Aurora: Synchromystic Wonderland

The unfolding Aurora red dawn event has evolved from a breaking news item, to a wall-to-wall massacre media madness melodrama, to America's favorite "false flag" conspiracy and entertainment news distraction.

What Aurora may truly turn out to be is a complex "occult" (as in the original meaning of the word, "hidden," not "paranormal") synchronicity story of which more and more is being revealed daily. Joker and other copycats will focus the Aurora incident in other directions as we see the breathtaking nature of the red dawn event fade from the attention of the media and Twitter nation. It is becoming integrated into our culture, nevertheless. The facts are that, on a synchromystic level, layers of the onion are being peeled back carefully as we move away from Friday, July 20th.

For example, today's news mentions that James Holmes, the alleged shooter, will not be seen on court room cameras broadcast into your front room any longer. But the visual imagery that appears to be an important part of this drama continues.

Accused movie theater gunman James Holmes is spitting at jail officers so frequently that he is being made to wear a face guard, sources told ABC News.

What does this quickly imprint in the public?

Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, of course.

But it goes deeper. What does James Holmes look like with this jailhouse mask?

The villain of Batman Begins (2005), Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson) - also at top.

Or the Man in the Iron Mask?

We have no idea what James Holmes, in his jailhouse face guard, looks like, so in this visual age, expect courtroom artists, if they are allowed, to give us new images for the future.

Meanwhile, questions remain. One was pointed out to me this morning in an email from Andrew Griffin, Editor at Red Dirt Report. According to a news items in the Toronto Sun: "MSNBC reports that public records show Holmes lived with two roommates at the apartment, which is reserved for students, faculty and staff from the medical campus."

But if you go to the original MSNBC account, oops, the mention of Holmes' alleged two roommates has disappeared.

What is going on here?

 Photographs: Ted S. Warren

Meanwhile, the entertainment news continues. We learn that actor Christian Bale (Batman, The Dark Knight trilogy) and his wife Sandra "Sibi" Blažić (staff, Red Corner) visited victims and a memorial to the victims of Friday's mass shooting, on Tuesday, July 24, 2012, in Aurora, Colorado. Nice placement of the Red Sox cap in the photograph, I'd say.

The week moves along. Be careful. A storm is coming.

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For the quick links to recent postings about The Dark Knight Rises, the Aurora red dawn event, and the copycats, please see:

Aurora Copycats: Prepare Now
Anticipating Aurora and Beyond
Red Dawn
Blood Red Movie Massacres
Joker Copycats: 2008-2112
Dark Knight Shooting: 12 Dead, 58 Injured
Bane/Bain Bursts Bare (Part 3)
Bane/Bain Continues (Part 2)
Bane/Bain (Part 1)

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11:00 AM EDT Update

It has been brought to my attention that after my blog was published early this morning, the Drudge Report posted the following. Of course, the link to the Liam Neeson character in Batman Begins makes more sense to me, but each to their own metaphor, I suppose.

HANNIBAL: Holmes Forced To Wear Face Guard...

Red Dawn

by Loren Coleman ©2012

Colorado means "red" and Aurora means "dawn."

We are entering an alternative reality, of sorts. In case you missed it, we have experienced a red dawn event.

In The Dark Knight Rises, Selina Kyle says to Bruce Wayne: "You think this can last? There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

Let's briefly examine a motion picture, politics aside and reality asunder, which contains strange coincidences of place and words, with a subplot of a name game with "red dawn."

"It's easy to make fun of a movie about a high school football team led by Patrick Swayze single-handedly defeating the Soviet army....[but] it might be the most anti-American movie made outside of the Middle East," wrote Philip Moon reflectively in 2010.


It is time to look at this film in a new context. I do not make any logical linkages to this film from the events of July 20, 2012. I merely show you the data, and assume together we shall discover tomorrow.

Red Dawn is a 1984 American war film directed by John Milius and co-written by Milius and Kevin Reynolds. It stars Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey.

It was the first film to be released with the MPAA rating of PG-13. At the time it was released, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute.

Red Dawn is set in an alternate 1980s in which the United States is invaded by the Soviet Union and its Cuban and Nicaraguan allies. However, the onset of World War III is in the background and not fully explained or engaged in this narrative fiction. The story involves a group of American high school students who resist the occupation with guerrilla warfare, calling themselves the Wolverines, after their high school mascot.

The film focuses on a fictionalized version of Calumet, Colorado, not as the actual small ghost town but the city as a fairly vibrant community with a substantial population, as depicted in this 1984 war film, Red Dawn. Calumet is the movie's attention point. This created town of Calumet was chosen to be the film's central location so that it could be related to almost anywhere in the US, an ambiguous American township with deliberately vague landmarks and names, you know, sort of like Aurora, Colorado. Red Dawn was actually filmed in the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, the "stand-in" for the fictionalized version of Calumet.

Much of the movie's story is set in the Arapaho National Forest, and a group of Soviet soldiers refer specifically to the Colorado War (1863-1865), which was fought there between the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indian insurgencies and the occupying U.S. government. Aurora, Colorado is located in Arapahoe County.

The leading villain in Red Dawn is Colonel Bella, a Cuban officer. (See here for more on the Bell name game.)

The Aurora, Colorado shooting appears to be a "red dawn," a milestone awakening event of which we can only guess what it might really mean in the near and distant future.

I went to see The Dark Knight Rises with my 22 year old son, at 3:15 pm, on Friday, July 20, 2012. One of the first visuals that stuck me, before the film, was what I saw in the preview to the forthcoming James Bond movie, Skyfall. At the about the 39-40 second mark of the trailer, quite readable on an IMAX screen, a frame appears with a vivid skyline. Right there, up front is a building with a red sign that reads Aurora. (This is the Aurora Plaza building in Shanghai, China.)

"The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming." 

~ Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight, 2008.

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The list

Here are some recent postings, gathered in one location, to be found mostly on blogs, by my synchromystic friends, fellows, and familiars, who have shared their thoughts on the recent July 20, 2012 incidents in Aurora. Highly recommended, although the opinions expressed are theirs, and not necessarily my own (unless noted).

Andrew Griffin's Red Dirt Report
"Midnight Massacre in Theatre No. 9"

Mike Clelland's Hidden Experience
"The Death of Jessica Redfield"

Red Pill Junkie's Blog
"A Midsummer Night's Nightmare"
"Darkest Before Dawn"

Katy Waldman/Slate
"Viral Violence"

Sean Higgins/Washington Examiner

"Was the Batman movie shooting imitated from scene from 1986 comic?"

Christopher Loring Knowles' The Secret Sun
"Dark Knight of Our Soul, or The New Ambulance Chasers"

Michael Hoffman's On The Contrary
"Predictive Programming: Batman Movie Shooting Synchronicity"

Loren Coleman's Twilight Language
"Blood Red Movie Massacres"
"Joker Copycats: 2008-2012"
"Dark Knight Shooting"
"Bane/Bain Bursts Bare (foresaw July 20th event) (Part 3)"
"Bane/Bain Continues (Part 2)"
"Bane/Bain: Batman's Villain & Romney's Curse (Part 1)"
"Gemstones Are Forever"

Selina Kyle: There's a storm coming.
Bruce Wayne: You sound like you're looking forward to it.
Selina Kyle: I'm adaptable.

~ The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

Joker Copycats: 2008-2112

"If coincidences are just coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?" ~ Special Agent Fox Mulder, X-Files, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," 1996.

"I don't believe in coincidence." ~ Batman, Justice League, "Starcrossed," 2004.

(If you are looking for updates on post-July 20th copycats, please see: Aurora Copycat Effect: The Complete List.)

James Eagan Holmes, 2012.

"You're a detective now. You can't believe in coincidences any longer." ~ Commissioner James "Jim" Worthington Gordon to new Detective John Blake, The Dark Knight Rises, 2012.

One of the first victims of the Aurora shootings identified was Jessica Ghawi, an aspiring sportscaster, who happened to almost have been shot during Toronto's Eaton Mall shooting. She also used the name "Jessica Redfield," a name she created because of her red hair, as she said people remembered that name more easily, since "Ghawi" is difficult to pronounce.

The following essays were first posted in January and March, 2009. They have been moved to the top, in the wake of the Aurora events of July 20, 2012. This is due to the "media reportage" that the shooting suspect James Holmes said "I am the Joker" when he was arrested. Whether that is a fact remains to be proven. The notion it is now a cultural "factoid" cannot be avoided.


There is little denying now that the 2009 Dendermonde Joker is a Heath Ledger/Joker copycat from the 2008 film The Dark Knight. (The "Dendermonde case" is code for the 2009 event involving the daycare nursery killer, Kim de Gelder, the Dendermonde Joker. I've web logged several recent entries about the subject, for example, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

The first drawing and a later colored one, via eyewitness descriptions, of 2009's Dendermonde Joker.

The 20-year-old accused daycare baby killer Kim de Gelder is a big fan of movies, but sat on suicide watch after his capture. The Dark Knight re-opened around the world on Friday, January 23, 2009, on giant IMAX screens everywhere.

De Gelder has been variously described by former workmates as a "film freak" and "movie addict."

Joker copycats did show up before de Gelder, but the couple of incidents picked up by the media in 2008 were actually minor in nature.

Talk of a Dark Knight curse has certainly been in the air from the beginning. The Dark Knight is dedicated to both the 28-year-old Heath Ledger, who died of an accidental overdose on January 22, 2008, and Conway Wickliffe, 41, a stunt supervisor who died in a freak accident in London while setting up a car crash. Other weird deaths have been associated with the film.

On September 1, 2008, in Johannesburg, Morné Harmse, an 18-year-old pupil in his high school in South Africa allegedly killed a fellow student with a sword and then hacked up three others. Harmse wore a clown mask and carried other masks supposedly inspired by the group Slipknot. The key to our examination here is that the killer also spoke in a voice to mimic the Joker in The Dark Knight.

Thus, the level of violence of the Dendermonde Joker is acknowledged as way above all previous examples for individuals more closely mirroring The Dark Knight's Joker.

The two specific costumed Joker arrests before the Belgium stabbing attacks mostly went unnoticed because they were so mild by comparison.

In July 2008, Boing Boing told of a Joker copycat who had been arrested.

Detective Mike Mohney stated at the time that 20-year-old Spencer Taylor (above) of Three Rivers, Michigan, had been booked for investigation of larceny and malicious destruction of property. Mohney says officers who were dispatched on that early Sunday morning of July 27, 2008, to the theater to find employees restraining a man wearing a purple suit, a green wig and face paint in the style of Batman's nemesis in The Dark Knight.

On August 14, 2008, the local media in Michigan followed up by declaring that Taylor had been sentenced.

Taylor pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of malicious destruction of property. Police from Three Rivers, Centreville, Michigan, said that Taylor wore a purple suit, green wig and face paint like the Joker when he was arrested for attempting to steal the big Batman movie poster.

Spencer Taylor was sentenced to one day in jail, 16 hours of community service and fined $685. Other charges were dropped when Spencer Taylor agreed to do a plea deal.

The Joker copycat incident in Arizona around Halloween was a bit more dangerous.

A 16-year-old Palo Verde High School student was rushed to the hospital Friday, October 31, 2008 (Halloween) for serious but not life-threatening injuries after what authorities described as an accidental stabbing by a classmate.

The injuries occurred during lunch while the student, a junior, horsed around with a freshman friend, said Ross Sheard, high school chief academic officer for the Tucson Unified School District. The 15-year-old jumped on the older student's back, causing two puncture-type wounds to the older boy, Sheard said.

Classmates said that the student who accidentally stabbed his friend was dressed up like the Joker from the Batman movie The Dark Knight, and that dressing that way was not uncommon for him. He often goes by the nickname "Joker."

"He dresses up like him a lot. He does his makeup like him a lot, and that's what he goes by," said sophomore Sara Everett, 15.

"It was not a fight," he said. "It wasn't kids being knock-down, going after each other. It was horseplay that got out of control."

Afterward, the students apparently made their way to the office and asked for help, he said. About an hour and a half later, officials tracked down the knife that was used in the incident, Sheard said.

The 15-year-old had a total of three knives in his pocket — two kitchen knives and a hobby knife — and is facing charges of carrying the concealed knives, but not aggravated assault, said Sgt. Mark Robinson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

Sheard said it was too early to say what might happen to the 15-year-old student, but the district has a zero-tolerance policy against weapons on campus.

Police questioned the uninjured student at Palo Verde, 1302 S. Avenida Vega, near East 22nd Street and South Kolb Road.

"We're not sure how serious the injury is," Sheard said. "There was bleeding. That was the part that had everybody very concerned."

Robinson said later that the student was undergoing surgery at a local hospital.

Many students were in costume on Halloween, he said, which caused some added confusion on campus.

A soldier dressed and wearing face-paint like Batman villain The Joker was shot and killed by police on March 8, 2009, in the Shenandoah National Park after he pointed a loaded shotgun at them after a chase, an FBI affidavit says. The incident occurred near Front Royal, Virginia, according to the Associated Press.

Army Spc. Christopher Lanum's girlfriend, Patsy Ann Marie Montowski, who was with him when he was shot, told FBI investigators that the soldier idolized the Joker, played in the most recent Batman film, The Dark Knight, by the late Heath Ledger.

Lanum, a suspect in the stabbing of a fellow soldier at Fort Eustis, was killed hours after the attack when officers attempted to stop the minivan he was driving, according to court documents filed Wednesday, March 11th that first disclosed the weekend shooting.

Montowski, a passenger in the van, was hit by gunfire and treated at a hospital. She was arrested Wednesday evening and charged with being accessory after the fact to assault, authorities said.

A lawyer for Montowski was not listed in court documents.

According to the FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Montowski's case, Lanum was dressed in The Joker outfit at the time of an argument early Sunday with his Fort Eustis suite mate, Spc. Mitchell Stone.

Back in 2009, I asked: "Have there been other copycat incidents since The Dark Knight appeared?"


The correct question should have been about "when"?


"I, like God, do not play with dice and do not believe in coincidence."
and
"There are no coincidences...only the illusion of coincidence." ~ V, V for Vendetta, 2005.

Copycat Jokers

"I don't believe in coincidence." ~ Batman, Justice League, "Starcrossed," 2004.

James Eagan Holmes, 2012.

I have an old posting worthy of revisiting, updated. So do please now find it here: Joker Copycats: 2008-2012. Those essays were first posted in January and March, 2009. They have been moved to a more recent location and revised, in the wake of the Aurora events of July 20, 2012.

"If coincidences are just coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?" ~ Special Agent Fox Mulder, X-Files, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," 1996.

At top, a drawing, from eyewitness descriptions, of 2009's Dendermonde Joker.

Evil Clowns: Summer 2009

We live in strange times, it seems, with politicians viewed through the character of an evil clown who was played by a famed actor who died young.

Take this summer of 2009. Look at the new posters called "unpleasant," "disturbing" and a "fake grassroots movement" by liberal bloggers, and pointed out by conservatives as some kind of "popular" commentary. The original image was apparently created by Firas Khateeb, a student living in Chicago. However, whoever adapted it as a poster and added the legend, "socialism," is still a mystery.


Photos by Chris, via Tammy Bruce.

Made by persons unknown, the posters started showing up around Los Angeles. They are of President Obama as a version of Heath Ledger's Joker character in The Dark Knight, with a none-too-subtle "socialism" message attached to them.

It gets to be very cryptopolitical and weird out there. [Update: See SMiles' "Alex Jones as The Joker."]


LA Weekly.

Of course, such visual expressions were used against the previous administration too. Drew Friedman, in July 2008, drew President George W. Bush as "The Joker" for Vanity Fair. He entitled it "No Joke."



Clearly, the Joker's impact lives on today.



Even sightings of past stars are recorded in terms of their old Joker roles this summer. For example, see how Philadelphia Inquirer entertainment columnist Michael Klein mentioned one such actor on July 20, 2009:

Jack Nicholson, shooting the James L. Brooks comedy in town, was spotted sitting near home plate at Monday's Phillies-Cubs game in a white Yankees cap. Fans gave him a pass because, well, he's Jack Nicholson. The Phillie Phanatic came out on the field in a Batman costume and pretended to take on "The Joker." Nicholson played along, shaking his hands to signal that he was going to "get him."

Meanwhile, the movie's star Reese Witherspoon, who starts before the cameras Tuesday (7/21) in the Brooks comedy, was Jake Gyllenhaal-less at dinner with her kids and nanny Saturday at Plate restaurant at Suburban Square in Ardmore. She's living on the Main Line.

For future reference, be aware of the Joker, Donnie Darko's Jake Gyllenhaal, and the name "Ardmore," in Michael Klein's short passage.

As I have mentioned recently in "Top Ten Evil Clown Stories of 2008", "Evil Clowns 2008", and "Phantom Clowns Are Back", sinister clowns are an active Fortean and cultural phenomenon.

Now, something wicked this way comes, or, at least, a new momentarily appearance of same.

On August 11, 2009, WSBT 24/7 News broadcast the following breaking story, "Clown reportedly chases man near Ardmore Trail."

Police looking for a man dressed as a clown were unsuccessful in locating him early Tuesday [August 11, 2009] — that’s after a driver told St. Joseph County authorities the stranger chased him around just west of South Bend.

The man called 911 shortly before 3 a.m. and said the person in a clown suit was on foot, but chasing him as he was in his truck in the 55500 block of Melrose Avenue.

The clown then disappeared back into the woods, police were told.

Officers who responded to the scene were unable to locate the clown, according to 911 dispatch.

Clearly, in this seemingly near "abduction" case, it reminded me of the "Phantom Clown" cases where clowns were seen, children were threatened with kidnappings, and the clowns then merely vanished.

So I searched around a bit.

Guess what? On Thursday, August 6, 2009, there was a near-abduction of a little girl in...get this...Ardmore, Oklahoma!

Daniel Armbruster of KXII-TV reported:

Ardmore Police say a 10-year-old girl was riding her bike near her home Thursday evening when a man approached her and asked her to get into his car. Now a seemingly quiet neighborhood is on edge.

The 500 block of H Street Southwest in Ardmore is described by residents as peaceful and a great place to raise children. But since last Thursday evening some residents have become concerned that their small neighborhood may no longer be the safe place they one believed....

Ardmore Police say the only description the little girl could provide is that the man was light skinned. They say it was the skills her parents taught her about strangers that possibly saved her life, because she refused the man's invitation to get into his car and immediately ran home.

Ardmore, Oklahoma having a near-child abduction and Ardmore Trail, Indiana being the focus of "clown" attention on 8-11 are bizarre and very Fortean. What name game is behind "Ardmore"?

The name Ardmore is a Gaelic word signifying high grounds or hills. John A. Keel would often point out that hilltops (literally the "keels" of the high grounds) were the best places to observe Forteana.



Most of the uses of the word "Ardmore" link directly back to Ardmore, Ireland.


Round tower and ruins of St Declan's Church, Ardmore, Ireland.

On a hill above the village of Ardmore, Ireland, is a well-preserved 30m high, 12th-century round tower and the ruins of St Declan's church and oratory dating from the 13th and 8th centuries respectively. One of the outer walls of the church features some stone carvings retrieved from an earlier 9th-century building. The carvings include a very early image of a harp, and of Adam and Eve in the garden.

The Ardmore church also contains two Ogham stones (ancient alphabet message phallic carved rocks, see one below), which rest in small alcoves.



Where does "Ardmore" pop up in the USA?

Ardmore, Oklahoma was named after the affluent Philadelphia suburb and historic Pennsylvania Main Line stop Ardmore, Pennsylvania, which was named after Ardmore, Ireland (the oldest Christian settlement in Ireland) by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1873.

Another Ardmore is a city in Giles and Lincoln counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and borders its sister city, Ardmore, Alabama. That Ardmore is a town in Limestone County, Alabama, and is included in the Huntsville-Decatur Metro Area. It is home to the Saturn 1B Rocket, at the Alabama Welcome Center, just south of the Tennessee border, on Interstate 65.

On April 22, 1966, Ardmore, Oklahoma, was the site of the worst plane crash in Oklahoma history, which killed 83 people.

And now a "clown" is appearing along the Ardmore Trail in Indiana, and a child kidnapping phantom in Ardmore, Oklahoma. BTW, as aferrismoon points out, synchromysticism's Godfather John Shelby Downard was born in Ardmore, Oklahoma.



Ardmore is the site of Downard's imagined or real horrible Masonic childhood abuse memories.



For more on "Phantom Clowns," see Mysterious America (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2006). For more on symbolic criminal behavior, see The Copycat Effect (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

Thanks to Dan Shideler for the first hints of the Ardmore Trail events.

Dendermonde Joker

The Joker was at the door, and they let him in.

The painted face of the alleged Belgian killer has been drawn by an eyewitness and has now been published. His face and name have now also been revealed (new update for 01.25.09 below).

This drawing was made based on data provided by Rudi Brusselmans who was a witness of the arrest of the crèche attack suspect now being held. (See here for more details on the attack.) The attack happened in the "Fairytale-land" or "Fabeltjesland" creche or daycare.

More comparisons with the Joker have surfaced in the Belgian media.

Correctly, the press there is noting that although the alleged attacker's face was painted white and his eyes were made black, and his distinctive pink/red hair was cut in spikes, "as if he had cut his hair himself," his mouth was apparently not painted, as was Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight.

Incorrectly, the European media said that the day (January 23, 2009) of the Dendermonde crèche or daycare attack was on the same date as the death of Heath Ledger. The first anniversary of Ledger's death, however, was January 22, 2009. To be exact, Heath Ledger was declared dead at 3:36 pm Eastern DST in Manhattan, New York, on January 22, 2009, and hit the news that night and the next morning. The attack on the nursery occurred at 10:00 a.m. CET (9:00 a.m. UTC) on January 23, 2009.

Nevertheless, there appears to be strong evidence the Dendermonde Joker reflects the copycat effect in this instance.

A police officer confirmed: “He had his face painted like Heath Ledger playing The Joker.”

The comparisons are clearcut in terms of mode of violence (knives), outward appearance, and even the arrest behavior. For example, in a headline and subheadline published on Saturday, January 24th, in the UK's Telegraph, the copycat imagery is summed up:

"Belgium 'joker' creche killer snorted with laughter in police interrogation: Belgium's suspected 'joker' killer snorted with laughter when interrogated by police about a frenzied knife attack that left a woman and two babies, aged six months and nine months, dead."

The two infant victims of the attack on a creche in the Belgian town of Dendermonde on Friday, January 23, 2009, have been named as Leon a baby boy aged six months and Corneel, a girl aged nine months.

Marita Blindeman, the 54 year old childcare worker who was killed, raised the alarm before being killed.

Police and prosecution sources have said that the 20-year-old man, dubbed "the Joker" because of his painted white face, eye shadow and ginger hair, has no history of mental illness.

He tricked his way into the Fabeltjesland ("land of fairy stories") day care center at 10 am local time by claiming to have a meeting with one of the members of staff. He then drew a 12-inch-long knife and began to slash at children aged between a few months and two years old.

There were 21 infants in the creche and six supervisors. All of the victims were stabbed in the throat or head. Parents gathered in the Dendermonde town hall and, with psychologists in support, identified the victims using photographs.

The addresses of three daycare locations were found on the suspect ("Kim D") when he was arrested.

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Update Sunday, January 25, 2009:

The alleged attacker, now under arrest, and his victims have been fully identified.

The man in custody for the stabbings is Kim de Gelder, 20, originally of Sint Niklaas (= Saint Nicholas), which is eight miles from Dendermonde. His colleagues described the Flemish man as being "crazy about movies."

De Gelder would translate, in English, as "the gelder" = "one who gelds or castrates." But there appears to be an alternative explanation for the name in Belgian (see the comments below), which is related to the word for "gold."

The Church of Saint Nicholas was founded in the 13th century and gave its name to de Gelder's former hometown. The history of Sint-Niklaas proper starts in 1217, when the bishop of Tournai, following advice from the local clergy, founded the church to Saint Nicholas there. The city keeps seven giants: Janneken, Mieke, Santa Claus and Zwarte Piet, and the three Magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.

Sinterklaas (also called Sint-Nicolaas or De Goedheiligman in Dutch and Saint Nicolas in French) is a traditional Winter holiday figure in the Netherlands, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles and Belgium, celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas' eve, December 5, or, in Belgium, on the morning of December 6. (Ah, the day after, just as the attack in Belgium was the day after Heath Ledger/The Joker's death day.) The feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of, among other things, needless to say, children.

The young victims of Dendermonde's ("Rumble or Thunder World's") Fabeltjesland ("Fairytale Land") were nine-month-old Leon Garcia and six-month-old Corneel Vermeir. Marita Blindeman, 54, a daycare worker lost her life attempting to save others.

See comments below for a discussion of what "Fabeltjesland" may or may not mean.

The Belgian and Dutch media and the UK's Telegraph began publishing the photograph of the suspect on January 24-25, 2009. The image being published is the high school year book picture of self-confessed mass-murderer Kim de Gelder. Reports indicate that he cut his hair short soon after finishing high school.

De Gelder is on suicide watch in his undisclosed location in Bruges, Belgium. He has gone on a hunger strike and was moved to the medical section of the Bruges jail.

Sunday media report that "some 7,000 of Dendermonde's 43,000 residents walked in a silent march past the creche Fabeltjesland (Fairytale Land)."

Thanks to Dutch/Belgian translations from Theo Paijmans.