The Blog of Love

The Man and The Reptile...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:00:12 PDT

There's a fragile edge between safety and sorrow...

This blog post was spurred by recent stories in the media about alleged child abuse on young boys by their scout leader, and the subsequent organizational denial and coverups that are now coming to light.

We want to believe that our parents, our caregivers, and the adults and guardians who look after us can each be trusted; that our young children, who are among the most vulnerable and impressionable members of our society, will be safe in their care.

When reflecting on news of a murderer, a rapist, or a child molester, people often remark that the person must be some sort of monster - inhuman. Perhaps (and I do want to believe this), most people are good, caring beings who are rightly shocked by such inconceivable acts of violence - acts which they themselves are certain they could never take. The perpetrator of those shocking acts becomes seen as or cast in the role of "the other" - someone who is alien and socially cast out from the majority of society.

Our reptilian brain core, that oldest part of our brains that drives us, below reason and morality, below concepts of compassion, empathy or duty. Perhaps it is what drives us to strike for self-preservation before thinking of the other, to attack first for the sake of survival, to fight or to flee, or to kill or be killed.

The reptilian brain is supported by the old mammalian brain, which is the ancient seat of our parenting and herding instincts - the need to live in a social group, for mutual protection, nurturing, and support. Reptiles don't stick around to care for their young, we might say to ourselves with pride or satisfaction. Mammals do.

Yet in cases where human beings do violence to their children, or commit psychological or physical or sexual abuse, the so-called highest, most-evolved aspects of the mind are brought into play to serve the abuser: complex rationale, imagination, pride, logical argument or denial are all brought into service to deflect or minimize personal responsibility, to try to justify a bad act, or to control or subjugate others.

This is where self-denial, lies, deceit, and delusions are built: family politics, internal group power structures, and misplaced loyalties and shame are formed here.

Internal family roles are defined through repetitive role play. The notion of "father" lives here as the authority figure: strong, stable, benevolent, or threatening, violent, and physical. The notion of "mother" as protector, confidant, or passive, depressed, non-communicative or non-existent. Young children learn what kinds of people parents are supposed to be from what they see in the world around them. They learn what their parents actually are from everything that happens at home. Those are just my personal archetypes...

The person who protects his daughter from danger and takes care of her when she is sick, who takes her to dance or music lessons and encourages her - that person is a man, a father and a caregiver.

The person who sexually abuses his daughter and makes her keep it their little secret, even after he's long dead, that person is subhuman - a reptile.

What does the daughter do when the man and the reptile are the same person?

Of Christmas Trees Past...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:20:59 PST

The Christmas Tree is supposed to symbolize something about Christmas, but I don't remember what I read about it. A Wikipedia article says people have been decorating trees and celebrating around them during this time of year since the 15th Century. That's a long history of sweeping up pine needles. Anyway, Christmas has always brought mixed emotions for me, and the tree and the ritual of setting it up has always been a big part of that.

My earliest memory of a Christmas tree was a natural one that my mother's father (whom my sister and I lovingly called "Poppy") had set up in his living room. I was not more than five, and my sister Kim, maybe three. We were the age when we still believed in magical things, and where every shadowy closet still held the possibility of exploration.

Poppy's tree probably stood seven feet high, in a big red and green steel base. It was covered in lots of lights, shimmering tinsel and beautiful blown glass ornaments. I still remember one of those ornaments. It was a deep, dark midnight blue piece of glass, and sat cool in my hand. It was round and tapered, and almost black at the ends - an elegant and mysterious little thing that fascinated me. It seemed expensive and precious, and here it was, just hanging off Poppy's tree some delicate, stained glass piece of fruit that anyone could just pluck off the branch.

With me, my sister and my folks all there, we had more people than we had beds, so I was tucked in on the chesterfield in the living room next to Poppy's big tree. I remember laying there, looking at the reflections and shadows of the tree's lights as they played across the walls of the living room. That night, the room seemed alive with little flickers of light and trembling shadows. I had my little Alvin the Chipmunk doll in bed with me, and I hung onto Alvin, as I watched car headlights streak across the room whenever someone passed down Cook Street outside Poppy's house. That Christmas tree and that room were very special to me.

The next year, we moved out of Poppy's house, and lived in a trailer in Langley, near the transmitters of the radio station where my Dad worked. We were out of the streetlights of Victoria, and out in the bush in Langley, in the middle of 77 acres of scrub brush and dirt. That year, it was our turn to host Poppy for Christmas. Whereas with Poppy, we'd celebrated Christmas in the city, with a thick natural tree and ornaments that were possibly as old as my mother, this year, we had a brand new home, decked out in the latest of 1970s decor, and a brand new fire retardant plastic tree with a trunk that resembled a green broomstick with a hundred little holes drilled into it, and mass-produced foil garlands. Everything about that tree and it's ornamentation was modern, punched, snipped and trimmed out of steel, plastic and tin. Instead of pine, our tree smelled of plastic. We loaded it down with way too many garlands, tinsel and doodads. It was new, and it was all ours.

One Christmas, when we lived in the Mountain View Motel, Mum and Dad had a loud drunken party with some of their new best friends from up the lane. One guy, who way too drunk to walk, lost his balance and fell right into the tree, breaking the trunk of it. Dad fixed it by putting a steel hose clamp around the stick, and our little faux scotch pine lived to stand for another year.

For a couple of Christmases, when I was between the ages of 11 and 13, I remember being the only one setting up that tree. Dad would "supervise" from his armchair (i.e. watch me, have a drink, and watch TV). More often than not, Dad would fall asleep in his chair, and I'd work away on my own to get the tree finished. I remember untangling a really old string of lights, which might have been from the 40s or 50s. The cord was thick and black, and the light sockets were bakelite (a precursor to modern plastics), and much of the colour had faded or flaked off of the bulbs. Many of the bulbs had funny little tin reflectors that clattered and got stuck on each other as I tried to string them up on the tree. I wondered if these particular lights had belonged to my Dad's family. I found some home-made decorations made from egg cartons, pipe cleaners and glitter. Somebody - kids from some other family - had gone to trouble to make these little home-made ornaments, and had put them proudly on their tree at one time.

I was good at working on my own, without much supervision, and it did feel like something creative to do. In my early years, setting up the Christmas tree felt like a big deal for the family. In later years, as they got sicker and sicker, Mum and Dad just didn't seem to give a shit about it. Putting that tree up by myself for a year or two gave me a sense of responsibility, like I was keeping something going, while they laid passed out on the couch or in the armchair.

Over the next twenty years, that little fake tree outlasted many drunken evening screaming fights, happy, hopeful Christmas mornings, and paper thin, anticlimactic New Years eves. It ultimately even outlasted my Dad. I hung onto that little fake Scotch Pine and set it up many many times, and each year, it seemed to come out a little differently. Eventually, my wife and I gave it to goodwill and bought a new faux tree that looked more natural and didn't have so many sharp memories hanging off it. It can still be difficult for me to set up our Christmas tree these days, but I do really enjoy sharing the process, and not doing it on my own.

I was pleased to learn from my sister, that she still had one or two of Poppy's beautiful glass tree ornaments. I think most of the foil garlands that we bought for Dad's little scotch pine were thrown out a long time ago. They were never meant to last. Christmas tree lights and ornaments seem to survive from generation to generation, handed up and handed down, as families and friends perch and balance their love and wishes on the branches of some overburdened tree. Your tree is your family and yourself, and whatever you make of it. Some of it is good stuff that can be tucked away carefully and brought out again next year.

Abuse and sufferring run in cycles.

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:00:03 PST

If life has taught me anything, it's that abuse and family dysfunction is cyclical. Without some kind of conscious emotional intervention, it will so easily be passed on to others - a younger generation, a family member, a spouse.

It's almost like some kind of psychological virus. Someone abuses you, it affects you deep inside your core self, and (because it's too painful to confront openly) you swallow the pain and the bad lessons down deep. Over time, you can internalize them. They can become part of your psyche, practically steeped into your cells.

You get used to the way you've adapted to your early bad experiences. You tell yourself that it's "just who you are". In truth, you're changed in a fundamental way. Your experiences - all of them - affect who you become throughout your life. Nurturing, loving relationships and happy experiences teach you that you are worthy of love, so you will be more likely to give love to someone else. Negative, scary, violent experiences teach you to be afraid, to protect yourself, or to avoid taking risks.

Because you swallowed your reactions down and submerged the experience under your skin, you think they're gone. But they're not. One day, something traumatic happens, and you find yourself vividly reliving a past painful event - and you are unprepared for the emotions that arise in you. You are caught off-guard. You may even not be in control of your feelings and reactions.

Bottom line: Verbalize your traumas, bring them out (drag them out) into the light of day. See them for what they are, and have compassion for the you who was damaged. Forget about guilt, shame or self-pity. Just talk about the events, and the effects and results. Accept that you are a finite person who cannot control or resolve bad events.

Know thyself, and then the negative cycle will end with you, and a new positive cycle can begin in it's place.

"Grieve not nor speak of me with tears..."

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:18:44 PDT

We recently lost Sylvester, one of our beloved cats. He passed away on October 1st, 2011, after almost 20 years - a good, long life for a little kitty.

Losing him has been much more difficult to bear than I'd ever anticipated. I've lost both my parents, and the loss of our little cat hurts as much, but in a different way. I can honestly say that I've spent more time with him, and have been around him more often than almost anyone else in my life, except for my wife. It's the time spent doing little things around the house: every little walk to the kitchen, every trip to the bathroom, every hour at the computer: he was there with us, communicating in his own way. His was a constant, comforting presence.

The emotional connection to a pet seems more direct and less complicated than with people. There are no ego, material expectations or cultural conventions to get in the way. It just is what it is. (Or maybe it's just me.)

With each passing day, Sylvester's absence evokes a little less grief, and and a little more reflection on the basics of a happy life. He never earned a buck in his life, but I never once questioned his inherent worth. He was priceless to me.

I'm amazed at how much love his little heart seemed to generate and absorb. He gave a lot more love and companionship than one would expect from a little five pound cat. In his life, he knew about happiness, fear, hunger, pain, pride and excitement. He knew about love and loyalty, needing and being needed. He knew about feeling tired and maybe even bored sometimes. But I don't think he ever really knew about sorrow, and I'm fairly certain he had no regrets. He was happy almost every day.

In that spirit, I offer this little poem:

"Grieve not nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you. I loved you so - 'twas Heaven here beside you." - Isla Paschal Richardson.

"Just like my Mamma and Daddy Did..."

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 21:22:32 PDT

(Used without permission. With apologies to the great Paul Westerberg.)

Decided not to have any part of
Wonderful lie of (live) love
Decided not to raise any children
Just like mamama and daddy did
Just like mamama daddy did

Decided not to have any part of
Wonderful lie of (live) love
Decided not to raise some goddamned kid

Yes that was their way
No it ain't mine
Guess they did okay
At least they tried

Decided not to have any regrets
Whoa that's as good as it gets
Decided not to raise some mixed-up kid
Just like mamama daddy did
Just like...

A Scientific Explanation for Government...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:11:46 PDT

"A major research institution (MRI) has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named Governmentium.

Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming Isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass."

Finding Inspiration in Dickens: David Copperfield

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:32:26 PDT

For a few weeks now, I've been reading Dickens' classic, "David Copperfield". David and I have some things in common. At the moment, we're both looking for opportunities to use our skills and forge new paths in the world.

In my current search for jobs and interesting projects, I've been reminded of how I was back in 1991, when I was 25 and recently released from the protective shelter of my first contract at the Emily Carr College of Art (then ECCAD, and now known as Emily Carr University). The end of my contract forced to get out there, find work on my own, and make some new associations. I figured it was all on my shoulders, and didn't consider how my past and current associations might pay me forward.

The pressure was real, but the need was more than real, and I was a very determined young man. Not unlike, I think, David Copperfield.

David Copperfield: Social Networker of Victorian England.

After David finishes his schooling under Doctor Strong in Canterbury, he takes an unpaid apprenticeship as a Proctor (a kind of lawyer) in London. He sets his sights on marrying a lovely girl named Dora, and faces the prospect of needing to get money and to support himself and Dora. David possesses an intense motivation to succeed, for his own sake, for Dora, and for the sake of his Aunt Betsy Trotwood, who has recently lost all her money. David seems bold and focused in his resolve, and he describes his new mission to chopping and hacking his way through a forest of adversity, one tree at a time.

Throughout David's story (so far, since I'm still only about two-thirds of the way through), Dickens illustrates that life can be cyclical and repetitious, bringing old friends, family, adversaries and locales back into David's life, while he grows and gains perspective from his many experiences.

David makes friends, works and/or lives with them (or at least commiserates), leaves them, meets them again, and resumes his associations, out of friendship and mutual advantage. This cycle of association seems to me to be fairly organic, natural, and true to life. The character of David Copperfield is networking, socially.

Me, C. 1991: Portrait of a Hungry Young Man.

Throughout my first job (the contract at ECCAD), I was meeting other hungry young men who were looking for projects in software development, video, and graphics. I joined local graphics clubs, socialized, read, found out what local businesses were doing in software, graphics and media, and dreamed my dreams of a glorious future. I found part-time work as an instructor of evening computer graphics courses, along-side members of the local Amiga computer enthusiasts community. Some connections helped me find one part-time opportunity, another connection helped me find another opportunity, and so on and so on...

But, David Copperfield never had our Social Media...

Over the years, the friendships and professional acquaintances that I've made have come back into my life in different ways.

The relationships I made with staff at ECCAD benefited me with part-time contract work as a computer studio technical assistant. The friends I made when I was freelancing around and volunteering my skills at BNG Design Group led to TVI and the VanCity home banking development projects. TVI led to TranDirect, and a referral to Sentry Telecom, where I met friends who would bring me back to work with them again at AirPatrol Corporation.

Looking back on my career path so far, it's not hard to see the connection between the dots, and I'm grateful for each and every one of those hard-earned dots.

Getting job referrals from friends is a two-way street too. In the past 20 years, more than a few of the friends and associates I've made I have suggested for a position to my current employer. Many of these recommendations have worked out well too, bringing qualified friends back into my work and personal life to our mutual advantage.

Not unlike Mister David Copperfield, Esq.

A Day at the Vancouver Art Gallery

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:32:42 PDT

Yesterday, VanCity Credit Union provided free admission to the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) to its card-carrying credit union members.
(Admission being pretty expensive for me right now, I was happy to take them up on this opportunity.)

What a great series of exhibits!

We: Vancouver: 12 Manifestos for the City

This exhibit, located on the ground floor, presents projects that demonstrate a wide variety of visions for how Vancouver can be improved and enhanced. Manifesto statements cover the walls (and parts of the floor) to introduce the theme and goal of each project. It's a diverse group, encompassing graphic design, green architecture and urban planning, innovations in education, and film and photography that documents the history of Vancouver's struggles with homelessness, land development and corporate social responsibility.

The two pieces that stand out in my mind are:

A display of photos that show the history and diversity of that ubiquitous housing design known as "The Vancouver Special"
Film and photo-documentation of the Habitat '76 Project. (I remember having one of those Habitat buttons when I was a kid. I never knew what it was all about...)

Ken Lum

Most famous recently for his "Monument to East Vancouver" (look at the corner of Clark and Great Northern Way), Ken Lum has been active locally for many years. He has a strong interest in the relationship between words and images in public spaces (i.e. advertising and public signage) and uses that as a basis for ironic, poignant and often funny social commentary.

I think my favourite section was his business signs which had messages using those sliding clear plastic letters you'd see outside of gas stations. He'd show a flashy colourful sign promoting an all-Canadian business like "Akbar's All-Canadian Maple Leaf Clothing Store", and on the board next to it, in those sliding letters, Akbar will have left this message: "Going out of Business. Drop Dead Canada". Tragic, unreal (i.e. contrived, I'm sure), and funny as hell.

The biggest piece in his show was his maze. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to go in. Something about being in a maze or a hall of mirrors gave me the willies that day. Brr! I just couldn't do it. This became awkward when the security guard noticed my turning back from the entrance and began to encourage me ("C'mon! Go in! Go!") Well-intentioned, but kind of awkward

Walking and Falling:

A fascinating combination of artists who explore concepts of time, existence, motion and sequence, through key technologies from different eras of the past 100+ years:

The classic human and animal motion study photography by Eadweard Myubridge
Jim Campbell's haunting and mysteriously engaging LED displays
Chris Marker's hypnotic 1960s black and white film, "La Jetee"

Walking and Falling made me feel like an anthropologist from another planet, regarding and analyzing human motion, motives and interaction as if for the first time.

All of these exhibits seem to share themes of change and transformation: people and a city and its people in motion, and reacting to their environment.

TRIUMF and Physics as a household belief system...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:32:07 PST

My father was an Electronics Technician in the RF group at TRIUMF from 1976 to 1983. His time there was a source of personal and family pride.

When I was a kid, our family went on a couple of tours there with my Dad. When I asked my Dad what he did at work that day, he'd talk about mesons and beamlines, and the Ion Stream Injection System, or being in something called "The Tank".

I didn't understand much of it, but the concepts that I did understand absolutely fascinated me: the scale of things, the smallness of the particles, the speeds of transmission (0.75 the speed of light!), and the worldwide efforts and experiments involved.

When Dad talked about these things, it was like physics suddenly became a dominant belief system in our household, full of questions and answers and the kind of mysteries that excited me in much the same way that I imagine people used to be excited when contemplating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

I went back and toured there with my wife a few years ago, and must admit that my feelings of wonder came back again the same as it did when I was eleven.

See Also:
TRIUMF (The Art and Science of Particle Physics) by Dr. Ron Burnett, ECUAD.

True Life: A Reader Reaches Out

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 10:40:42 PST

A few weeks ago, I received a touching email from someone who had found my "True Life" memoir web project (http://truelife.ejohnlove.com). This person's words really touched me...

In essence, the reader wanted to let me know that the themes and experiences they read about in True Life echoed their own life experiences: parental alcoholism and depression, and personally having to take on a lot of responsibility for the family as a result.

They told me that they had spent a great deal of time feeling like they were alone in their feelings, and that it was a comfort and an inspiration to encounter someone else who'd been through similar experiences.

Back in 1998, I began my True Life web memoir as a way to organize and purge my personal experiences in a format that I could control and continue to develop on an adhoc basis, for as long as it took.

I wish my new reader all the best in their future, and I have encouraged them to write their experiences as well.

Over the years, I've only received a few messages from readers of True Life, but this person's message meant a lot to me, and made me feel like the act of writing and sharing must automatically have an element of compassion in it - it's not just a selfish activity - it's a sharing, connecting activity.

A Buzzing in the Brain: Meditations on Winter, Parents and the Christmas Season

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:05:07 PST

The wind outside has a nasty cold bite to it, but the air inside the restaurant is still, warm, stifling from the heat of all the bodies that have found their way inside. Greeted by the girl with the genuine smile. How can someone smile all day long? Maybe you gotta really believe it. Don't think about so much shit. Just be pleasant in your mind.

Maybe she's twenty five, looking young, plump and healthy. Not a bad sign. Customers all look well fed too. Maybe they come here all the time, or at least more often than us. Same booth as last week. Oh look - same server as last time too. May as well order what I enjoyed last time too. Pot roast, mashed potatoes and veggies. Gravy on the side. On a diet, doncha know. This is me being healthy. Good boy.

When it finally comes, the smell of the beef makes my mind wander. We always ate roast beef on Sundays at my mother's father's house. "Poppy's House". It's the taste of family, every time. I'm a lucky man to have a beloved to share my beef with.

Roast beef brings on Poppy, which brings on his daughter, my Mum, Angela. I feel the meat stretch and mash between my teeth, and taste the juices. Hot, tangy, like life blood from whatever animal it used to be. Unlucky it. Lucky me.

Lame Christmas music comes over the restaurant's speakers. Who scat sings "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"? I miss Robert Goulet. Who are they and where do they find this shit? Somebody went music shopping in the bargain bin at Walmart for these winning tunes.

I'm lucky to be eating a hot meal inside a warm, dry place. This time of year, lots of people don't have that. It's getting closer to Christmas.

What was Christmas dinner like for my Mum in her last few years? Even without her teeth in, I bet Mum would have gnawed her way through a tender piece of beef and some yorkshire pudding. A skin and bones woman with short-cropped white hair, rocks alone in her chair. Line of juice running down her chin and into a bib around her neck. If Mum had beef, I bet she'd eat with the rapid enthusiasm and abandon of a little kid.

It's so easy to worry about the future and fret over the past. Was it like that for Mum? People from different families, sitting on the ward next to her, all in their own chairs, and not talking to each other. Everyone's got their physical and mental problems. Some more than others. Not many visitors in the hospital talking to them. Maybe Mum was lonely, if she could remember it. Or maybe she was lucky, and couldn't remember any happy times, so she wouldn't miss them. No memories of having babies a million years ago. Nothing about living in a townhouse, watching TV, or missing her parents. No sitting home alone drinking, being sad and lonely.

Maybe, if she were lucky (and by God she deserved some luck), all she'd remember tied into her little hospital chair was how good that last bite of beef tasted. Nice bite of tasty, juicy meat. Warm air inside the ward. Some weak but vaguely reassuring music on the speaker. Peaceful. Life, just one bite at a time.

A Bus Ticket at the Airport?

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 23:00:42 PDT

When I graduated from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design (ECCAD) in 1989, one voice in the faculty stood out: Bob Evermon. In an impassioned letter to the graduating class and college (which I cannot completely recall), he likened the Diplomas we would receive to getting "a bus ticket at the airport". His point, I believe, was that the college should be a degree-granting institution. I have always wondered if getting a Bachelors of Fine Arts would have helped to further my career.

During my four years at ECCAD, my studies progressed from Foundation through a series of computer graphics, drawing, art history and multimedia courses. Of particular note was an amazing, inspiring all-day Senior Multimedia Studio taught by Gary Lee Nova and Michael Agrios, which combined a morning theory session with an afternoon practical session. I learned a lot about the development and impact of modern media on culture, and got a lot of hands-on experience with consumer-grade audio and video equipment and production techniques.We were just on the verge of the convergence of the Computer, Print, and Broadcast media, and it is incredible to see how far that integration has progressed, affecting whole swaths of culture and lifestyle.

By my final year, I was taking a number of self-study blocks, which meant that I had to define my own project for the semester and pursue it under the guidance of a consulting instructor. I used those sessions to develop ideas for an interactive slide show of computer graphics and an electronic sculpture idea. I read obsessively about art, science and technology, especially cybernetics and AI. I taught myself how to use a breadboard to prototype little circuits, how to solder (badly) and how to program in BASIC. I made many trips up Fourth Avenue to RP Electronics that year, and felt a huge amount of gratification from running my own creative projects on my own terms and schedule. (Instructor and electronics artist Dennis Vance was a huge inspiration to me during those projects.)

I'd be lying if I said that I had any idea back then what I'd be doing with my career in the long term, but with the collaboration and help of some classmates (especially the always-brilliant Martin Hunt) my grad projects were completed and shown successfully. Impermanence is part of life. After the 1989 Grad Show was completed, I documented the pieces and dismantled them. Their purpose was served.

Now, over twenty years after graduation, I've managed to keep my career alive as a commercial artist in the IT sector, working for a succession of small-to-mid-sized companies. Most often, I've succeeded by creating a role for myself as an "everything art guy" or an all-round digital and print designer.

I'm still interested in technology, but I find that I don't often get the opportunity to create anything that interests me, or of which I can feel particularly excited. In the first 10 years of my career, every brochure and business card design, website layout or programming challenge seemed unique and exciting to me. Between 1992 and 2002, I got to flex my graphic skills, create animations, or help to tell a story using words and pictures. The design mojo had started to develop in me in art school, but the actual design technology skills and production experience came face-first, on the job.

I think I have always been happiest if I had one project that I could control from beginning to end - a pet project. These opportunities seem to be few and far between, and getting fewer all the time. But, every employer's needs are different, and it's unrealistic to expect a commercial design position to afford too many opportunities for personal expression or even personal satisfaction.

There's always been a little voice in the back of my mind asking things like "Is my Do It Yourself career a good enough path for me? Would I be happier if I pursued formal training - maybe got some credentials in design or multimedia or something? What about teaching? The few times I've worked as an instructor, I've always loved it. What about that?"

Did I get a bus ticket at the airport after all? Maybe it's a good time to ask if I need a transfer...

Of Diet and Destiny.

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 15:43:47 PDT

A couple of weeks ago, my MD diagnosed me as pre-diabetic. This was a bit of a shock to me, I must admit. However, in the spectrum of disease and mortality, on the scale of news that you don't want to hear from your doctor, it's pretty damn good news.

In recent months, my wife and I had talked about Type 2 ("Adult Onset") Diabetes, and I'd even tested my blood sugar once using her little pin-pricker-tester doodad. By learning about my wife's diabetes, I realized that it is a manageable condition, and not that scary once you do your homework and develop some changes to your lifestyle.

At 5 foot 9 inches, I weighed as much as 214 pounds a couple of years ago. I cannot remember exactly when my weight increased above 200, but I'm sure that I wasn't thrilled about it. Hitting 214 was, for me, a weight record and emotionally, something of a low point.

Although he was well over 6 feet tall, my father had been between 220 and 240 pounds and at least 44 inches around the waist when he had a heart attack at the ago of 62. He survived six more years after that, but at a huge cost: five strokes, an epileptic reaction to alcohol, and a plate and pin in his hip from a bad fall in a hospital shower. He was a life-long smoker and drinker and not health conscious in the least. Born in 1921, perhaps Dad was a product of his times. Emotionally and physically, he had not taken care of himself for years and years, and he ended up suffering serious consequences because of it.

I'm using my Dad as an example, but not in any spirit of disrespect. I have a vague memory of him telling me not to repeat his and my mother's mistakes in life. Memories become blurred and distorted over time, and it may well be that he never actually said this to me at all, but by reflecting on my parent's living examples, not following them has absolutely the most important advice that I've ever taken to heart. Dad passed on in 1989, and Mum died in 1995, and not a day goes by that one or both of them are not in mind. I have used the examples of their lives as motivation to pursue my goals with enthusiasm, to improve myself intellectually, artistically and emotionally, and to listen to myself and to others with attention and compassion.

I suspect that a good deal of my Dad's lack of interest in his health was related to him not wanting to get bad news from the Doctor. I'm sure that Dad didn't feel that great much of the time, struggling with lack of sleep, few close friends, no emotional support network, a poor diet, and loads of stress and accumulated guilt and sadness.

My Dad was from the "don't air our dirty laundry in public" school, which is fine if (A) it's possible, and if (B) you have a plan in place to actually deal with your private problems on your own. However, the main thing I learned from being raised with that outlook is to avoid bad news and wait for things to get better on their own. Serious changes sucked then, and they still do. This is a common reaction to events that seem to be too much to deal with - that seem to be outside of your control.

In physical terms, at 214 pounds, I saw myself beginning to resemble my late Dad. Although I had quit smoking at 18, and don't drink too much (haven't been tipsy or buzzed more more than a few times in the past 20 years), my gradual weight gain and a few bouts with lower back problems had begun to frustrate and worry me.

A few years ago, as a Christmas gift, my wife gave me a few free hours with her personal trainer. It has turned out to be one of the best things that anyone has ever done for me. I have kept going to this trainer, appreciated her advice and support, and have gradually developed a healthy attitude towards exercise. I've found ways to integrate low-fat, healthy eating choices and over 40 minutes of brisk walking into my daily routine. However, until recently, I never really paid attention to how much I favoured carbohydrates and "sweet" foods, and how bad my after-meal crashes were becoming.

In the past couple of weeks since my pre-diabetic diagnosis, my outlook has transformed from disappointment and worry into a feeling of hope and enthusiasm. This experience is giving me the boot in the ass that I needed to start making more significant positive changes to my diet and lifestyle, and to encourage me to step up my exercise regime to another level.

I'm fortunate that I was informed early on, and that I can look forward to learning more, and hence, gaining more control over my health.

A Lovely Home, on the Sea...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:23:02 PDT

Today, my wife and I checked out Open Houses in Vancouver's lovely (and busy) Coal Harbour. We weren't in some $400K high-rise condo though (although there are a lot of those to be found - we were down at sea level, looking at detached homes for under $200K. Real detached. In fact, they barely touch the earth. They were floating homes, or sea homes, moored down at the Coal Harbour Marina.

Living in a sea home has been a dream that's been growing in our minds for a couple of months now. It's not for everyone: you must buy the home, and then pay yearly moorage, kind of like living in a trailer park. In the Coal Harbour neighbourhood, I bet moorage runs in the neighbourhood of $900/month, which is enough to make most people run for the moorage-free hills. It amounts to almost paying two mortgage fees, so if you can't float that, you're sunk for sure.

There's definitely a novelty, "gee-whiz" factor (if you'll permit me to talk like I'm from the 50s) to living in a house that floats. Back in the 80s, when I worked as a pedi-cab driver and studied art down on Granville Island, I looked at the floating homes all the time. It seemed like a pretty sweet life if you could swing the money part: $350-$500K for the home, plus whatever the Canada Mortgage and Housing Commission decided was a fair moorage rate. Still, bobbing around on the water, watching all the ships, sea birds and an occasional seal go by, and walking 5 minutes to the local shops to stock up on goods.

Local Futurist and columnist, Frank Ogden (aka "Dr, Tomorrow"), lives in a funky sea home, that resembles the nose of a submerged 737. Sailboats and Yachts are coming and going alkl the time, so the neighbourhood is varied, to say the least.

Today, we did a tour of three extremely cozy sea homes in Coal Harbour: "Cumberland", "The Caribou" and "Sweet Pea", all seemingly built from old fishing vessels or something, and quite charming in their own way. Check them out here:
http://www.vancouveruniquehomes.com/FloatHomes.ubr

("The Caribou" reminds me of the kind of sweet, oddball place that Popeye the Sailor might retire to. It also has the largest deck of the three we saw, located on it's roof. Overall, it's a bit too small for us, but still just as charming as hell...)

In addition to Coal Harbour and False Creek, there are a few Marinas that have floating communities: Mosquito Creek, just west of Lonsdale Key on the North Shore, and there are others in Richmond, Fort Langley, and in Ladner, near the Reifel Bird Sanctuary. There's also Fisherman's Wharf Marina in Victoria, BC. Here are listings of sea homes in these other locations, most of which are a bit less expensive than Coal Harbour: http://www.floatinghomes.com/classified.htm

We're city mice who require lots of shops or at least one 7-11 and two coffee joints within walking distance of our humble abode. Victoria appeals to me very much, but North Van seems the most likely for us, Our cunning plan is to pay off our current condo mortgage over the next 10 years or so, sell it for a nice profit, and buy a sea home all-in, and then use profits from the sale to cover the first year's moorage fees, etc.

It's not a cheap prospect, but I think we can do it. Oh - what a lovely dream...

Memories of Rocking GM Place, Tibetan style...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:36:37 PDT

This is kind of an update to an ancient post I made back in 2006.

On Sunday, July 11, 2010, my wife and I attended a Tibetan Fundraiser at the Van Dusen Gardens. There was a silent auction, Tibetan food, lots of jewelry and CDs on sale, and the place was place was jammed with people. Coloured flags inscribed with little messages hung from the ceiling and everywhere, and even though we were shoulder-to-shoulder, standing room only, in over 30 degrees of heat, there were a lot of smiles to be seen.

In the main meeting area, there was a stage, and on it, a variety of live performances of music and singing, mostly children or young people who appeared to be teens and pre-teens singing folk music. We watched two monks playing those looooooooooong Tibetan horns, which was pretty neat.

But, for me, the day was made by this one boy playing his three-stringed Tibetan guitar. He twanged away on his guitar-thingie in time with the beat of the song, and in time with the little boy who was enthusiastically singing the melody. Then, in a space between verses, there came a guitar solo, and something about his playing seemed familiar to me. The kid began rocking out on his Tibetan folk tune: I watched him lean way back on his hips like Jimmy Page, with the body of his instrument way down below his hips, and the neck pointed up high. There was a familiar and distinct air of confidence in his posture. He was rocking out, Tibetan style, and having a great time!

After a moment, I became convinced that I'd seen this kid play before. I am sure I saw him at GM Place, playing the same way when the Dalai Lama came to Vancouver in 2006. And boy - that time, he was on the big screen in front of tens of thousands of people, and his Jimmy Page posture really caught the attention of the crowd.

He rocked GM Place with his three-stringed Tibetan guitar solo. Right on kid.

http://ejohnlove.blogspot.com/2006/09/dalai-lama-dialogues-in-vancouver.html

A Visit to Klahowya Village in Stanley Park

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:14:24 PDT

Today, we went to Klahowya Village in Stanley Park. In place only until September 2010, this aboriginal-themed attraction is set around the Stanley Park Locomotive and the Children's Petting Zoo.

After walking along the quiet path that took us around the perimeter of the miniature train tracks - which amounted to a peaceful stroll under the leaves, looking at native symbols and carvings that had been placed among the trees - my wife and I settled down and sat in front of a small pine stage that had been built over top of a little pond, and looked freshly-cut.

Two native women sitting to my right were chatting away, getting to know each other. The one right next to me said that she was from Alert Bay and her daughter would be dancing in the group that would be on next. Soon enough, the dancing troupe was introduced by the our host, who was a Hereditary Chief of the First Nations up in Alert Bay, BC. The mother next to me was very proud of her daughter, saying how she danced all the time with a few different groups, and that she's always traveling with one group of the other.

The other woman asked where Alert Bay was, and what it was like. The mother described to her seat-mate how she'd spent a long time in the residential school up in Alert Bay, starting as a child in 1964. She said her Dad had been in the residential school too, and that it was school in the Military style. She said that you weren't supposed to be Native back in those days. School tended to end at about Grade 8, and those who continued on with their education "wouldn't be considered Indians anymore - they'd be like white".

The Hereditary Chief up on the stage said that between 1885 and the 1990s, the Federal Government of Canada mandated the Indian Act - the residential school system - and that this legislation had caused so much pain and suffering for Aboriginals. (I read later that the last residential schools, located in Saskatchewan, was closed in 1996.) The Chief said that the Government of Canada didn't realize the damage they were doing - the pain they were causing - and he went on to say how fortunate he felt to be able to demonstrate traditional dances and songs which had been passed down to him from his father to people of all races, who came from all over the place. He said he was proud to promote his culture. He said that just a few days earlier, we had celebrated Canada Day, and as he looked out at all the different colours of faces in the crowd, we should each be proud of our own unique culture. He said that when he traveled with his troupe, he was always proud to say he was First Nations and a Canadian.

After the performance was over, we clapped and said goodbye in the word that the Chief had taught us. As we walked off, he was teaching a young boy how to use a native drum. I heard his laughter halfway out to the parking lot.

Mum's Birthday, 2010: Connecting the dots between my Parents and Groucho...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:17:25 PST

Every year, on the anniversary of my Mother's birth, I post a little something about her on my blog. This year, I missed it. Her birthday comes a day or two before Father's Day this year - a chance to remember my Dad. I missed that too.

So now I'm taking time to raise a glass (a Grande Americano, really) to each of my parents, and spend some time reflecting on their personalities.

Angela Huntley Love (nee Clarke) was a complicated woman: a talented musician and singer, an amateur actor (Victoria Gilbert and Sullivan Society), and generally full of lively talents both realized and unrealized. Angela could be loud, boisterous and manic (literally), or quiet, withdrawn and depressed. Each of us has our polar extremes of behaviour, but her poles were a bit farther apart than most people.

Angela would sometimes doodle this little cartoon bird for fun. It looked kind of like a crane, with a round head, large pointed beak and long flowing neck. He always had glasses and smoked a big fat cigar. It was obviously inspired by Groucho Marx. Even as a little kid, I could recognize Groucho's face, even if I didn't know his name.

The maiden name of Angela's Mother, Edna Ursula Marks, might phonetically have spurred in her an affinity for Groucho too. I can only guess. Angela was also a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, as was the famous Mr. Marx.

So nowadays, while I'm re-reading Steven Kanfer's excellent biography of Groucho, I'm hearing little refrains from Gilbert and Sullivan, and thinking of Angela.

My Dad, James Evan Love, loved Groucho's speed and wit. Intelligence, and a fast mouth with which to use it, equated to a form of strength or power - something to be admired. Groucho was the comic rebel of my parent's generation.

Dad used to love to paraphrase Groucho, saying "I'd never belong to any club that would have me as a member." True to his word, Dad belonged to no clubs.

Well, maybe both of them were members of The Lonely Hearts Club.

Hello, I must be going.

I love you Mum and Dad.

Here's to you both...

Owe Nothing: Taking Book Marketing to the next level...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:05:38 PST

Ah, Spring. A time for growth, renewal, and positive change. And spring cleaning.

My personal web presence at www.ejohnlove.com has been in play since 1998, and has been the home of a variety of online personal shrines and pet projects, not the least of these is "True Life", my personal family memoirs project.

Creating Characters, and a world...

In 2002, during a particularly bleak period of unemployment, I reacted to my frustration and lack of control with an old, familiar escapist reaction: I began developing a habit of writing fiction. Scribbling in my notebook on the edge of my bed in the late and early morning hours, I created a cast of characters and a world for them, through which I could tell stories that spoke about the events and values of my personal life. I created a mythical family and others, composites based on real people. Jack Owen and his family, friends, his motel home, and his fictionalized Vancouver-Kingsway neighbourhood resulted from this. After 7 years, countless Starbucks runs, and seemingly endless, paragraph-by-paragraph writing and editing sessions, my first novel, Owe Nothing, finally came into being in April 2009.

September through October of 2002 had been an incredibly productive time for me. Not only was that when I began writing the first scenes of Owe Nothing, but it was then that I developed ideas for many of the characters who appear in the book, and also when further ideas for related stories were roughed out in my notebook.

My second novel, The Two Sisters (currently in progress towards a first draft), was sketched out in 2002, and not long after Owe Nothing launched online with Trafford, I revisited my notes for Two Sisters and started trying to flesh them out into a full-length sequel.

It was around this time that I realized that I might actually have a second novel in me, and maybe even a third one after that. I realized that this fiction writing thing was starting to become a major preoccupation, and maybe I should think about evolving it into a minor occupation.

Taking my book marketing to a new level...

In the first year since publication, I've confined my marketing and sales efforts to anything I can do online, particularly on some sort of semi-automatic basis. A Facebook page, AdWords ads, Twitter, promoting and linking my old fiction page (http://fiction.ejohnlove.com) in directories, blogs and message boards all over the web - I tried a number of tactics. While these may have helped somewhat to get me some web visitors, none of it seems to have resulted in any sales - if Trafford's records are to be believed, anyway.

I began to feel as if I were flailing around ineffectually, so I decided to find myself some good advice. Nowadays I'm taking counsel from a book marketing pro, and thinking about the future of Jack Owen, the character, and of E. John Love, his official biographer. It's time to move Jack and the "Owe Nothing Universe" off of my personal hobby site, and develop a separate new web presence - one that gives Owe Nothing and any related stories the focuses they need and deserve.

It's time...

Meditatng on Personal Freedom...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:52:00 PST

In recent weeks, I've been researching mental health - manic depression (now called bipolar disorder). In my second novel, The Two Sisters, one character (one of the Sisters) has struggled with manic depression most of her life, and has been in and out of hospitals and halfway houses over the years. Her name is Rose, and by the time her nephew (and the novel's main character) Jack Owen meets her, she is a long-term resident of British Columbia's provincial mental health hospital.

Rose is based, to some degree, on my experiences with my mother, Angela Huntley Love (nee Clarke), who struggled with manic depression, depression, and alcoholism continually through her life. Mum seemed to always be somewhere in the middle of extremes of behaviour: happy, laughing, loving and normal sometimes, and loud, loopy, drunken or depressed at other times. As a kid, it was difficult to know who she was, or how to feel around her.

My Mum was an enigma to me. I can honestly say that I cannot remember having more than one or two actual conversations with her in the 12 years she lived with me. Perhaps it is unfair of me to think that way. Kids' perceptions are often very subjective and skewed. I wish I could have known the lovely, charming and talented musical performer that Mum's friends and family got to know. Anyway, water under the bridge...

After bouncing in and out of a few private hospitals over the course of a year or two, Mum finally landed in the Burnaby Psychiatric Centre on Wilingdon Avenue in Burnaby. Dad explained that this facility was essentially a "holding pen" for patients who were bound for Riverview.

Riverview. That name was a caution to me back then, something to be feared. Dad used to warn Mum: "Angela - behave yourself, or you'll end up in Riverview!" I never took this to be an idle threat. Dad's voice conveyed the worry and stress that told me that Riverview Hospital was not a good place to go. It also sounded like the kind of place that you didn't come back from. These are the kinds of words that form stereotypes which tend to stick with you. And they did.

Mum was admitted to Riverview in 1980. Our first few visits with her were extremely difficult. Looking back, now that I'm almost the same age that Mum was when she was admitted there. However sick and brain damaged she might have been, she was aware of what was happening to her, and she was scared to be left alone in that place. Once or twice, we had to leave her while she was crying and calling for us to take her home again. It was absolutely brutal, and I'll never forget her scared cries and her desperate face, pushed up into the little window in the centre of the ward door. It's an awful moment that haunts me to this day.

Back in 1977, not too long after her father Ernest died, Mum went into a prolonged depression. She rarely rose from her bed or the couch, except to eat, drink, or vomit. Initially, she stopped eating meat, and eventually, she stopped eating altogether, and did nothing but sleep. We lived with this for a long time, and it was rarely ever acknowledged.

Finally, one day, my little sister Kim couldn't wake Mum up (a moment that traumatized Kim for years). Kim's frantic protests got Dad to call the Doctor. Dad didn't want to deal with the reality of Mum's situation either. My few happy memories of my Mother are all I have, and my little sister has no personal memories at all.

Mum's liver had quit, and if she had been at home for 24 hours longer, she'd have surely died. As it was, she'd suffered permanent brain damage and a fair amount of recent memory loss.

Mum went through a full transfusion at Burnaby General Hospital, and after she had detoxed and was able to see us again, I noticed how much her personality had changed. Her personality was almost like a clean slate. She was much more direct and basic in her needs, and she never ever brought up the past anymore, the way some people do (raising old issues, or chuckling over shared memories). The person she had been was changed forever, and now, it was almost like we had a new, different Angela to get to know.

Mum didn't seem to have any concept of how her own actions or inactions might have put her in that situation, and she didn't seem to get that she'd never be able to live alone or independently again. How could we leave her alone in the house during the day? She never blamed anyone else though. There was no bitterness directed at her situation or towards anyone in particular either. She just wanted to come home. She cried for it.

The character of Rose is a bit like Angela, and shares an event which happened to Angela. In "The Two Sisters", Rose's meds are adjusted on the advice of a new Doctor, and she changes from her regular quiet, almost vegetative state, and becomes much more lively. During this time, Rose has slight episodes of mania, but otherwise seems quite normal. It's during this "awakening" that Jack is able to ask her some questions about her past, and about his late mother Barbara, who was Rose's cousin.

Jack's Aunt Rose becomes something of a surrogate mother figure for him, and has her own brand of road-worn wisdom and street smarts to impart. After a week or two, Rose has a particularly bad manic episode, complete with hallucinations and violence. Reluctantly, her Doctor is convinced by his peers to reinstate Rose's original drug regime, which returns her to her passive, non-communicative state. Jack feels as if he has lost Rose, but continues to visit her periodically, providing her with some companionship and care in his own way.

Rose's "Awakening" episode is based on my Mother's similar experience. Around 1991, late one evening, when I was thinking of going to visit her, I got a phone call from a Riverview Nurse, telling me that my mother wanted to talk to me. This had never happened before, and I listened with a pounding heart as this slightly excited, frantic-sounding voice greeted me. I spoke to her for a few minutes, and told her how nice it was to hear her voice, told her I loved her, and that I'd see her as soon as I could. Then, after we hung up, I immediately called my Sister and we laughed, cried, and were generally amazed.

However, when I went up to see her, she'd already been put back on her old regime of meds, so that phone call is the only window I got into who my Mother might have become. I just never got there in time, and that phone call feels like the last true contact with my Mum, even though I continued to visit her in person on and off over the next four years.

I decided that Jack deserved a few weeks' worth of that wonderful awakening so that he could get to know the real Rose.

I don't believe in Ghosts, yet they keep coming back...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:05:54 PST

This morning, I was given a nice little snapshot of my Mum and Dad from the days beofre I was born, back in the sixties, when they had a house in Saskatoon.

A relative of mine - a lovely lady named Bonnie - phoned to ask me for the addresses of other family members so that she could update her family tree project. Of course I said I'd be happy to help. (It turns out that we've both been updating family trees using the same source material: a family tree that had been begun back in the 1960s by one of my Dad's cousins.)

Bonnie told me that she'd last talked to my Dad back when he and my Mother were living in Saskatoon, in the sixties. (This would have been before 1966, when I was born.) Bonnie recalled hearing my Mother playing piano in the background, which is a nice image to be reminded of. I always feel grateful whenever some family member or friend mentions my Mother, like a gift of recognition has been given to me personally. She has been such an enigma to me for so many years.

Bonnie also remarked that my Dad possessed a photographic memory, which doesn't surprise me much, given his ability to recall details and specific events in his past.

My folks have been dead for quite a few years now: Dad since 1989, and Mum since 1995, yet it takes to little to stir them up in my mind. I must be carrying them around in my hip pocket (or somewhere closer to my heart, I suppose).

Words are so powerful. Thanks Bonnie for yours, which evoked the ghosts of my Mum and Dad so strongly for me today.

Owe Nothing: Two Reviewer's voices help me to listen to my own...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:38:18 PDT

In January, I entered an excerpt from my novel, Owe Nothing, in the 2010 ABNA Amazon Fiction Contest. I held no expectations of success - at least that's what I told myself going in. There were 5,000 entries along with me, in the General Fiction category - to me, it seemed like a big field.

In March, I learned that Owe Nothing had succeeded to the next round, along with 999 other contestants. I couldn't pretend that I wasn't happy about that!

The underlying question motivating me to enter a contest like this must have been " How good is my book, really?" I spent years writing it, paragraph by paragraph, with little to no outside input as the first draft came together.

I finally started getting feedback in April 2008, after Owe Nothing was finally published. I would never disparage the opinions of the readers who've been kind enough to offer me their feedback on it. They went cover to cover, as far as I can tell, and seemed to enjoy the story, and I appreciate that. Most of the feedback I've received has been enthusiastic and positive, and I must say, gratifying or even comforting. But, my eyes are open - Steinbeck, I ain't. I tell myself that I can see myself clearly, and that I'm a relative babe in the woods in the world of fiction.

All the same, I was a bit disappointed to learn in March that I'd not advanced to the next round in the ABNA contest. 500 writers advanced, and I was not among them. I shrugged this off, swallowing a tiny dose of disappointment.

To set the scene for the reviewer's comments, the excerpt I submitted was from the second or third chapter, where the main character, Jack, and his pal, Parm, have been called into their boss's office at the Paradise Car Wash. Their boss, Bill, wants to recruit them into a covert group of evening vigilantes called "The Insiders", who are engaged in spying and courier operations all over greater Vancouver. Parm and Jack are not convinced by Bill's offer, so Bill plays them a recording from a man called "Ed", who explains their mission in idealistic, somewhat moralistic terms that resonate with Jack more than Parm.

After this, Bill takes them out to his storage shed behind the car wash and shows them the bullet-riddled car that belonged to the last operative - a man who'd recently left his employ very abruptly. Bill might have been trying to discourage them with this evidence.

Later, away from Bill's office, Jack and Parm have a long discussion about the risks and benefits of joining the Insiders, and the possible motives of their handlers.

A few days after learning that I'd been eliminated from the ABNA competition, I received an email from the contest advising me that there were reviews written about my submission. I was curious to know what the judges or reviewers of the ABNA contests thought, so I went online to read them. Having been written by 'Professional Reviewers', I knew Iwould give their feedback some weight. Plus, I was waaaay curious to read what they had to say.

The first review from ABNA said that the "dialogue between the two individuals trying to figure out whether to take the vague offer to do the angel's work " was the strongest aspect of the piece, and that the weakest was "the recorded voice giving directions and reassuring the operatives that they're doing good", which was considered to be "very reminiscent of the TV show Charlie's Angels". This reviewer felt that Owe Nothing was "good, well-written" and "creates some tension, but I'm not quite sure where it is going at this point".

The second review from ABNA said that the excerpt "has trite dialogue with phony dialect and inflection", and felt that the story was unoriginal, too focused on the inner monologue of one character, and too derivative of "tough guy, private eye fiction".

The reviewer that gave the more positive review seemed curious about how the story would progress. The other reviewer was turned off, and not interested in reading the rest of the story.

Now, some personal admissions of my own:

I have steeped myself in old-school "tough guy, private eye fiction" over the years, particularly the now dated, but undeniable masters of the genre, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
Contemporary writers like Brad Smith and Elmore Leonard have also been influential.
To a certain degree, I have consciously set out to write like them. Perhaps that's just a symptom of a novice in a beloved genre. It's fair to ask myself if this emulation serves the story or just serves my own personal enjoyment.
I do indeed write to amuse myself, first and foremost.

I must also admit that after I wrote that scene in Bill's office, I did chuckle at the similarity to "Charlie's Angels". Looking back, maybe this was a kind of vague parody - a tongue-in-cheek homage to aspects of low-brow TV detective fiction that could have subliminally influenced me.

I'm fairly philosophical about this kind of feedback. Some people dislike low-brow dialogue (or perhaps more accurately, dated, or poorly-executed low-brow dialogue), and some accept it. I really don't take myself all that seriously, but I'll admit that the first few chapters of Owe Nothing are written with less confidence and more self-consciousness than the rest of the book. Maybe I shouldn't try too hard to make characters (or the voice of the story) sound a certain way.

I pondered all this while watching "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid", Steve Martin and Carl Reiner's hilarious tribute to (and parody of) 40s tough guy detective movies. After I watched it, I did begin to notice that some of the idioms and colloquialisms uttered by Raymond Chandler's character, "Philip Marlowe", in his novels seemed a bit overdone, or too much of their time.

I think that all feedback can be potentially positive if you can learn something useful from it. I'm going to keep on studying, and keep on writing. Jack Owen has a few more stories to tell, and if he keeps at it, they will probably get better and better.

Owe Nothing - a different look at life in Vancouver...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:06:29 PST

Recently, people from all over the world have been watching Vancouver, BC perform at its best, and there certainly is a lot to be proud of.

This city has many sides to it, and truly, no two people experience this town in the same way.

Owe Nothing is a non-mainstream look at this city: an adventure novel based upon real people and places that I knew when my family lived in dodgy Vancouver Motels for over a year. The names of the people in Owe Nothing are fictionalized, but the events and feelings are based in reality...

Meet a few of the characters...

Jack Owen:

A young guy looking for adventure, and an escape from his lower-class rut. By accepting a bizarre job offer, he soon discovers that the back alleys and rooftops of East Vancouver hold more mysteries than he may be able to hide from his Dad or his Sister.

Parminder Singh:

Jack's buddy from work, and his companion through some bizarre surveillance tasks that they've been recruited to do for a man they've never even met. Parm's not sure if this is on the up and up, but he'll do it for the money.

Mike and Chris Coffey:

Brothers, and friends of Jack from the neighbourhood. They've got to find a way to get rid of their violent alcoholic step-father Ted, without their mother Regina finding out. Maybe Jack can help them...?

Read more at http://fiction.ejohnlove.com

The Reviews are Good:

So far, readers have given me some very positive feedback:

"Awesome", "Engaging, endearing... with a deft humorous touch", "a great read!", "A real coming-of-age story", "Vancouver is a city without much appreciation for its history... you've rendered a great service with such a vivid picture of that time and place"

Recently, Owe Nothing also got a very good professional review from Apex Reviews:

"With an effective balance of wit and suspense, Owe Nothing is an equally compelling and entertaining read. In skillful fashion, author E. John Love has crafted an enjoyable tale of a lovable loser in search of a bit of adventure. An engaging, endearing tale with a deft humorous touch, Owe Nothing is a rewarding literary treat."

Read the full Apex Review.

Check out Owe Nothing on the web
Become a fan of "Owe Nothing on FaceBook
Follow E. John Love on Twitter

In this for the long haul...

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:59:30 PST

Man, whomever said that life is a marathon wasn't kidding. Of all people, Milton Berle was quoted as saying that "life is one long street fight". Personally, I'll bet ol' Uncle Milty was one tough old sonofabitch. A lot of those old vaudevillians were pretty tough folks.

I don't know. Life seems to be cyclical, with some events pumping you up towards success, and other events smacking you down, so that you can rediscover the coppery tang of fear and humility.

You know how it is: Life seems to be meandering along reasonably well, and you're doing a good job of not paying attention to those nagging little voices that are telling you to not take each day for granted - that stupid, correct voice that tells you that the status quo is just a contrivance of your mind - bullshit, in a word.

But, like the darling ostrich that you sometimes are, you keep a pleasant smile on your face (even though you're worried and not extremely happy at all) and you keep your head buried deep under the surface of your daily routines (down where your ears are just muffled enough from the truthful opinions around you).

You might remember being called "wise" once when you were young and still did everything that you were told. You might act brave and tell yourself that your previous experience with stress has prepared you to hear the bad news, but come on man, if it happens again, you'll probably be just as afraid this time as you ever were all those other times. Admit it. It's scary.

It's funny how stresses seem to come in groups, like cars backing up during rush hour. They come from all the different "fronts" of your life: Work, Family, and Friends.

It's from the stress of the unknown in the economy, and how that might negatively affect your livelihood at some point. You can't guarantee your financial security.

It's from the stress of hearing people whom you love utterly falling apart, reliving horrible past traumas, and knowing that no matter how hard you work with them, love them, and counsel them to reach their closure and peace of mind, you cannot make them see the solutions until they are ready to see it for themselves.

Maybe it's the aggregation of all the small worries that creates some new thing that threatens to become overpowering: You are not in control of any of it - you can only control your own actions and reactions. You're as much along for the ride as anyone else is.

People will make mistakes and hurt themselves, or hurt those whom they love. People will push themselves too far emotionally or financially and have a breakdown, parents will fight each other and overlook how it injures their children. I will try to live up to the label of "wise" and give out as much love, compassion and guidance as they can stand to hear. Some of it may even stick.

I truly believe that failure isn't falling down - it's staying down. Life may or may not be "a street fight" (sorry Milton), but I absolutely will get back up and I will stand tall, because at the end of the day, that's all I have. But, my hands will remain unclenched and open, my fingers unpointed, so that I am able to reach out to someone else, to help them stand up, so that they can stand tall next to me. Just because existence is suffering, it doesn't mean we must face it alone.

Owe Nothing has Advanced in Amazon's 2010 Breakthrough Novel Awards

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:06:54 PST

A good start: I'm excited to report that Owe Nothing is now one of 1000 entries that has advanced to the second round in Amazon's 2010 Breakthrough Novel Awards!

This fiction contest is sponsored by Amazon and Penguin USA. I'll keep you posted...

Check out Owe Nothing on the web
Become a fan of "Owe Nothing on FaceBook
Follow E. John Love on Twitter

Spam, as poetry (or "O, yes, into a thousand similes. This file defines the custom interfaces.")

noreply@blogger.com (E. John Love) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:09:04 PST

At work, back in 2007, our spam bucket received this message.

Here is my theory on the genesis of the following bizarre prose:

Mix tech docs, pulp novel and just a smattering of Biblical prose, and voila - vile spam prose!

Just go with it. It almost works...

Here it is, the theory. Suddenly she stood up, very pale, and with a strange light in her eyes.

Blood, blood, blood, was rushing through his entire body. Evening's coming on, and we
ought to get a move on.

Nevertheless, the average user can still gain much important information from them. WX5DX presents the Best Cyber Ham Award.

By the time I tipped my hat back, he was past us. There was undisguised respect in his voice.

Just because you bought the disc, don't expect to use it in some way in which its owners don't approve. I still squirm and emit low moans of remembered embarrassment.
Min discovered she was hugging Rand's unconscious form tightly. Starts an asynchronous invocation of a method of an XML Web service.

For some clear answers to such questions, see the no misunderstandings page. You can
populate a cfgrid with data from a cfquery.

They did not pause to rest along the way, but passed through Alundil at a rapid but
dignified gait. The steak, Flint swore, was the best food he had ever eaten. On the creative arrow, structural information is lost, and on ours it spontaneously reforms. You must specify all three options explicitly.

Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him That with his very heart despiseth me. You must
specify at least 2 characters, for example, US.

O, yes, into a thousand similes. This file defines the custom interfaces. Believe it or not, there doesn't exist an example for every single possible coding practice in every possible platform. But Perrin knew he did not have Mat's way with the girls.