Imagine a man and his rented bassoon at the podium of a church, only to introduce a trio of more bassoonists from Kellogg Middle School. As three young boys play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on instruments only a few inches shorter than them, the eldest bassoonist is live-streaming the performance and the watchful audience from his Android.
That was the scene this past Saturday night at the University Temple United Methodist Church, as UW alumnus Rainn Wilson made the seventh stop on his book tour for his first memoir, “The Bassoon King.” Hosted by the University Book Store, Wilson, a Seattle native, sat down with local musician John Roderick in front of a packed audience and discussed a myriad of different topics that all returned to his new book.
After showing sincere enthusiasm for the young bassoonists from Wilson’s middle school alma mater, and a perfectly timed “that’s what she said” joke, Roderick dove straight into the creation of “The Bassoon King.” Drawing from the introduction he wrote five years ago for the book “SoulPancake,” Wilson said, “There’s an interesting story here, in and around my faith.”
The underlying tone of discovering and questioning his spirituality and his practice in the Baha’i faith is what initially inspired Wilson to write his book.
Discussions of beliefs, perfectly placed awkward pauses, and a few readings from his book made an evening with Wilson unexpectedly interesting.
Before the event started, Wilson sat down with The Daily to answer a few interesting questions.
Q: So how does it feel to be back home?
A: Well, I love it. Every time I fly into Seattle I feel kind of a peace settle over me. I love the city. I really do have so many great memories.
Q: Were there any stories you wanted to be in the book but didn’t make it?
A: I was going to publish a story about when … I had a weird thing happen with my scrotum, where one of my balls started to swell up, really big, and I had to get a ball operation. But I thought it would be a little bit … unnecessary. I had funny anecdotes about it, so some day I’ll tell the story about my big ball.
Q: You talked a lot about philosophy and some of the teachings in your high school English class. What do you think of the transition from philosophy and deeper meanings in literature to the technology we are so focused on today?
A: Well I think that technology without sincere philosophy can — and does — get us off track. Individually, and societally, and culturally, and globally, technology has run amok … I guess I would call it spiritual wisdom that is not something that is explored, and then you have what we have. We have tens of thousands of nuclear armaments; and you have people only looking at their phones all day long; and you have global warming; and you have the constant desire for profit above all else; and all of these things are going to end up biting us in the asses as species.
Q: Besides your obvious work as Dwight Schrute on “The Office,” and your production company SoulPancake, what would you say is your greatest accomplishment?
A: I think my greatest accomplishment is my marriage and my family. I first met my wife at the University of Washington in 1985, 1986, and we got together in 1990. There’s no more harder work in the world than sustaining a long-term marriage and raising a child, raising children. So, really, I think that’s my greatest accomplishment of all, far more than Dwight. Any moron with a bad haircut could play Dwight.
Reach contributing writer Sarah Andersonat development@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @sanderson794
