Dear Eugene

Dear Eugene, "Very soon you will find you don't make choices but choices make you," I texted my daughter last night. I hate myself talking this way, preaching, and not a very original sermon.  I am sure I stole the line from someone else; call it parental (re)appropriation. But that's what parents do, don't they?  They expose themselves to the hazard of glib dismissal, disdainful glance, self-disgust, the quickest and most disgraceful free fall from youthful care-less idealism to decrepit care-full disenchantment.  They can smell just as good the skunk on their back that everyone else in the room is pinching the nose for. We have ourselves a functioning nasal system too, you know. Last night I watched a movie, one that I expected myself to like--like, really like--but was disappointed.  I won't give you the name, don't want to spoil it for you.  Most people like--like, really like--it.  I will only bring up one point to say what I want to sa...

Dear Eugene, "You live with your parents, you hang with your buddies, and on Saturday nights you burn it all off at 2001 Odyssey. You're a cliché. You're nowhere, goin' no place!'' The "nice girl" tells the John Travolta character in " Saturday Night Fever ," an almost angelic, "dream girl" that is anything but cliché in the eyes of the boy.  And apparently that's also how she sees herself. When we live according to the world's prescription we are a cliché.  When we believe in the world telling us we are not a cliché we are a bigger a cliché.  As we grow older the burning sensation of such tragic irony subsides and we make peace to live and die with the contradiction.  There is no more need to single out who is what when the world is just the way it is and we'll forever be the way we are.  It is called acceptance, compromise, maturity. Learned helplessness. To not want to a live like a cliché is a testimony to...

Dear Eugene, On a day like today I walked out of the door with Sumi early in the morning and wondered if we could reach the end of the world if we find no reason to stop. Like a road movie.  Like the man who walks in the desert in " Paris, Texas ," possibly the greatest American movie ever made not by an American.  My heart is aching just now, thinking about this movie. Sometimes I think if I am to turn on a tape recorder and collect everything that has gone through my head during my long walks I could have written a book by the end of it. But ain't that true about everyone else's life?  Every life deserves its cinéma vérité treatment. What makes a story a story is that it has meaning. Even if we say the point of capturing a day in a life is to say how meaningless it all is, we are already trying to mount a meaningful narrative on the "meaningless" life and turn nihilism on its head. The "Preacher" of Ecclesiastes meant to say som...

Dear Eugene, Years ago in a residential basement where a fledgling young church was praying together for her highly anticipated take-off, an earnest young man basking in the collective enthusiasm nevertheless allowed an instance of uncynical clear-headedness to break open a little crack of imagination, seeing well into a future that sadly did eventually come to pass, a vision articulated then in these simple words: "I wonder how long this is going to last..." By this he meant peace and harmony among people, a like-mindedness all too rare even in church, not unheard of, not unexperienced either, only that the prophesy of its eventual demise always self-fulfilling, often with great efficiency and grand efficacy.  His words of simple lamentation shook me and since then in my recollection never ceased to. "Good things never last, Mr. Denham." Ann Darrow said that.  Ann is the scream-queen in the "King Kong" movie.  It doesn't take the father of En...

Dear Eugene, Have you read John Williams' " Stoner "?  Do it now if you haven't; you will love it--and I won't apologize for its inevitable rustling of your pastoral heart. No, it is not about potheads; it is more "stoned" than that.  It is one of my favorite novels, thanks to the Burnaby Public Library years ago for dusting it off and showcasing on a high shelf where it deserves.  The cover looks boring --and of course I will read it! Even now I'd take it off my shelf and read a random page from time to time.  Any page in it is a great page.  Any passage is a great passage.  It's like reading the Bible, every verse opens up a window to a much bigger view, its strength firmly anchored on the controlling, overarching narrative that has over the years worked its way to permeate this reader's imagination.  My heart would ache over a word. "Stoner" is called " The Greatest American Novel You've Never Heard of. "  ...