary school, I’m collecting cards again.

There have been some wins. I am the proud owner of cards depicting my childhood sports heroes, some of which that contain pieces of equipment that they wore in real games. I am an eBay selling in good standing with several positive reviews, including this one:

There have also been some L’s, like the time I bought a card at my local card shop for $25 dollars, and sold it on eBay for $6.50. But if that is the price of knowledge, I’ll happily pay it tenfold. One must stumble to become properly acquainted with one’s legs.¹

Things of the Month

Over the course of a month, I encounter things. From those, I select some.

Here are the some:

Book of the Month

The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories by Franz Kafka

My first time reading Kafka since high school. I actually read this a couple of months ago, but I still think about some of the stories. Perhaps the most arresting to those of use who look at a computer for our living will be “Poseidon,” in which we learn that Poseidon is swamped by paperwork.

Kafkfa was employed full-time, working various legal and insurance jobs, and therefore wrote only in his spare time.

Imagining of the Month

Song(s) of the Month

I saw Arizona, the band, not the state, at the Fox Theater in Oakland.

They were great. But they are breaking up. I listened to this song while writing this newsletter.

Quote of the Month

In the words of the drowning mouse: “Let us get to the shore, and then I'll tell you my history.”

Yours,
Ethan

1  I just made this up. Just now.