My dearest Julie,
Did you ever get that drawing I sent you? Pretty good, wasn't it?
A thousand light-years from here I climbed to the rim of Yasur volcano
on Tanna in Vanuatu and I peered down into its awful fire. I looked down
at my feet there was a red Coke can. I saw a postcard someone had dropped.
I picked it up. A terrific photo of some very severe ice-covered mountains.
On the other side was written But what you don't like where you are
you won't like here even more. Only this. I wish it had been sent to me.
Today they showed us the film A Scanner Darkly. Check it out.
It's about addiction and prevarication. Everybody's itch has everybody
doing it. Tell your mother it's just about photography. There in one scene
our addled heroes car has broken down on this shitty California highway.
They lift the hood. They are peering at the hot engine busy studying it doing
their best to clamor and convict a mechanical part of intentional malice.
Finally exhausting all paranoid leads one shouts Don't blame the drugs!
Which was the moment all of us had been waiting for. So we cheered.
Afterwards we discussed the million drugs. For what? The old beaters
we drove? The hunger for explanations beyond the conventional wisdom?
Hope the 12th grade is OK & you're making friends with good people.
Happy birthday.
Love,
Dad
© 2011 Rob Schackne
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