Rob Schackne #20 - So She Like Gets This Letter

So She Like Gets This Letter From Her Dad Like 6 Months After Her Birthday


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 into its fiery stink. 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 someone had sent it to me.
Today they showed us the old 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 busy studying the hot engine busy 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 we'd all 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 and you're making friends with good people.
Happy birthday. I love you. Dad