Yes, the Ever-lasting contrast. Since existence has known, the 'fight' between good & evil has continued. Obviously, this fight can never end. Good things turn bad, bad things become good. My fav. contrasting symbol, because it is so true & means so much – the battle between good & bad never ends… Here we ponder on the tragedy of Dylan Klebold.
On September 11, 1998, Dylan turned seventeen. Our gift to him was a nod to his prodigious appetite—a small black refrigerator that he could take with him to college the following year. He loved it and insisted on carrying it right up to his room, the cord dragging behind. As soon as Nate found out, he showed up with a companion gift: a supersized bucket of fried chicken, all for Dylan.
That month, he volunteered to do the sound for a Halloween production of Frankenstein at school and rekindled his friendship with Brooks Brown. The two of them had drifted apart after the conflict between Eric and Brooks the previous year, but they fell back into an easy friendship while working on the play. Dylan was proud of Frankenstein; he used a wide variety of unusual audio sources to develop the eerie soundtrack. The cast and crew recorded a surprise video to thank the drama teacher. In the video, Brooks, Zack, and Dylan clown around—saying they hope she’ll buy them beer, or pay them to pass down their senior year production know-how to the next crop of students. Judy Brown threw the wrap party, and took a picture of Dyl laughing at the video along with everyone else. – Sue Klebold, A Mother’s Reckoning.
Watch the entire CHS Frankenstein 2016 spring production (I’m sure the script is basically the same and perhaps some of the props are reused from the nineties)
You can imagine Dylan creating the audio sound effects “Don’t get fire within twenty feet of the pants,” Dylan warned, referring to my ‘Frankenstein monster” costume. “There were about thirty different chemicals put into that.” (This was true, actually. Dylan and I made the pants using an old pair of jeans that we soaked in gasoline and paint thinner to make them look as horrible as possible. After the final performance, we took them out to a field and flicked a cigarette at them. They immediately burst into flames.) –Brooks Brown, “No Easy Answers”
“Guys, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this.”
Dylan turned sixteen in September. When Tom and I suggested a party, he demurred: “Guys, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this.” But a sixteenth birthday is a milestone, and Tom and I wanted to mark it for Dylan.
Our family tradition was to go to a restaurant of the celebrant’s choice. That year, Dylan chose a barbecue restaurant with a 1940s classic movie theme. Byron couldn’t get anyone to cover him at work. While we hated for him to miss his brother’s birthday celebration, we were pleased to see evidence of his work ethic and supported his decision not to attend. Plus, Tom and I had a surprise planned: although Dylan’s friend Zack also had to work that night, we’d arranged for Eric and Nate to meet us at the restaurant.
Dylan was genuinely surprised to see his friends. So surprised, it took him half the evening to loosen up and start enjoying himself. I was sympathetic. He was attuned to the slightest of social discomforts, though Nate and Eric found us much less embarrassing than he did. Dylan knew of our intolerance for rudeness and picky eaters as well, and was probably worried about how his friends would behave. Over the course of the night, though, he relaxed, and with good humor he thanked us for overriding his protests and surprising him. But the roller-coaster ride was about to begin.
Later that month, he woke up in the middle of the night with terrible stomach pains. We were concerned enough to take him to the emergency room, where they ruled out appendicitis and everything else. Puzzled, the doctors released him, and he appeared to recover completely. I would later learn that unexplained somatic symptoms, particularly abdominal pain, may be a marker for depression.
My daylight explorations of Dylan’s home going down the wild, winding, pastoral red rocks flecked Cougar Road. “Beautiful” by the Smashing Pumpkins perfectly befits the total experience of these breathtaking surroundings which he saw on a daily basis yet was impervious to feel it’s blessings. Still, when you’re there, you cannot help but bask in a kind of presence of Him. Enjoy 🙂
I also have an dusk version plus some photos of the area.. I’ll post those next up.
Thinking of Sue, Tom and Byron today. Thinking of Devon, Brooks, Zach and Nate. Thinking of all Dylan’s friends and family for whom September 11 is a particularly painful day, because he’s not here, because of what he did. Thinking of the victims as well, all of them who know what today is and who feel their loss even more acutely (they must marvel sometimes at the endless ways pain can intensify) because of it.
And thinking of you, Sunshine Boy. It shouldn’t have ended this way but it seems to have been written in the stars. In another dimension, maybe you’re still here, 36 today and celebrating with loved ones. But in our universe, I hope you’re in the halcyons, free from the suffering that made life on this planet so painful for you; free from the rage you first turned inward and then directed outward.
Here’s a special Sunshine Song that makes me think of you ❤ I hope you can feel its blissful vibes where you are.
So eloquently put. ❤ Sunshine high octane jams in honor of our Sunshine Boy. Yesss!
I can just see him.. alone in his bedroom, late into the night. His red shuttered windows opened wide as a soft, warm breeze of night time gently wafts in. There is the sound of crickets and other wild life off in the distance. His outside view is majestic, primal and untamed. A beautiful sight for those who can still see and appreciate not for those who have already seen many times and have long since taken for granted. The jagged outline of pine trees and ancient pink canyons are now a looming onyx. They jut upward to the horizon in a competing, stark, contrast to the pitch blackness of the midnight sky. Every star is a distinct pinpoint, magically pulsating and twinkling.in silent reverie.
The flick of his Zippo cuts the silence, and the flame flicks forth in contrast to the darkness of his room, casting a small warm glow. His long, dexterous fingers light the wick of one, lone, white candle before him.
He takes a swing of his flask and settles down onto the floor. The liquid burns the back of his throat. It blooms and glows a soothing warm throughout his body, numbing the pervasive sadness.
Only a soft repetitive beat and melody plays in the background from his stereo speakers like a constant, hypnotic mantra. The volume turned down several notches in the wee hours of the night as his parents’ slumber unaware.
He leans back against his window seat and focuses on the flame as it dances, casting shadows on the wall. The Ponderer’s restless, heavy mind, with its constant flurry of thoughts, begins to finally still, to drift into a quiet state of a reprieve as his tired, blue eyes stare at the rhythmic dance of the candle’s flame, and thoughts begin to singularly focus on his wishes, his dreams..his true love, his heart’s desire. He basks in the visions of pure happiness that come. Normally fleeting glimpses, they are crystal clear now.
His voice speaks soft and low, interrupting the silence with intent. An invocation to the universe..if per chance it was in fact, listening.
“The candle burns....,”
He waves his finger tips over the billowing vapor hovering just about the flame…
…he glances up and focuses his gaze off into the distances at the vast, dark heavens with its infinite bespeckled stars.
he continues in a murmur.
“The stars set the mood……”
A gentle, warm September breeze gently gusts in through the window shutters causing the candle to flicker as if in response to his words.. causing it to nearly blow out.
He purses his lips and slowly blows on the flame teasingly, until..at last.. the flame is over powered and sputters out.
A billowing, white, wisp of smoke curls.up into the air before him.. The acrid scent filling his nostrils.
“the smoke fills the room”
…it spirals upward…ascending higher… out the window..on to the wind…
“the hope is sent thru infinite places…..
..carrying his prayers like a message in a bottle…
all of purity….”
…. up, into the endless starlit sky.
Another year has passed, and another candle lit in memory of all the hope and possibility that you once were, that which you became, and all that you now are.
The hope is sent thru infinite places, all of purity…to you.
We don’t have factual information on their height but I have guesstimated their height. You can type in the E-C Search “how tall was Devon?” or “how tall was Robyn?”
We can slightly gauge by this photo but don’t really have a good comparison for Devon and Dylan.
The death penalty Yes, Dylan was still a minor for five more months but I believe that the nature of the crime and the amount of premeditated planning, preparation, and malicious intent of those two young men would have had outraged vengeful parents and a Christian bloodthirsty community – not to mention the entire world, pushing Colorado to make an exception to use the death penalty in this case and to include Dylan, a minor, to be tried as an adult. The state would want to make a strong example of these two to dissuade others from thinking they could do the same by following in Eric and Dylan’s footsteps. So, the boys would end up on death row.
Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you except to say that the Tumblr app is a piece of shit. lol There isn’t a whole lot I can do about it. I just know that doing what I suggested works fine for me on iPhone.
That’s great you’re doing a midterm project on Columbine!
Luckily, most of what you’re asking about is all here in my blog. 🙂 You’ll need to do most of the research on your own. A useful tool to help you locate some of the answers to your questions (and others) is to use theE-C Search.
The Tumblr app is ridiculously stupid when you link a url based off of the search keyword typed in. What happens is when you click the link, it just takes you back to my main blog page within the app.
To see what I’ve actually specifically linked, you’ll need to press down on the link and open it in a browser to have it direct you to the exact section I linked.
Because he could? There would be no way of knowing what instigated it other than simply a mutual dislike. Eric rubbing Dan the wrong way (probably because of the way he dressed, the outcast group he hung out with) and Dan pissed Eric off enough to get added to his Hit List. and thankss 🙂
Or; how everything connects, yet it’s all so far apart…
Part one: 10050 Cielo Drive
In 1992, Trent Reznor, frontman of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, moved to 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, LA. A French country-style luxury home, the address had become infamous in August, 1969, when actress Sharon Tate and four others were murdered there by the Manson Family.
Reznor lived in the home for 18 months, and used it as a recording studio. He dubbed the place “Le Pig”, in a nod to Susan Atkins having written “pig” on the home’s front door in Tate’s blood. It was there that he recorded The Downward Spiral, a concept album that tracks a man on a path to suicide and one of Nine Inch Nail’s most acclaimed releases.
Though Reznor was drawn to the house because of its history, he found the experience of living there unsettling, and in December 1993, he was confronted by Tate’s sister Patti, who asked if he was exploiting Sharon’s death.
This confrontation had a profound impact on Reznor. In an interview published in Rolling Stone on March 6, 1997 – called the Lost Highway interview, because it focuses on the score he provided for David Lynch’s 1997 film – he said:
For the first time the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, “No, it’s just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I’m in this place where a weird part of history occurred.”… I went home and cried that night. It made me see there’s another side to things, you know?”
Charles Manson himself was famously influenced by popular music of his time, and desperately wanted to be a rock star. An argument could be made that a partial cause of the murders was because Charlie couldn’t make it in the music biz. And as Dylan Klebold notes in a school paper he wrote about Manson and his Family, Manson was obsessed with The Beatles and interpreted personal messages directed at him and his family in the band’s White Album:
Piggies was a satire on consumerism, but Manson interpreted it as being about the need for a race war that would leave his Family free to inherit the earth.
Reznor continued the ‘pig’ theme. As well as naming the studio after the murders, two of the songs he recorded at 10050 Cielo Drive were March of the Pigs and Piggy – though these were written prior to his arrival at Tate’s former home. A strange synchronicity in a long chain of separate yet linked events?
The NIN song Piggy is good for thought writing… The Lost Highway sounds like a movie about me
Part two: in Littleton, Colorado
On March 31, 1997, three-and-a-half weeks after the Trent Reznor Lost Highway article was publishedand just over a month since Lost Highway had its limited release in American cinemas, 15-year-old Dylan Klebold observed that Piggy was a good song to write down his thoughts to. His very next sentence states: ‘The Lost Highway sounds like a movie about me’.
Had he seen the movie yet? The fact that he wrote ‘sounds’ rather than, say, ‘is like a movie about me’ could indicate he had heard/read about it, but was yet to watch it (… or it could just be a Dylanism!).
Did Dylan read the Rolling Stone article on Reznor and Lost Highway? The fact that listening to and writing about the NIN song Piggy led directly to him writing about what it sounds like Lost Highway is about makes me think maybe he did, and maybe it was subconsciously playing on his mind while writing this journal entry.
If Dylan did read the article, then he would be very aware of Reznor’s link to the Manson murders.
Dylan in his Downward Spiral t-shirt
It’s not surprising that Dylan related to The Downward Spiral. In its songs he heard a version of his life; the story of an individual on a nihilistic path to self-destruction and suicide, disassociating from society and humanity along the way. If he knew it was recorded in a place touched by the darkest aspects of humanity, did that enhance his feeling of connection to it?
One of Dylan’s Downward Spiral drawings
More than 18 months after his journal musings on Piggy and Lost Highway, on November 3, 1998, Dylan submitted his paper on The Mind and Motives of Charles Manson to his creative writing teacher, Judith Kelly. He opens the essay by comparing Mickey Knox in the film Natural Born Killers to Manson, and towards the end, he discusses how Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose recorded one of Manson’s songs, and wears a Manson t-shirt when performing.
Dylan’s paper makes clear the influence Manson had on pop culture, but doesn’t mention that an album he particularly related to was recorded in the space where the Manson Family’s most notorious acts of violence took place.
Did he know about the link? Again, it’s possible – probable, even – but we don’t appear to have confirmation.
Either way, Dylan’s paper on Charles Manson and his love of The Downward Spiral both attracted media attention in the aftermath of Columbine. The former, because it was perceived as a morbid and glaring warning sign by those who had the 20/20 benefit of hindsight. The latter, because it was held up as an example of ‘toxic’ pop culture that influenced a disturbed teen.
Whether Dylan consciously knew the two were connected or not, maybe this is just another example of how actions continue to echo long after they take place. One event spawns another, spawns another, spawns another… A butterfly effect of sorts. And if places hold energy, especially from traumatic events, can the vibrations of that energy seep into acts that later take place in those places?
Inspired by music, Manson encourages his followers to murder; inspired by a famous chapter in American folklore, Reznor uses the space where it happened to make music; and eventually, a teenage boy who would go on to leave his own terrible imprint on American history listens to that music and hears his own tragedy in it. How everything connects, yet it’s all so far apart…
Any time someone starts off with a “let’s say..” that sounds like a very, specific fantasy scenario prompt to me. Since it’s an idea that you came up with, I’m assuming you already know how you’d like that to play out?
If both committed a horrible crime then why is it I’m supposed to favor Eric over Dylan again…? Cause I’m not understanding the logic here.
And for the record, in case it wasn’t apparent to you, this blog is dedicated to Dylan and the exploration of him – not Eric. The description on E-C is pretty clear.
…and yet, here I am arguing against Eric being accused of a psychopath just today even when he ‘committed this horrible crime’.
The Everlasting Contrast 