Are the coincidences found in the lexilinking being mined after Colorado's Aurora red dawn event, in some inexplicable way, part of the copycat effect? In other words, do what we are discovering synchromystically, as "coincidences" and "synchronicities," are variables in these cases that serve as cosmic triggers or programmed stimuli to the individuals involved? Do the shooters suddenly sense they are engaged in some form of theater reinforced by the lexilinking they find themselves in the midst of? Do the "coincidential" lexilinks act as risk factors pushing them over the edge?
The lexilinks found in the Aurora case and the shootings and related incidents that followed have been rather mind-blowing. The visual copycat effect experienced through repeating imagery of colorfully-haired Jokers and body-armored Banes is easier to understand. But the appearance of names in the stories, one linked to the other, is more difficult for the human brain to compute.
Take, for example, the visual linking that may have been overlooked, even though I mentioned it briefly before. The first verbal and written reports of the shooter - before any photographs were published of James
Eagan Holmes - told of the
Aurora killer having a goatee (even though this apparently did not turn out to be true, we are told). For example, moviegoer Corbin Dates, 23, who was sitting in the second row for the midnight premiere of
The Dark Knight Rises, told television news reporters of a man sporting a goatee who, before the film started, answered a cell phone call, then got up and propped open an emergency exit door.
Guess what "look" appeared over and over in the first wave of Aurora copycats? Yes, most of these copycats had scruffy beards and goatees:
Let's look, therefore, beyond the visual, at a few of the specific word lexilinks that have popped up related to the Aurora events. (BTW, this rendering is not comprehensive, but it shows some highlights. Please pass along more, via comments, below.)
During the spring of 2012, the area around Denver, Colorado was swept by wildfires.
The political news was filled with presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Bain (= bones, death, white) Capital involvements.
Excitement was building on the horizon for the release of The Dark Knight Rises: A Fire Will Rise, a film by Christopher Nolan starring Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Tom Hardy as the super-villian Bane (= bones, death, white).
At the July 20, 2012, midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Century 16's Theater 9, a man dressed in a gas mask, body armor, and with automatic weapons - dressed as Bane - opened fire on the movie audience in Colorado (= red), in Aurora (= dawn). The suspect then takes off his Bane costume to reveal himself to have orange hair, and declared himself, "I am the Joker."
The suspect was arrested. His name is James Eagan (= fiery) Holmes. He killed 12, and wounded 52 others.
Several copycat incidents occurred, some reflecting the
Aurora incident, alluded to being
Jokers or
Banes.
For example, one of them on July 31, 2012, resulted the arrest of Thomas Michael Casper for a report of loud music ended up taking Casper making repeated references to "the
Joker" and the
Colorado theater shooting, telling police he understood the shooter's motives and would embark on his own rampage. The lexilink that became quite obvious was that this incident occurred in
Eagan, Minnesota, a town with the same middle name as James
Eagan Holmes, the
Aurora suspect.
The Sikh Temple shooting took place on August 4, 2012, at Oak Creek, Wisconsin, resulting in seven dead, including the shooter
Wade Michael
Page (who lived on
Holmes Avenue in nearby Cuhady, Wisconsin) and use to live in
Littleton,
Colorado (location of
Columbine).
Page, it has been pointed out, is the squire of a
knight, and
Wade Michael
Page, as a neo-Nazi envisioned himself a
Dark Knight. On July 20, 2012, a misidentification occurred when another James
Holmes living in
Littleton,
Colorado had his Facebook page flooded with comments.
On the night of September 4, 2012, a gunman shot and killed one person during the Parti Québécois victory rally in Montreal, Quebe, Canada. Guards whisked PQ leader Pauline Marois off the stage as handlers informed the partisan crowd there had been gun
fire and an arson
fire had been set in the back of the Metropolis concert venue.
The suspect arrested was named Richard Henry
Bain, and he owned Les Activités Rick Activities, a fishing camp on Lake
Wade in La Conception, near the resort of Mont-Tremblant.
Richard Henry Bain, above, and Bane, the villian, below.
On September 5, 2012, police arrested a man wearing "
Joker" makeup at a Florida movie theater after someone reported the man acting suspiciously, the Melbourne Police Department said. When police arrived at the Premiere Theatre, they found 21-year-old Christopher Alex Sides with his face painted like the
Joker from the Batman movies and his hair dyed pink (or orange in some lighting). What was soon discovered was his intriguing address.
CHRISTOPHER ALEX SIDES W/M DOB: 05/07/91 ARREST DATE: 09/05/12 ARRESTING AGENCY: BCSO FAILURE TO APPEAR (Booking Photograph)
An earlier arrest is part of the recent public record: "Christopher Alex Sides, 19, of 1802
Aurora Park Circle, Melbourne, was charged April 17 with felony violation of conditional pre-trial release." "Police Report - Melbourne, Brevard County Sheriff's Office,"
Hometown News, April 29, 2011.
That's right. Sides lived in a trailer at the
Aurora Park.
Enough for now. The lexilinks abound.
Oh yes, be alert next summer.
The new Superman film,
Man of Steel, is due to be released on June 14, 2013 (Flag Day in the USA).
Oral tradition passed on through multiple generations holds that on June 14, 1908, Theodore Roosevelt was dining outside Philadelphia, when he noticed a man wiping his nose with what he thought was the American Flag. In outrage, Roosevelt picked up a small wooden rod and began to whip the man for "defacing the symbol of America." After about five or six strong whacks, he noticed that the man was not wiping his nose with a flag, but with a blue handkerchief with white stars. Upon realization of this, he apologized to the man, but hit him once more for making him "riled up with national pride." Source.
Man of Steel covertly staged part of their film pre-production and production work from a trailer near the International House of Pancakes, the IHOP, in
Aurora, Illinois (pictured), at Orchard Road and Interstate 88, on July 27, 2012.
The production company did some filming later in August 2012, in Illinois, in
Plano (the same name of a town in Texas directly associated with waves of suicide clusters and suburban heroin overdoses).
Man of Steel is from Warner Brothers, as are the three
The Dark Knight films. The fear of the
Superman curse appears to be a cause for concern among a few Warner executives. The
hex has haunted Superman films and television programs for decades.
The Dark Knight trilogy's Christopher Nolan produced and cowrote (with David S. Goyer)
Man of Steel, which is the first part of an 8-hour long trilogy. The director is
Zack Snyder, whose films,
Dawn of the Dead (2004),
300 (2007),
Watchmen (2009), and
Sucker Punch (2011), are well-known for their graphic-novel-like violence.
American trailer: Kevin Costner narrates.
International trailer: Russell Crowe narrates.
