on a discworld board game and the dresden files RPG books...I am feeling real good about my life right now!

You take all my money by having such awesome sales TT_TT

I just bought SO much Sam and Max and Odd World stuff...

So one of the things people most commonly comment about me is my height. At about 6'2" I am often around the biggest guy in the room (before you tell me about how where your from 6 foot is no big deal, you should know I really don't care). 
I am charming, I have a bit of money, I am tall not over weight but not in shape by any stretch of the imagination. I can walk into a room and make friends with pretty much woman in the room. I am fairly smart, in college. Fairly drama free as far as such things go. so on and so forth. 
(If I sound egotistical, don't worry I will rip myself a new asshole in a moment) 

On paper I shouldn't have much of finding a girl, maybe not "the right girl" but one would think I would have at least a few options...Or you wouldn't think that because you assume I am a troll that lives under a rock, hey this is the internet we are all entitled to our opinion. 

So basically I am left with three possibilities,
1) There is something wrong with me/the way that I act/ talk/ ect
2) There is something wrong with EVERYONE ELSE.
3) A mix of the two.

Naturally the inner ego wants to just say women suck and leave it at that, but we all know that already and yet lots of people have healthy relationships so it can't be that. 
My inner logic says that it must be a mix of the two, because there is always two side to every story...which sounds good on paper but that doesn't really pan out when you take into account the huge number of stories being told. Every single person can't be messed up in just the right way to not mess with my fucked up...ness.

So that leave me with...There must be something wrong with me. EMOGASM!
Anyway, naturally I knew where I was going with this before I picked up the pen...er...clicked the browser, so this isn't just an emo life is awesome because I am not good at anything. I am good...I am decent at a great many things (TF2 not being among them) What I suck at is forming bounds greater than friendship.

For starters, I am a ridiculously open person. I will literary tell you anything about myself from the word go. Which has is great for making friends...not so good for making lovers. Yes, your girlfriend wants to know lots about you...but they don't want to know the weird stuff upfront... They find my story about how my mom has asked me if I am gay three times funny, the story of how Amanda Palmer stood naked over me on a public beach amusing and the story about how I stopped a girl that got caught giving some guy a blowjob at school from killing herself, slightly off putting. It's not that I don't have that little voice in my head that tells me that what I am about to say is stupid...it's that I ignore that voice in the presence of beautiful women. 

On top of that, like many men I am extremely stubborn, once I say something I stick by it...even when I know I shouldn't (like those times when I know for a fact I am dead fucking wrong) And while I am pretty good at defusing tense arguments, there are only so many time you can hear someone stubbornly argue for something you know is wrong before it begins to grate.

I am way to giving, way to early. I enjoy giving flowers and candy and paying for meals and such. These things make me happy. Sadly it can send weird messages and cause women to go into panic mode and throw you into the friend zone so fast your head will spin.

I mean I could go on and on about why I suck but it doesn't really matter. I am not going to change, at least not right now. Despite being alone, I really like who I am. I am a loving caring person and I do my best to do right by everyone, sad to say that is not what it takes to be dateable in college, but hey maybe as time goes on that will change.

I have plenty more things to say...but it's 6am and I should try to go to sleep. Also the chances that anyone is reading this is slim and the chance they want to read more...even slimmer. So for those of you who made it threw that mess of self...self something or other have a good (insert current time of day) and I hope your love life is as awesome as mine is barren.

-Daniel

Daniel GoreMonstrously Maleficent MachinationsA study in to the monstrous nature and origins of Dr. Hannibal LecterAka- Dr. Hannibal Lecter is basically an evil BatmanTeeth, fangs and claws. These are the images that the word monster summons in us, gnashing teeth and blood dripping from jaws. The strange thing is the monsters that scare us, that horrify us the most is us. Think about the monsters in stories, jenny green teeth, baba yaga, satan, vampires, werewolves and zombies. It is not there teeth that scare us, nor the strange powers they have, what scares us is the human qualities they have, The fact that some of them were once human makes them all the more horrifying because we could become like them. In classic stories monsters are something that a man comes to conquer, they are something that can be overcome so long as you are strong enough, brave enough or cunning enough, but what if the monster is a man? All the strength and cunning of a man and all the evil of a monster? This is what we love to write about, the monster that is us. We have proved that we can kick the shit out of anything on this planet if we really want to, so what is left to scare us? Just us. This is where monsters like Dr. Hannibal Lecter come from, we need something to challenge us, to shake our cage as to not get complacent. Lecter has many traits that we associate with monsters, he consumes flesh, he lacks what we would consider a motive for his actions, strange deformities, a predatory presence, a solitary nature and supernatural qualities. What is it about Lecter that sets us on edge? Why does he scare us so? What is our fascination with the idea of the monstrous? In this paper I hope to discus just that. First I will discus what qualities a monster possesses both physically and mentally, then a look at monsters that Lecter borrows from how these qualities apply to Lecter.“Ten years after he died people in his village in Hungary claimed to see Peter wandering the village streets at night. His widow claimed he came to her window and demanded his shoes. She had gave them away. Soon people with their throats torn out were found each morning in the area. And people still claimed to see Peter walking around the village at night. Village elders contacted the near by soldiers and they came at their request and dug up Peters grave. When Peters grave was opened he was found to be in a perfectly preserved state even though he had been dead for ten years. He was dragged from his grave and burned and his ashes were scattered to the four directions to insure he was gone. Peter was never again seen to wander the village at night. And no other strange deaths occurred. So maybe just maybe Peter was preying on his former friends and neighbors.”-De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis (1725)What goes bump in the night? Most often the same things that go bump in day…only like with less light but I digress, since the beginning of time monsters have haunted the dark corners of our world. They come running, crawling, floating and slithering towards us as soon as our backs are turned. What makes a monster? They are defined as 1.a legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination, as a centaur, griffin, or sphinx.2.any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.3.any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.4. a person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc. While in myth a monster is not necessarily evil because some monsters were little more than mindless beasts, but for the purpose of this paper I will only included those with some form of malicious intent as well as some form of intellect. And while it would be impossible to come up with a single quality that is shared by all monsters as they are as varied as the cultures that birthed them, I will cover here some common themes that run threw many monsters stories. Let start with the physical descriptions, they have strange deformities ranging from something as simple as being really tall (Giants) to a furry frog tentacle demon…thing called a Yara-ma-yha-who, and while we find these differences scary it is the similarities to us that makes the horrifying. A duality of nature a sweet old grandmother in a gingerbread house that eats children. To move with unearthly grace an yet hold power enough to rip a man apart. This is often where we get the mystique of vampires, such incredible power that moves with such fluidity, the absurd contradiction of it. Even the most human looking monsters have a presence about them that sets those around them on edge, the animal part in our brain screams the this thing is not what it appears to be. We are we so attracted to monsters? I know for myself I want something there to be something to blame, something to fight it is not good enough for the world to be just random and bad things just happen. For others they crave to be scared, deep down they want the monster under their bed, they want it because it means there is something more to life than get up, work go to bed and die. And others still want to feel like a hero in there own story, to be important enough to be hunted… and some people just want to have sex with vampires that sparkle. As for humans that we deem monsters, well isn’t the whole point that they look just like us, that they are us? But for the sake of thoroughness I will cover a few special cases. Charles Manson a monster in many peoples eyes, craved an “X” into his forehead and later a swastika, presumably to display his beliefs or out of some need for attention.  Bobby Joe Long, a prolific rapist and serial murderer, grew breasts during adolescence. We even have an unhealthy fascination with human monsters, giving them cute little nicknames and feeding them the attention at many of them so crave.Monstrous= Monster-usNow we get to the mentality of what makes up a monster. They are motivated almost solely by there appetites, a hunger for flesh, for souls, for blood, for pain. A hunger for something, that is a defining quality of all true monsters, this single minded need to sate their thirsts, this idea alone is enough examine all on it‘s own. Can a being such as demon truly be evil? By all accounts it is unable to perform acts that are not evil, and if the action is not a choice can it truly be evil? The duality of nature that they posses physically is also reflected in their mentality, often they posses a massive intellect sometime many times that of a human, but there single mindedness to fulfill their appetites is often their undoing. while they can often act as a victim, one of their prey, slipping into the world of men to better hunt for what they seek, like the shape shifting werewolves. Often a hallmark of a monster is that it derives pleasure from causing pain, the idea of sadism was around long before the word was coined by Marquis de Sade. Many monsters see the world as a game, and all others as pawns with which they are to entertain themselves, and some find this idea appealing about monsters, some crave this loss of control and this is another reason some are so fascinated with them. Now, at what point does a man become a monster? (And when I say man I mean man, woman and child and everything in between)  I think first you need an action, an action that would be considered monstrous, now a monstrous act has to be an act of absolute brutality, something that even in a fit of blinding rage you really could not performed. There must be a sustained will to do the action, they can’t falter and stop halfway through. Often it is premeditated, while not a hard and fast rule it is fairly reliable, though it is important it point out that it is not until the action is actually preformed that the monster is born, the thoughts the dreams, they are only warning signs, they might never know that they are capable of doing it until they do. Finally, possibly the most important one, they can not have remorse afterwards about what they did. They can’t feel bad. These are not emotions that a monster can have.  I know it is a hard concept to understand but let me give you an idea of a truly monstrous act that can not have any possible defense. Junko Furuta. If you know this name you already know where this is going, and I warn you that this is not a story for the faint of heart I would go so far as to say that it makes Lecter look almost human by comparison. “On 25 November 1988, four boys, including Jo Kamisaku, then 17 (Kamisaku was a new family name he took after being released from prison), abducted and held Furuta, a third-year high school (12th grade) student from Misato, Saitama Prefecture, for 44 days. They kept her captive in the house owned by the parents of Boy C, located in the Ayase district of Adachi, Tokyo.To forestall a manhunt, one of them forced Furuta into calling her own parents and telling them that she had run away from home, but was with "a friend" and was not in danger. He also browbeat her into posing as one of the boys' girlfriends when the parents of the house where she was held were around, but when it became clear that the parents would not call the police, he dropped this pretext. Furuta tried to escape several times, begging the parents more than once to help her, but they did nothing, apparently out of fear that Boy A would hurt them. Boy A was at the time a low-level yakuza leader and had bragged that he could use his connections to kill anyone who interfered.According to their statements at their trial, the four of them raped her, beat her with metal rods and golf clubs, introduced foreign objects including a light bulb into her vagina, made her eat cockroaches and drink her own urine, inserted fireworks into her anus and set them off, forced Furuta to masturbate, cut her nipple with pliers, dropped dumbbells onto her stomach, and burned her with cigarettes and lighters. One of the burnings was punishment for attempting to call the police. At one point her injuries were so severe that according to one of the boys it took more than an hour for her to crawl downstairs to use the bathroom. They also related that "possibly a hundred different people" knew that Furuta had been imprisoned there, but it is not clear if this means they visited the house at different times while she was imprisoned there, or themselves either raped or abused her. When the boys refused to let her leave, she begged them on several occasions to "kill (her) and get it over with".On January 4, 1989, using a loss at mah-jong as a pretext, the four beat her with an iron barbell, poured lighter fluid on her legs, arms, face and stomach, and set her on fire. She died later that day of shock. The four boys claimed that they were not aware of how badly injured she was, and that they believed she had been malingering.On January 5, the killers hid her corpse in a 55-gallon drum filled with cement; the perpetrators disposed the drum in a tract of reclaimed land in Koto, Tokyo.”-Cool New JapanI hope that clears up any confusion. This. This by all accounts is monstrous act. You can not make a case that over 44 days that anyone of them did not know exactly what they were doing. It was planed, sustained, gruesome and the men have never once come out with an acknowledgment of the crime. This was a game to these men. They were feeding off her pain and fear. The control was as important to them as the physical pleasure they gained. These monsters are not the sexy strange vampires, they are not fun to think about. These are real monsters, these are humans who have broken free of humanity. It is my hope that with this story we can dissect Dr. Lecter’s actions from a different perspective, an understanding that while he is fictional and his actions are fictional, there are real people that dwarf him as far as monstrousness is concerned.“Reflecting upon and acknowledging this does not excuse the deeds, but it helps us understand that sometimes, good people do bad things. There are few dragons in this world. Rather, there are too many overwhelmed parents who, in an instant, lose their way and for a fateful, brief moment, breathe the fire they did not know was within them. “-“Here be dragons?”-Canadian Medical Association JournalDragon, that is what the news papers call Lecter and the name of the fist book he appears in is called “Red Dragon” It is a rather appropriate name it would see, in western culture anyway. It summons up images of gnashing teeth, claws, sleek serpentine bodies and power… and eating women in pointy hats… It also brings to mind a beast with cunning intellect and often a monster that is far smarter than the people around it. He is also clearly meant to be an analog for a vampire… and by clearly I mean they out and out say it, “Murray: Is it true what they're sayin', he's some kinda vampire? Clarice Starling: They don't have a name for what he is.”- Silence of the Lambs But if we are going do be technical (and you know I am) he is more of a ghoul, as he feasts on flesh not just blood… but that is just splitting hairs. He is incredibly pale, small, sleek, his arms having a wiry strength, he has six fingers on his left hand, small, white teeth, his eyes are maroon and they reflect the light in pinpoints of red. All of these physical traits are very telling of his monstrous nature. Being small and yet still giving off the aura  of power is common trait of undead (like ghouls and vampires), an extra finger on the left hand is another hint of his monstrous nature, his twisted inner world being reflected by his body, and in many cultures  the left hand is the lesser hand, it is disrespectful in many traditions to hand something to someone with your left hand. This may have something to do with people having used there left hand in the bathroom before we had toilet paper. He is just shy of having red glowing eyes which is a troupe of nearly every horror story ever written. He has an animal like sense of smell picking up the tiniest sent. His attention to detail boarders on the supernatural, but his ability to get into peoples head does not boarder on the supernatural, it pretty much is.Now, how does Lecter stack up mentally? Well, he is a cold calculating killing machine. He is always thinking. This is one of the many contradictions that make up Lecter. He is absolutely single minded in his thirst to kill and yet he has a brilliant mind capable of absolutely the most beautiful things as well as the most horrific things. “Imagination, Clarice is what I have instead of a view”He is a blood thirsty killing machine with no scruples about ripping off a mans face and wearing it to escape prison. Nor faking chest pain so he can try to eat a nurse “Dr. Frederick Chilton: I am going to show you why we insist on such precautions. On the evening of July 8th, 1981, he complained of chest pains and was taken to the dispensary. His mouthpiece and restraints were removed for an EKG. When the nurse leaned over him, he did this to her. [pulls out photo] Dr. Frederick Chilton: The doctors managed to reset her jaw more or less. Saved one of her eyes. His pulse never got above 85, even when he ate her tongue.”As sick as it is, this is why we like Lecter. He is smooth, he knows what he wants and takes it. He is flawless in his powers, no one can touch him if he doesn’t want them too. He has a mind that few people can understand and keep up with. Basically if he didn’t kill and eat people he would be the man men want to be and women want to be with (Ok…some women want to be with him the way he is) So what am I say? I think this sums you the him quite nicely, Dr. Hannibal Lecter is basically an evil Batman. Ok I know it sounds silly, but think about it all of the traits he possesses, a highly analytical mind, a single mindedness towards his goals, an ingenuity rivaling that of MacGyver, his own code of ethics (however warped it may be) and oddly enough he is a good enough fighter to beat two armed guards to death. We like Lecter because deep down we want to be like him, or maybe we think we could beat him. Lecter is odd in that he is not really a sympathetic villain/monster and yet he has many qualities that we admire. We don’t feel bad for him, but at the same time we don’t hate him. But he scares us, and I think what scares us most is how often we forget that he is a monster, he never regrets what he has done, he rather enjoys it. I think we are scared of far more than him killing us and eating us, scared of more than his ability to get into our heads and make us kill ourselves, we are scared that we could be like him, and that that small part of us wants to be. Some monsters can make more monsters, the vampires bite, the werewolves bite, the windigo’s bite, the zombie… you get the idea. So is that something Lecter wanted? Does Lecter want to create more people like him? All I can say is that he wants a challenge and the only person he feels is an equal to him is…him. “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?” Friedrich NietzscheSo what is a monster? Who’s to say. All things moral are up for debate, as they should be.  But just because every action is up for debate does not mean that no action is monstrous and no one is a monster, because in order to debate the morality of an action there must be evidence that there was some kind of motivation behind the action that was anything other than malevolent. If that case can not be made, then the action is truly monstrous. Keep this in mind when you think of Lecter, is he a monster? I think it is clear that he is, and yet many people are drawn to him, people like him, and I don’t just mean in the book I mean in real life  people can’t get enough Lecter. So why is it that we don’t feel the same about the man who tormented Junko Furuta? Is what they did somehow worse than the crimes that Lecter committed? Is it because they are real? Do they some how have less sex appeal? I think it is good to have questions like this, to not know why humans are the way they are and how they will react in any given circumstance. That is what I like about humans, we can change and so it makes labels like monster kind of pointless, as a man who has raped, killed and desecrated hundreds of women can have a change of heart and give his life to save a rape victim. That for all our flaws we are capable of surpassing perfection, and maybe I am just a sentimental fool, but I know we have monsters in this world so there has to be some angels out their to balance it out. At least that’s what I would like to believe.BibliographyHesse, M.. "Portrayal of psychopathy in the movies. " International Review of Psychiatry 21.3 (2009): 207. Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 21 Jul. 2010.Bellemare, S.. "Here be dragons? " Canadian Medical Association. Journal 180.6 (2009): 647-647. Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 21 Jul. 2010.Vampires: The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Ugly -- Vam. ". The Skeptical Inquirer 1 Oct. 1992: Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 21 Jul. 2010.Bruno, Anthony. "Who Were the Real Killers That Inspired Silence of the Lambs Hannibal Lecter, from — Prologue — Crime Library on TruTV.com." TruTV.com: Not Reality. Actuality. Web. 21 July 2010. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/lecter/1.html."Murder of Junko Furuta." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 21 July 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta."The Silence of the Lambs Quotes, Sayings and Quotations." 450,000 Famous Quotes - Movie Quotes - Inspirational & Funny Quotes - Famous Sayings & Proverbs - Great Quotes! Web. 21 July 2010. <http://www.great-quotes.com/cgi-bin/viewquotes.cgi?action=search&orderby=&Movie=The Silence of the Lambs&startlist=30>.

Daniel Gore

Monstrously Maleficent Machinations

A study in to the monstrous nature and origins of Dr. Hannibal Lecter

Aka- Dr. Hannibal Lecter is basically an evil Batman

 

Teeth, fangs and claws. These are the images that the word monster summons in us, gnashing teeth and blood dripping from jaws. The strange thing is the monsters that scare us, that horrify us the most is us. Think about the monsters in stories, jenny green teeth, baba yaga, satan, vampires, werewolves and zombies. It is not there teeth that scare us, nor the strange powers they have, what scares us is the human qualities they have, The fact that some of them were once human makes them all the more horrifying because we could become like them. In classic stories monsters are something that a man comes to conquer, they are something that can be overcome so long as you are strong enough, brave enough or cunning enough, but what if the monster is a man? All the strength and cunning of a man and all the evil of a monster? This is what we love to write about, the monster that is us. We have proved that we can kick the shit out of anything on this planet if we really want to, so what is left to scare us? Just us. This is where monsters like Dr. Hannibal Lecter come from, we need something to challenge us, to shake our cage as to not get complacent. Lecter has many traits that we associate with monsters, he consumes flesh, he lacks what we would consider a motive for his actions, strange deformities, a predatory presence, a solitary nature and supernatural qualities. What is it about Lecter that sets us on edge? Why does he scare us so? What is our fascination with the idea of the monstrous? In this paper I hope to discus just that. First I will discus what qualities a monster possesses both physically and mentally, then a look at monsters that Lecter borrows from how these qualities apply to Lecter.

 

“Ten years after he died people in his village in Hungary claimed to see Peter wandering the village streets at night. His widow claimed he came to her window and demanded his shoes. She had gave them away. Soon people with their throats torn out were found each morning in the area. And people still claimed to see Peter walking around the village at night. Village elders contacted the near by soldiers and they came at their request and dug up Peters grave. When Peters grave was opened he was found to be in a perfectly preserved state even though he had been dead for ten years. He was dragged from his grave and burned and his ashes were scattered to the four directions to insure he was gone. Peter was never again seen to wander the village at night. And no other strange deaths occurred. So maybe just maybe Peter was preying on his former friends and neighbors.”-De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis (1725)

 

What goes bump in the night? Most often the same things that go bump in day…only like with less light but I digress, since the beginning of time monsters have haunted the dark corners of our world. They come running, crawling, floating and slithering towards us as soon as our backs are turned. What makes a monster? They are defined as 

1.a legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination, as a centaur, griffin, or sphinx.

2.any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.

3.any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.

4. a person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc. 

While in myth a monster is not necessarily evil because some monsters were little more than mindless beasts, but for the purpose of this paper I will only included those with some form of malicious intent as well as some form of intellect. And while it would be impossible to come up with a single quality that is shared by all monsters as they are as varied as the cultures that birthed them, I will cover here some common themes that run threw many monsters stories. Let start with the physical descriptions, they have strange deformities ranging from something as simple as being really tall (Giants) to a furry frog tentacle demon…thing called a Yara-ma-yha-who, and while we find these differences scary it is the similarities to us that makes the horrifying. A duality of nature a sweet old grandmother in a gingerbread house that eats children. To move with unearthly grace an yet hold power enough to rip a man apart. This is often where we get the mystique of vampires, such incredible power that moves with such fluidity, the absurd contradiction of it. Even the most human looking monsters have a presence about them that sets those around them on edge, the animal part in our brain screams the this thing is not what it appears to be. We are we so attracted to monsters? I know for myself I want something there to be something to blame, something to fight it is not good enough for the world to be just random and bad things just happen. For others they crave to be scared, deep down they want the monster under their bed, they want it because it means there is something more to life than get up, work go to bed and die. And others still want to feel like a hero in there own story, to be important enough to be hunted… and some people just want to have sex with vampires that sparkle. As for humans that we deem monsters, well isn’t the whole point that they look just like us, that they are us? But for the sake of thoroughness I will cover a few special cases. Charles Manson a monster in many peoples eyes, craved an “X” into his forehead and later a swastika, presumably to display his beliefs or out of some need for attention.  Bobby Joe Long, a prolific rapist and serial murderer, grew breasts during adolescence. We even have an unhealthy fascination with human monsters, giving them cute little nicknames and feeding them the attention at many of them so crave.

Monstrous= Monster-us

Now we get to the mentality of what makes up a monster. They are motivated almost solely by there appetites, a hunger for flesh, for souls, for blood, for pain. A hunger for something, that is a defining quality of all true monsters, this single minded need to sate their thirsts, this idea alone is enough examine all on it‘s own. Can a being such as demon truly be evil? By all accounts it is unable to perform acts that are not evil, and if the action is not a choice can it truly be evil? The duality of nature that they posses physically is also reflected in their mentality, often they posses a massive intellect sometime many times that of a human, but there single mindedness to fulfill their appetites is often their undoing. while they can often act as a victim, one of their prey, slipping into the world of men to better hunt for what they seek, like the shape shifting werewolves. Often a hallmark of a monster is that it derives pleasure from causing pain, the idea of sadism was around long before the word was coined by Marquis de Sade. Many monsters see the world as a game, and all others as pawns with which they are to entertain themselves, and some find this idea appealing about monsters, some crave this loss of control and this is another reason some are so fascinated with them. Now, at what point does a man become a monster? (And when I say man I mean man, woman and child and everything in between)  I think first you need an action, an action that would be considered monstrous, now a monstrous act has to be an act of absolute brutality, something that even in a fit of blinding rage you really could not performed. There must be a sustained will to do the action, they can’t falter and stop halfway through. Often it is premeditated, while not a hard and fast rule it is fairly reliable, though it is important it point out that it is not until the action is actually preformed that the monster is born, the thoughts the dreams, they are only warning signs, they might never know that they are capable of doing it until they do. Finally, possibly the most important one, they can not have remorse afterwards about what they did. They can’t feel bad. These are not emotions that a monster can have.  I know it is a hard concept to understand but let me give you an idea of a truly monstrous act that can not have any possible defense. Junko Furuta. If you know this name you already know where this is going, and I warn you that this is not a story for the faint of heart I would go so far as to say that it makes Lecter look almost human by comparison. 

“On 25 November 1988, four boys, including Jo Kamisaku, then 17 (Kamisaku was a new family name he took after being released from prison), abducted and held Furuta, a third-year high school (12th grade) student from Misato, Saitama Prefecture, for 44 days. They kept her captive in the house owned by the parents of Boy C, located in the Ayase district of Adachi, Tokyo.

To forestall a manhunt, one of them forced Furuta into calling her own parents and telling them that she had run away from home, but was with "a friend" and was not in danger. He also browbeat her into posing as one of the boys' girlfriends when the parents of the house where she was held were around, but when it became clear that the parents would not call the police, he dropped this pretext. Furuta tried to escape several times, begging the parents more than once to help her, but they did nothing, apparently out of fear that Boy A would hurt them. Boy A was at the time a low-level yakuza leader and had bragged that he could use his connections to kill anyone who interfered.

According to their statements at their trial, the four of them raped her, beat her with metal rods and golf clubs, introduced foreign objects including a light bulb into her vagina, made her eat cockroaches and drink her own urine, inserted fireworks into her anus and set them off, forced Furuta to masturbate, cut her nipple with pliers, dropped dumbbells onto her stomach, and burned her with cigarettes and lighters. One of the burnings was punishment for attempting to call the police. At one point her injuries were so severe that according to one of the boys it took more than an hour for her to crawl downstairs to use the bathroom. They also related that "possibly a hundred different people" knew that Furuta had been imprisoned there, but it is not clear if this means they visited the house at different times while she was imprisoned there, or themselves either raped or abused her. When the boys refused to let her leave, she begged them on several occasions to "kill (her) and get it over with".

On January 4, 1989, using a loss at mah-jong as a pretext, the four beat her with an iron barbell, poured lighter fluid on her legs, arms, face and stomach, and set her on fire. She died later that day of shock. The four boys claimed that they were not aware of how badly injured she was, and that they believed she had been malingering.

On January 5, the killers hid her corpse in a 55-gallon drum filled with cement; the perpetrators disposed the drum in a tract of reclaimed land in Koto, Tokyo.”-Cool New Japan

 

I hope that clears up any confusion. This. This by all accounts is monstrous act. You can not make a case that over 44 days that anyone of them did not know exactly what they were doing. It was planed, sustained, gruesome and the men have never once come out with an acknowledgment of the crime. This was a game to these men. They were feeding off her pain and fear. The control was as important to them as the physical pleasure they gained. These monsters are not the sexy strange vampires, they are not fun to think about. These are real monsters, these are humans who have broken free of humanity. It is my hope that with this story we can dissect Dr. Lecter’s actions from a different perspective, an understanding that while he is fictional and his actions are fictional, there are real people that dwarf him as far as monstrousness is concerned.

 

“Reflecting upon and acknowledging this does not excuse the deeds, but it helps us understand that sometimes, good people do bad things. There are few dragons in this world. Rather, there are too many overwhelmed parents who, in an instant, lose their way and for a fateful, brief moment, breathe the fire they did not know was within them. “-“Here be dragons?”-Canadian Medical Association Journal

 

Dragon, that is what the news papers call Lecter and the name of the fist book he appears in is called “Red Dragon” It is a rather appropriate name it would see, in western culture anyway. It summons up images of gnashing teeth, claws, sleek serpentine bodies and power… and eating women in pointy hats… It also brings to mind a beast with cunning intellect and often a monster that is far smarter than the people around it. He is also clearly meant to be an analog for a vampire… and by clearly I mean they out and out say it, “Murray: Is it true what they're sayin', he's some kinda vampire? Clarice Starling: They don't have a name for what he is.”- Silence of the Lambs 

But if we are going do be technical (and you know I am) he is more of a ghoul, as he feasts on flesh not just blood… but that is just splitting hairs. He is incredibly pale, small, sleek, his arms having a wiry strength, he has six fingers on his left hand, small, white teeth, his eyes are maroon and they reflect the light in pinpoints of red. All of these physical traits are very telling of his monstrous nature. Being small and yet still giving off the aura  of power is common trait of undead (like ghouls and vampires), an extra finger on the left hand is another hint of his monstrous nature, his twisted inner world being reflected by his body, and in many cultures  the left hand is the lesser hand, it is disrespectful in many traditions to hand something to someone with your left hand. This may have something to do with people having used there left hand in the bathroom before we had toilet paper. He is just shy of having red glowing eyes which is a troupe of nearly every horror story ever written. He has an animal like sense of smell picking up the tiniest sent. His attention to detail boarders on the supernatural, but his ability to get into peoples head does not boarder on the supernatural, it pretty much is.

Now, how does Lecter stack up mentally? Well, he is a cold calculating killing machine. He is always thinking. This is one of the many contradictions that make up Lecter. He is absolutely single minded in his thirst to kill and yet he has a brilliant mind capable of absolutely the most beautiful things as well as the most horrific things. 

“Imagination, Clarice is what I have instead of a view”

He is a blood thirsty killing machine with no scruples about ripping off a mans face and wearing it to escape prison. Nor faking chest pain so he can try to eat a nurse 

 

“Dr. Frederick Chilton: I am going to show you why we insist on such precautions. On the evening of July 8th, 1981, he complained of chest pains and was taken to the dispensary. His mouthpiece and restraints were removed for an EKG. When the nurse leaned over him, he did this to her. [pulls out photo] Dr. Frederick Chilton: The doctors managed to reset her jaw more or less. Saved one of her eyes. His pulse never got above 85, even when he ate her tongue.”

As sick as it is, this is why we like Lecter. He is smooth, he knows what he wants and takes it. He is flawless in his powers, no one can touch him if he doesn’t want them too. He has a mind that few people can understand and keep up with. Basically if he didn’t kill and eat people he would be the man men want to be and women want to be with (Ok…some women want to be with him the way he is) So what am I say? I think this sums you the him quite nicely, Dr. Hannibal Lecter is basically an evil Batman. Ok I know it sounds silly, but think about it all of the traits he possesses, a highly analytical mind, a single mindedness towards his goals, an ingenuity rivaling that of MacGyver, his own code of ethics (however warped it may be) and oddly enough he is a good enough fighter to beat two armed guards to death. We like Lecter because deep down we want to be like him, or maybe we think we could beat him. Lecter is odd in that he is not really a sympathetic villain/monster and yet he has many qualities that we admire. We don’t feel bad for him, but at the same time we don’t hate him. But he scares us, and I think what scares us most is how often we forget that he is a monster, he never regrets what he has done, he rather enjoys it. I think we are scared of far more than him killing us and eating us, scared of more than his ability to get into our heads and make us kill ourselves, we are scared that we could be like him, and that that small part of us wants to be. Some monsters can make more monsters, the vampires bite, the werewolves bite, the windigo’s bite, the zombie… you get the idea. So is that something Lecter wanted? Does Lecter want to create more people like him? All I can say is that he wants a challenge and the only person he feels is an equal to him is…him. 

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. 

Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?”

 Friedrich Nietzsche

 

So what is a monster? Who’s to say. All things moral are up for debate, as they should be.  But just because every action is up for debate does not mean that no action is monstrous and no one is a monster, because in order to debate the morality of an action there must be evidence that there was some kind of motivation behind the action that was anything other than malevolent. If that case can not be made, then the action is truly monstrous. Keep this in mind when you think of Lecter, is he a monster? I think it is clear that he is, and yet many people are drawn to him, people like him, and I don’t just mean in the book I mean in real life  people can’t get enough Lecter. So why is it that we don’t feel the same about the man who tormented Junko Furuta? Is what they did somehow worse than the crimes that Lecter committed? Is it because they are real? Do they some how have less sex appeal? I think it is good to have questions like this, to not know why humans are the way they are and how they will react in any given circumstance. That is what I like about humans, we can change and so it makes labels like monster kind of pointless, as a man who has raped, killed and desecrated hundreds of women can have a change of heart and give his life to save a rape victim. That for all our flaws we are capable of surpassing perfection, and maybe I am just a sentimental fool, but I know we have monsters in this world so there has to be some angels out their to balance it out. At least that’s what I would like to believe.

Bibliography

Hesse, M.. "Portrayal of psychopathy in the movies. " International Review of Psychiatry 21.3 (2009): 207. Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 21 Jul. 2010.

 

Bellemare, S.. "Here be dragons? " Canadian Medical Association. Journal 180.6 (2009): 647-647. Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 21 Jul. 2010.

 

Vampires: The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Ugly -- Vam. ". The Skeptical Inquirer 1 Oct. 1992: Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web. 21 Jul. 2010.

 

Bruno, Anthony. "Who Were the Real Killers That Inspired Silence of the Lambs Hannibal Lecter, from — Prologue — Crime Library on TruTV.com." TruTV.com: Not Reality. Actuality. Web. 21 July 2010. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/lecter/1.html.

"Murder of Junko Furuta." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 21 July 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta.

 

"The Silence of the Lambs Quotes, Sayings and Quotations." 450,000 Famous Quotes - Movie Quotes - Inspirational & Funny Quotes - Famous Sayings & Proverbs - Great Quotes! Web. 21 July 2010. <http://www.great-quotes.com/cgi-bin/viewquotes.cgi?action=search&orderby=&Movie=The Silence of the Lambs&startlist=30>.

Why I Teach

Throughout my life every person who has met me for any length of time has assumed I would be one of three things; a writer, therapist or a teacher. Given that I detest writing on levels unfathomable to the mortal mind and for whatever reason I don’t live having money, my choice was clear. 

From early in my life I have loved reading, I consumed literature. Now the key here is I was voracious in the reading of books that interested me. My appetite for reading all started with “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone”, but it only grew from there. While the level of my reading increased, the genres that interest me have remained consistent, fiction, particularly fantasy and dark fairy tales. Something about the world existing just below ours, heroes, villains and monster sets my mind, my imagination ablaze with ideas. Every book I read adds another square on to the patchwork quilt that is my mind.

Another huge influence on my interest in being a teacher was a man named David Speakmen, there is no possible way to describe the complete effect this man has had on my life for the short time I knew him. Suffice to say he ran a game called “The Call of Cthulhu” based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and his skill as a narrator and his and the rest of the group (All were between double or triple my age) treating me as an equal instead of the child which I was, allowed me to grow in many ways. I really liked David, he helped me grow into the man I am today to see myself as an equal to the people around me regardless of age. I am sorry to say that the man that I met and taught me so much is not the man I knew when we lost contact. He went through a nasty divorce and was left with a very hyperactive child and it drained him and left him a shell of the man he was. This saddened me greatly, but I will remember him as the great man that had such an impact on my life.

But by far the single greatest influence on why I wish to be a teacher, which is all a direct result of the above and many other elements in my life, is comic books. Now I’m not talking about Superman or Spiderman, those came in to my life later. The comics I am talking about were amazing works of both artistic and literacy genius put out by the comic company know as “Vertigo Comics” and specifically “The Sandman” by a true hero of mine, Neil Gaiman. Other works also put out by Vertigo that inspired me included “Lucifer”, “Hellblazer” and “The Invisibles”. All of these works have helped me grow as a person, as a reader, as a storyteller and as a teacher. My mind has expanded and allowed for the accepting of stranger and more complex ideas thanks to these books, and for that I will always remember them. While I would not advise these as literature for people who were my age to just jump into them head first, they are much to strange and could turn someone off reading if one was not prepared for them. Think of these as books I used to stretch and expand my mind far out from where I should have been at the time. I found this to be highly useful for the most part, but it made it much harder to find things to occupy my mind, but I suppose the search for a good book just makes finding it all the sweeter.

It is with comic books that I plan to help my students grow and learn to love to read. Much like my Freshman English teacher Mr. Gogos did with music. He brought in something that could get the attention of his students, keep it and refocus it onto the work that must get done. He took his students interest in artists such as Tupac and by having them examine his lyrics give them the skills to understand complex themes in works of fiction such as Shakespeare. It is my dream to use comic books the way he used music to give students the foundation they need to be comfortable reading the books they will confront in their lives. I believe that he hit upon an idea most teachers forget about and thus lose students, and that is that there is far more to reading than the act of reading. There is comprehension, the ability to take the words given and make the make sense. If a student can’t make Shakespeare’s words fit in his head then give him Tupac and give him the skills that he needs to take on Shakespeare.

I foresee my greatest challenge coming not from the students, but from the parents and the administration, and the bias that many people have towards comics and a median for “childish flights of fancy”, with no knowledge of the true depth to which many comics go, true works of wonder. It is my hope not only to educate not only students, but schooling as a whole of a medium that is being overlooked that could be a great boon to teaching everywhere. We have streamlined everything to make everything work like an assembly line, the math teacher teaches you one plus one equals two, the English teacher gives you “To be or not to be” and so on and so forth. Well… Humans are not made of spare parts, you can say “This is what will work so do this for everyone” and it is going to doom many children if we try too.

English has more components to it than merely reading and writing, and I feel this is over looked to lesser or greater degrees in most classrooms today. Oral communications will play a vital room in my classroom, because we cannot afford to allow this skill to lag behind in student’s lives. Many teachers and “experts” (I truly hate anyone who describes themselves as an expert in the field of Education) say that children are losing the ability to communicate effectively because of texting and the internet, and so what do they do? Make every assignment a written assignment. I have called a few teachers who complain about the “deterioration of the social skills of the youth” but still only use written assignments, to which they claim that because they require “Correct” English that they are not part of the problem. They are not helping students gain speaking proficiency, merely reinforcing the idea that your mouth is just for eating and breathing.

I never want my students to have to question why it is that we are doing that they are doing in my room (But I want them to anyway), I want everything I make them do have a clear purpose, a clear goal a clear application to the real world, because I know how hard it is for a student to focus on something they feel are busy work or lack true purpose. Ask yourself, how many times have you been sitting in class only to ask yourself “When am I going to ever use this in my life?” As soon as a student asks this you have lost them for the day, they will not hear you, and they will not retain the information.

Finally I hope to show that great works of literature did not stop being created in the 1800s and the early 1900’s, not only are they still being created, but I believe that students will find it far easier to connect and relate to these works. Yes anyone with even a basic understanding of English know that we can draw parallels between Shakespeare and the world of today, but think about how much more interested a student will be in a book that had them in mind, with direct parallels to their lives. Many great writers are overlooked in favor of the dead white men principle. Why is it that we don’t have a Shakespeare of today? It’s not that writing has not evolved or it has somehow declined, it’s because we don’t want to give anyone the chance, we already have Shakespeare we don’t need another.

If you can help a student connect with what he is reading he will be more likely to seek out more knowledge on his own, and as teachers while it is true that we seek to teach, but if we can inspire in our students the will, the desire to seek out knowledge for there our sake, for the sake of knowledge that is when you have truly succeeded as a teacher. A student that has the drive to become greater, to become more the sum of himself is a student that will do great things. I know that as a teacher I only get a student a few minutes a day, five days a week for a few months. In that time I want to teach a few things, but I would prefer to make them seek out knowledge for their own joy of knowledge, that way even though I only have them for a small amount of time, they are with themselves forever.

I have been fortunate in my life; I have had many benefits that many others have not. I have had a family that loves and supports me. I have had many teachers that sought to inspire, not just to teach. I hope to return these gifts to the world by doing my best to inspire those around me, not merely in the class room but in all that I do and in everyone that I meet in my life, to instill in others the drive to keep going, to keep loving, to keep working, to keep learning. That all you need is the strength to pick yourself back up and you will never truly fail. If I can instill in them this, if I can instill hope then I have succeeded in my dreams as a teacher.

 

Who I Am…

Who Am I…

I Am A Mask…

I Am A Million Masks…

To Everyone I Am A Mask…

A Mask Without A Face…

For Every Person I Add A Mask…

To Hide My Face…

Or Do I Remove One…

To Get Closer To Showing It…

Do They Love The Mask…

Or Do They Hate Me…

Do They Know My Face…

Could They…

Would They…

If They Could…

If They Would…

Will They Love Me…

Or Will They Long For…

The Masks…

And Will I…

The world a dirty place…

So I’m A Dirty Man…

I Felt A Lot Of Pain…

But I’m Still Here…

In The Dark…

The World Sees Me As I am…

The Only One I Got Fooled Is Me…

I Saw The Gates Of Heaven…

You Asked Me In…

I Laughed And Plunged Into The Pit…

You Cried…

It’s Your Tears That Always Fed Me…

The Sin Inside Came Out…

I Saw My Trespasses Lied Be For Me…

I Wrapped Them Around Me Like A Blanket…

They Keep Me Warm…

And They Keep Me Blind…

My Hell Is My Own…

My Hell Is My Home…

Don’t Make It Yours…

I Won’t Give It To You…

Because This Home May Be Hell…

But It Is My Own..

Something That Is Mine…

That You Can’t Touch Or Take …

So Somehow You Made This Hell Heaven…

But For What I Have Done Should I be Happy….

You Can’t Save Me…

A Man Can Only Damn Himself…

So How Do You Save A Man…

Who Makes A Heaven Of Hell…

And A Hell Of That Heaven…

You Can’t Save Me…

I’m Just A Damned Fool…