eeuuugh

Aug. 10th, 2005 09:03 pm
Hey all--I've been reading some fairly gross stuff and I talk about it in a moderately candid manner here. It's nothing too gross, cos I'm a wimp, but extremely creepy and probably not for the faint of heart or stomach.



I've been reading about cannibals.

Although I've begun to have occupation at work, wrapping things up and getting ready to leave (my last day is Friday), at the beginning of this week I was pretty much wholly without tasks, and was amusing myself as best I could one pages that were only text but not erotica. Apparently, for me, this means reading about things that horrify and gross me out. I started out with Dr. Crippen, who is well-known for, early in the 20th century, killing his wife, disembowling her, cutting off head and limbs and doing god knows what with them, and burying her torso in the basement.

Then I ended up reading about murder mysteries--I did a great deal of Wiki-surfing. Wikipedia has been extremely helpful in my quest for amusement. Anyway, yes. I was reading about locked room mysteries, and then that lead me to want to re-read Agatha Christie's book, And Then There Were None, but I didn't have it, so I read summaries and what-not (I now have gotten a hold of it) and I've pretty much been thoroughly creeping myself out at work.

Anyway, eventually this whole thing lead to a search at home that, in turn, lead to a movie review website, where I read about a very creepy movie, The Hills Have Eyes, which, according to imdb (by the way, there's also an ibdb--internet broadway database) is based on the Scottish legend of the Sawney Beane family.

Now, it turns out that Sawney Beane is almost certainly a largely, if not completely, fictional character, invented in the 18th century. But I didn't know that when I first read his story. He was this completely lazy and sort of depraved character, who ended up marrying a woman of similar bent. They lived in a cave. And lived by brigandry, always killing their victims so there would be no witnesses. They used the money to buy food (they just hoarded any valuables, as they'd be too easy to track down) but as they began to have kids, there wasn't enough money. So, they came upon a solution--to eat the bodies of those they killed. Eventually they had quite a large gang of just their family--48 Beanes, children, and grandchildren born of incest. Anyway, there were never any survivors until they attacked a husband and wife coming back from the fair. The wife was killed (and apparently disembowled on the spot--did I mention that they pickled people? and they actually had excess food, so they'd discard the bits that had begun to rot, and people were finding little bits of pickled body parts washing up on shore), but this caused the husband to fight in a great frenzy, and then a large group of people came and the Beanes were forced to retreat. The man was the only survivor of an attack, and with his information (that there was a gang, that they were living in the hills somewhere, etc) the authorities were able to take action. Apparently King James I of Scotland (sometimes James I of England, making the story a bit sticky to date) was called, and brought up an army of 400, and they still almost missed the cave except the dogs smelled the dead bodies. So the 400 soldiers went a mile into this cave, and found at the end the family and a huge chamber full of the bones of the approximately 1000 people that the family had killed, and their storeroom of human meat.

Ooooh, ick. And then the family was dragged off and executed without a trial--the execution is totally gross, too--the men had their limbs chopped off and bled to death, and after the women had witnessed this, they were burned.

So, according to the story, all the children and grandchildren were just raised in the caves, cannibalism and murder being all they know.


Anyway, the other story about Scottish cannibals is slightly less horrifying and has slightly more credibility. I can't remember when it's supposed to have taken place--early in the 1300s, I think (a couple hundred years or so before Beane) but it was during a really horrible famine in Scotland, due to disease, and the English, and I don't know what. But apparently a lot of people had taken to the woods, hoping to live off acorns and anything they might be able to find. One man, Andrew Christie, who had been a butcher and was apparently fairly strong-willed, organized a bunch of people into a loose confederation, who would hunt and share any meager food they could find. Then, when even this ran out, apparently they all lay dying in caves [P.S. I say "apparently" too much, I know, but I hate to be authoritative about stuff like this, even when I've already stated my skeptism. . . I've got some sort of weird hyper-honesty thing going on. . .]. Anyways, they're all in caves, dying and groaning. And Christie hears a woman near him stop groaning. She's dead. He manages to butcher her, they eat her, get strength (they might have eaten one other person to get strong enough for the next phase) and then began killing passers-by. If they were on a horse, they would pull the person off it with an iron hook on a long rod--that's how he got his nickname, Christie-Cleek, "cleek" being a Scottish word for a hook, related to "crook", apparently (like what shepherds use) (hmm, I guess that's where "by hook or by crook" comes from. or maybe not). So anyway, eventually they're caught and all are killed--except for Christie himself, who apparently escapes. From then on, the name "Christie-Cleek" was used to scare small Scottish children. . . including those of a respected merchant, David Maxwell, who revealed to his wife and daughters on his deathbed that he is Christie!


I actually thought that story was kinda cool. I mean, not cool as in "hell yeah!" but as in it would make a really good horror story. The other one, I mean, it's inspired horror stories (like that movie) but it's too much for me, whereas Christie-Cleek is more manageable. No incest, no people being raised in caves, only 30 killed, driven to cannibalism by hunger, and an exciting twist ending (which is not found in the earliest versions of the story).

Anyway, then I read briefly about Sweeney Todd. But that's a different type of cannibalism.

Which is. . . so just totally freak-me-out gross.

I can't handle horror movies, and I could never ever watch Silence of the Lambs or anything like that. I have a completely overactive imagination and even just reading these stories, and reading about how they're false and all that, made me very nervous to be alone. But at the same time, I like to creep myself out--to a limited extent, and only when I'm in the right mood. But I do like to read summaries of horror movies. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the visual images that linger. And I have more control when I'm just reading them. And written accounts lack the realism of the movies--especially when it's a summary telling what happens in the movie, you know? I'd actually like a more detailed summary of the Hills Have Eyes, but it's not that well-known.



Anyway. Here's a link that just totally cracks me up: http://www.spamusement.com It consists of "poorly drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines" this one is my absolute favorite! Amazing!!

Date: 2005-08-11 02:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tckma.livejournal.com
I will read this in a bit, but I just wanted to let you know there is an LJ feed: [livejournal.com profile] spamusement

Date: 2005-08-11 10:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] guingel.livejournal.com
::gasp!!:: you're amazing! Yay! I was wondering how I would remember to check the website, and how often I should do so, and now I don't have to worry! Thank you!

Date: 2005-08-11 10:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tckma.livejournal.com
I try. :)

And that cannibalism stuff is just creepy.

Date: 2005-08-11 10:30 am (UTC)

Date: 2005-08-11 02:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] inkwraith.livejournal.com
Oddly that reminds me of the medieval writings about early Christian martyrs and their various tortures/extravagant deaths. They liked their stories gory back then. :O Cannibals, yikes!

Cloudie bought Munchkin and we have been playing it and it is the RAWK. :D I'm so glad you introduced us to the insanity.

Date: 2005-08-11 10:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] guingel.livejournal.com
Hmm. . . as of yet, in my experience, martyrdom writings have yet to provide that same fascination for me. I'll probably just end up studying them in a class and be totally grossed out! Eugh.

Yay for Munchkin!! I loves it so--sadly, I haven't played it in a really long time. Cos now that i don't get along with David, we don't have three people to play it. Also, not much time.

So, you never said how Comic Con was!! Share, share! I need to live vicariously through you!

Date: 2005-08-12 03:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] inkwraith.livejournal.com
It was big. *serious* No, really, I think there were even more people than last time. So a bit crowded. They put some of the really cool panels in Hall H, which seats 6,000 people, and which had a line outside the door of about 6,000 people the first time we tried to get in. >_< Crowd control was a huge issue this time, TPTB kept mentioning it. One booth had a whole display of Munchkin expansions. :D And there was the Scoop o' Dice (tm) which Cloudie got. We missed you. :O

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