Modern monster stories have taken a huge turn in how they illustrate monsters. What was once a requirement for a creature to be large, and physically deformed, it has now become a standard to portray a pale, skinny women with a lot of makeup instead. This, in fact, has actually made monsters more believable and something worth being terrified of. While it is rather unlikely we will ever see the boogeyman in this lifetime or another, we have grown accustom to seeing pale, elderly women or a sight of the sort; and this fear has been capitalized on by modern day filmmakers and has gained notorious reputation. One of the scariest films I have ever seen is Insidious. The film as a whole was not scary at all however, the ending had me sleeping with the lights on for weeks. After the supposed monster has been warded off and what seems like a happy ending soon to come, the movie takes a turn for the worst as the father is shown to be possessed by a pale elderly demon and kills the exorcist expert.

I thought you might like to read this book tour diary by Gary Shteyngart. The first entry is linked at the bottom of that post, if you want to start at the beginning. It’s pretty funny to see the behind-the-scenes of events like the one we attended last week.

I’m also including the book trailer for Little Failure, which is hilarious if also really stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sowt9Wq7zYU

IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE NEW EPISODE DON’T READ IT!!!!

On of the most popular shows on TV returned last Sunday on the 11th. It was a long wait for the first episode of the new season. Social media was going crazy, and trailers were slowly being released to show us some bits of the new season. At New York Comic Con, the first 4 minutes of the new episode were released and all hell broke loose.

We last ended up in Terminus, The Walking Dead crew was split up and at the end of season 4 they all ended up in the same spot. Shit was about to get real, they found out Terminus was full of cannibals, and Rick told everyone locked inside the train car with him “They don’t know who they’re messing with.” These cannibals were monsters, they ate their own, and they lured people in by acting nice at first and then eating them, but they truly did not know who they were messing with.

This is the leader of Terminus, his name is Gareth. A little back story is, when the zombie apocalypse started out, Terminus was actually a sanctuary. But then everything went to hell, and they had to resort to cannibalism. It was revealed that Terminus was actually taken over, and all the women and men who originally ran the place, were locked inside a train car and the women were raped. They decided to help people, and in return were treated like animals.

If we decide to analyze these people using Carroll, we come to see that they aren’t monsters. It shows us that these people were forced into these impure actions. As I watched the show, I began to wonder whether it was their fault? Or can you be forced into being a monster as these people were? Or do apocalypses create monsters in all of us to survive?

The greatest of Monster and the essence of all fears is growth and decay. Growing up I was very different from kids my age, particularly in regards to my fears. My greatest fear growing up was “growing up”. Unlike kids my age I was not scared of monsters coming out of my closet or ugly hairy beasts hiding under my bed but rather I was scared of growing older. I was very happy with how great my life was and didn’t want any of that to change. The most terrifying change I would envision would be of my parents growing older and eventually dying. My parents had been there for me since the day I was born and couldn’t bring myself to imagine a life without them. Every night when I went to bed the same thought would creep into my mind and keep me awake for hours at a time. In regards to fearing anything we fear it simply because we don’t know what it is or what impact will it have on us. These thoughts were hell to me at the time but eventually I realized it was inevitable and nothing could be done about it. Slowly over time I came to accept the idea that change is a part of life and is necessary for us to grow as human beings.

Here’s a really interesting set of links about experimental film, featuring David Lynch. You might check them out, especially if you’re interested in some of the more fantastical aspects of The Elephant Man.

David Lynch Presents the History of Surrealist Film

I believe there’s a monster that each of us know very well, regardless of the cultural backgrounds and language. That monster is the face you see in the mirror every morning when you brush your teeth. Yes, the truly horrific monster is you. At some point in our life, some people more often than others, we can be seen and considered, by our peers and by ourselves, as heinous monsters with a thin layer of human skin. We are naturally born selfish. We do things to satisfy our desires and sometimes disregard those around us. Some of us are more benevolent than others and some of us are more sinister than others. At the end of the day, we would feel very pleased if our actions did ourselves good. But often than not, there are many other people get trampled by our actions in achieving our goals and satisfy our desires. In the eyes of those who suffer, we are no better than monsters, who terrorized their day and brought it to ruins. The same goes for vice versa; when our days are leading to a downward spiral of unhappiness by our peers when their selfish actions make themselves the beneficiary, and us the victims. We can even be the monsters to our own lives. There are times when we doubt, suspect, and lie to others and to ourselves. The paranoia causes distrust between you and your peers and, this paranoia can lead you to commit actions that are regrettable and monstrous. The doubt, suspect, and lie can also be applied to ourselves. Sometimes, we would doubt our own capabilities, suspect our own confidence, and lie to ourselves that we are really not that amazing, when in truth, we are all very amazing people. This leads us to self-destruction and a road to somewhere where the happiness doesn’t linger and positive thoughts fade to nothingness.

I believe the internet is a menace. During this recent couple of decades, the internet has become widely popular. It started around the 1990’s and has since become world wide. I mean they even put wi-fi in restaurants to draw customers in. The internet is used daily and by millions of billions. I can not survive a week without the internet, trust me I tried. Everyone is so addicted, this is probably the main cause of procastination. I mean you can even be scarred by YouTube videos now a days. When Annabelle kept appearing everytime I clicked a video, it was torture. No one likes porcelain dolls, no one. I hated Chucky and I hate Annabelle, seriously why do I have to be so addicted. I loved nightmare before Christmas, but the boogeyman part freak me  out. How did the skeleton not freak me out, but the bag of bugs did?

The Internet is like a drug, once you get a taste of it, you want more.   The world even created online video games! I mean they are asking for us to be addicted. I love these competitive games, and online meeting games. You can be free without the reality of it all. I guess that’s how trollers feel, the attention without the judgement in real life. The school administrators don’t help either. They give out homework online and encourage to look for sources online. I mean why are you encouraging this stuff. Some people text in class, while walking, and even driving. Technology has made life easier and worse at the same time. We are dependent on it to communicate to others.

The school lends out technology now and has multiple outlets around in each building. I really appreciate all of that and it does help me. But if you’re encouraging all of this behavior, it will not help in the long run. People will be online all the time even when people are talking to them or if they are sleeping. You can not escape the Internet menace. It is too large apart of our society now, and it will just continue to grow during this decade.

Contra was one of my favorite video games back when I was a kid. The background story of the game Contra was based on the movie First Blood. I recently re watched this movie with the monster theory in mind; so I question myself is Rambo a monster.

As people say, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain”, Rambo, John Rambo, an formal American military elite member from Sylvester Stallone’s movie First Blood, who can easily destroy enemy bases, who can shot a 50 lbs machine gun with one hand, was awarded the Medal of Honor of his service in the Vietnam War. But soon after he returns back to home, he realizes that he is so detached from the modern society. The side effects of war has turned him into a battle machine.  During the war, the soldiers often felt hopeless. It gets even worse when the war ends, most veterans had to deal with rejections and criticisms by the society. Rambo is miserable without his guns. A Monster, a freak and a psycho is how society sees Rambo.

When Rambo comes to Washington to visit his friend, he was kicked out of town by the Sheriff Teasel who insults Rambo. Rambo became violent and was arrested, but he escapes jail and goes on a rampage in the forest to survive from the sheriffs who want to kill him. After that, Rambo totally lost in his madness. He hijacks a Army truck, crashes it into a gas station. He is tired of being misunderstood and how in the Army he was a war hero but back in home he couldn’t even work at fast food restaurant. His anger has led to the house of monster.

But after all, what really makes a hero into a monster? and what turns people’s best friend (soldier) into an anti-socialist? Is there anything we can do about it?

I am extremely ticklish. People have used tickling as a weapon against me for my entire life. As a form of what we called “torture” while we were children, my brother would pin me to the ground, hold down my limbs and tickle me. As a precursor, he would chase me around the house with an outstretched finger which signified what was coming. This made me scream like a maniac and I would get in trouble. My father also tickled me; I often found myself squashed under one of his legs watching my brother under the other, while both of us shrieked and squealed from the pain of being compressed by a leg and also from the intensity of the inexplicable, uncontrollable laughter itself. The scariest part of of being tickled was the laughter of such extremity from which I could not breathe. My lungs tightened, not allowing me to breathe in… I sometimes thought I would die on the spot.

I had a recurring dream in which I was attached to a wall, bound with metal bands at my wrists and ankles. My body formed an X-shape, exposing my underarms and feet. An unidentified character tickled me and I was helpless because there was no one around to release me and I could not do a single thing help myself. And whatever was tickling me had no mercy.

I later began to wonder about the origin of this dream. Was it because I hated the feeling of being tickled so immensely, or was it because I was afraid of feeling defenseless? Each time I had been seriously tickled, I had been in helpless situations. The tickling monster in my dreams may not have been so evil to me because of what it made me feel on the outside, but by its mercilessness and the way it affected my inner self.