July 20th 2014. In Memoriam.

From 7/21/12:

"After the events that unfolded at midnight last Thursday it seems really trivial, almost ludicrous, to post my usual weekly blog and a listing of the month's screenings. What are the movies compared to life's horrors? What worth can they possibly have measured against the tragedy that one human may inflict on another, or others? Indeed, it was a movie theater where this awful crime occurred, and no amount of the optimism and enthusiasm we bring with us to the theater was worth a damn in preventing the damage one troubled individual wrought on the filmgoers that night. The movies are one of the last refuges we have that invites our vulnerability, as all great arts and pastimes require, our guard down and ready to accept whatever the artists have provided. It's this prerequisite of vulnerability that made it so horribly easy for a broken soul to commit such heinous acts against his own. In spite of all I've just typed there really are no words to adequately comment on these terrible events, and they come too fast and too often in our world.

But I feel particularly wounded over this night and its horrors. And it isn't because I'm related to the victims, or have friends or acquaintances among the victims. And god knows it's as bad as any senseless killing we've experienced in this life. I feel a particular hurt here because these are MY people. We go to the movies for reasons both casual and obsessive. We dress up like the film's characters or are just looking to kill a couple of hours with a pastime we get a kick out of. We time our first bathroom break so we skip the commercials and take our seat once the previews start. We ration our popcorn so we don't wind up with an empty bag before the opening credits start. We get a rush of excitement when the lights start to dim and a potentially magic experience is about to unspool. We love the movies because we feel loved by the movies, by the entire experience, just as opera buffs and balletomanes feel loved by their particular obsession.

The victims in Aurora last Thursday night at midnight LOVED the movies. They were no cinema dilettantes. They bought tickets weeks in advance, some showing up in costume as their fave character from the Batman universe. They could tell you the history of the comics as well as the films. They were and are geeks. They are my people. MY people. While I was sitting in comfort watching the midnight screening of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES on 34th street my people were attacked in Colorado. And some of them are gone for good.

So please donate to the charitable funds that will help the survivors to recover and the families of the deceased cope with their residual suffering.

You can find a list here at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/aurora-theater-colorado-shootin....

If you're the praying type, please do so for the victims and survivors. If you're a film lover, I mean a film LOVER, please do this as well, and it isn't in the slightest bit trivial; go to the movies this week, and keep the attendees of that midnight screening in your head and your heart when you do. As I wrote in my Facebook post, all they wanted was the movie experience that night, the potential for a magic event they would talk about forever, what all lovers of the movies want ultimately, to be surrounded in the dark sharing the communal dream. So let's celebrate OUR people, and spend some time this week with the stuff that dreams are made of. Be safe and sound, Stockers."

We remember.

- Joe Walsh