... or partly why ...
This morning we had the following email exchange:
Me in email to Allison:
I HAVE to see this documentary about Jim Jones and the People's Temple - it's at the Quad ... and, I don't know, seems like it's something you and I need to see together. ha!!!wanna go this weekend? Saturday is out for me - but maybe Sunday?? Wanna go see 900 people kill themselves with poisoned Kool-aid on screen??
Allison in email to Me:
OH MY GOD. MUST MUST. Can not literally think of a better way to spend a Sunday.Posted by sheila
Hahaha. The first time I read this documentary, I instantly thought of you and how I wish we could see it together.
Posted by: Emily at October 26, 2006 5:24 PMIt's that whole cult-mass murder thing that we both adore, I guess.
hahahaha
Posted by: red at October 26, 2006 5:48 PMAnd we'd spend like eight hours after it was over talking about it.
Posted by: Emily at October 26, 2006 6:00 PMNever letting the other one finish a sentence.
I mean, seriously, I've been obsessed with Jim Jones since I saw that TV movie with Powers Boothe - I think I was, uhm, 10 years old or something like that when I saw it.
Yeah. Really appropriate for a child.
FASCINATING.
Posted by: red at October 26, 2006 6:02 PMI remember that movie!
Posted by: Emily at October 26, 2006 6:12 PMI remember when Jim Jones happened!! EEEK!
you'll have to tell us about it
Posted by: Sharon Ferguson at October 26, 2006 6:15 PMI never would have killed myself for Powers Boothe.
Posted by: tracey at October 26, 2006 8:12 PMYou know, that was the first "big bad news" story that my parents didn't manage to protect my brother and me from. (I think I was like 8 or 9 when it happened). It still creeps the hell out of me to think about it, probably because I was a little kid when I heard about it, and it seemed so horrific and twisted...and it was a long time before I could look at Communion the same way again....
That said, I hope you find the documentary, um, instructive. (I'm not going to suggest you have fun...that seems wrong to say).
I will also say: I wish people would stop using the "drink the Kool-Aid" meme to describe groups of people who follow some leader blindly. My reasons are purely selfish, so I can't really justify them, but: I get a horrible chill down my back every time I hear/read that phrase.
Posted by: ricki at October 27, 2006 10:05 AMI have always had a major obsession with the Jim Jones story, and it's because I live in the Washington, DC area. One of the journalists who was along on that trip, and survived, worked for the Washington Post, and so the Post "took the story and ran with it", so to speak, and to say that their coverage of the story was overwhelming is an understatement. I saved every single newspaper for a straight month, and the Jonestown story was the leading story, every single day for a solid month.
And then about five years later I moved into a house where the landlord asked me to NOT move a certain mirror that was on a wall next to the front door. I asked "why not", and he said it was a special mirror. It was owned by a friend of his who joined the Jim Jones church, and then gave away his possessions to friends before he left for Guyana. The mirror was one of those gifts. The original owner of the mirror died along with everyone else in Guyana. So, every time I opened my front door and returned home, and looked at the mirror, I was reminded of Jonestown.