"The video shows the boom-boom repetitive beat of desert trance, the awnings psychedelic flapping in the the sunshine of an early morning, two girls with that up-all-night relaxedness, their bodies moving of their own accord together, elbows bumping, their eyes closed and in the distance something coming. It shows two hundred, more, running across a field, the music stopped, the shouting begun, the boom-boom of gun fire, the bodies that were dancing now panicked and falling, the bodies that had danced all night now lying in a field."
This reminds me of a chapter in Percy's "Thrill Me" on writing violence. His advice is to avoid "gore-nography," or detailed descriptions of violence. One strategy is to take the violence offstage to heighten its impact (like The Misfit executing the family out of sight in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"). Another is to render the violence, but to "turn down the volume" on it, like the quiet opening of "Ten Years a Slave." The passage above does just that, requiring us to fill in the devastation that the lyrical language softens. The child's word -- "boom-boom," which might be mistaken for the beat, makes the image detonate in this reader.
Lives cut short in an instant, the rhythm of music replaced by the cacophony of violence. It's a stark reminder that life can take unexpected turns. The contrast between the carefree moments and the haunting images of the desert rave weighs heavy on my mind.
You have captured the pain I have been feeling. I guess we should be inured to this by now, I’m not sure if I am sad or glad that I am not inured to this madness, that it creates a deep pain in my heart/gut/soul. Yes! they should have been home remembering the music. Shattered innocence like shattered glass, the shards reaching me as well.
I can’t help but imagine this happening at all the parties and festivals we attended. Just incredibly horrendous and terrifying. My mind cannot quite comprehend it
Yes exactly this. Do you remember the ghost party? I mean we were so wide open, at all of them, the ones out the back of mullum, and down south. I keep imagining being in that state and then that incomprehensible reality, that horror scene bursting in on a scene we know so well. I’m not sure, even if the body survived, that the mind would ever recover.
If you did survive , physically, I doubt you could ever be the same carefree, invincible people we were. And what of the lost ones, the grim grief of that and the images. It is totally stupefying , even from this distance 😭
It is just so sad, and barbaric! Words fail...especially at the lack of condemnation of the terrorists.
What your writing does. Takes us there. Inside the thoughts a person was having. Pulled away from a dream state, to a nightmare experience.
"The horror. The horror." --Joseph Conrad, _The Heart of Darkness_
"The video shows the boom-boom repetitive beat of desert trance, the awnings psychedelic flapping in the the sunshine of an early morning, two girls with that up-all-night relaxedness, their bodies moving of their own accord together, elbows bumping, their eyes closed and in the distance something coming. It shows two hundred, more, running across a field, the music stopped, the shouting begun, the boom-boom of gun fire, the bodies that were dancing now panicked and falling, the bodies that had danced all night now lying in a field."
This reminds me of a chapter in Percy's "Thrill Me" on writing violence. His advice is to avoid "gore-nography," or detailed descriptions of violence. One strategy is to take the violence offstage to heighten its impact (like The Misfit executing the family out of sight in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"). Another is to render the violence, but to "turn down the volume" on it, like the quiet opening of "Ten Years a Slave." The passage above does just that, requiring us to fill in the devastation that the lyrical language softens. The child's word -- "boom-boom," which might be mistaken for the beat, makes the image detonate in this reader.
Lives cut short in an instant, the rhythm of music replaced by the cacophony of violence. It's a stark reminder that life can take unexpected turns. The contrast between the carefree moments and the haunting images of the desert rave weighs heavy on my mind.
You have captured the pain I have been feeling. I guess we should be inured to this by now, I’m not sure if I am sad or glad that I am not inured to this madness, that it creates a deep pain in my heart/gut/soul. Yes! they should have been home remembering the music. Shattered innocence like shattered glass, the shards reaching me as well.
It was (is) Horror. And you write beautifully.
Thank you Yolanda.
I can’t help but imagine this happening at all the parties and festivals we attended. Just incredibly horrendous and terrifying. My mind cannot quite comprehend it
Yes exactly this. Do you remember the ghost party? I mean we were so wide open, at all of them, the ones out the back of mullum, and down south. I keep imagining being in that state and then that incomprehensible reality, that horror scene bursting in on a scene we know so well. I’m not sure, even if the body survived, that the mind would ever recover.
If you did survive , physically, I doubt you could ever be the same carefree, invincible people we were. And what of the lost ones, the grim grief of that and the images. It is totally stupefying , even from this distance 😭
🖤
Thank you for this