The Strange case of...

My first flame, or shall we call, tween-lover just got married last December.

I would have loved to see her walk down the aisle, nonetheless she has my best wishes.

Once again, I have Facebook to thank for certain announcements such as assassins committing the procedure of their work with a snapshot and this, her wedding photos.

Of all the people I actually adored, she was nice, gentle, she was sensitive in a good way and very kind although I couldn’t appreciate her sense of humor sometimes... other than that she’s quite a terrific person. We shared dreams that were inevitably thrown into the darkest pits of oblivion, which is perfectly fine.

Marriage such as this one, required a faithful commitment does it not? It brought me to the idea of the root cause of my spontaneous walking out of relationships and other misdemeanors, together with that profound amazement of demoralization and the reduced satisfaction of Aristotle’s “Eureka”… I am commitmentphobic.

It is quite a misconception that people who are afraid of commitments are only afraid to get hurt.

If you think people who’re afraid of commitments are those who really know what it means and or that they are simply afraid to get hurt, I suggest you read more. The information you have gathered is quite lacking. “Blackle” it even if you will…

I have, for your convenience, enabled the link to wikipedia for your reading pleasure.

Our current society breeds myriad varieties of human species, therefore my case is not exactly as engrossing as anyone else. I suppose it’s good that I’m aware… rather than stumbling through life without knowing. 

I'm not really a jerk, i'm just suffering from a personality disorder. 

Congratulations Lev. I wish you the best.

Top 10 books of 2010

So I bid farewell to 2010 and closes it with my top 10 books selection of the year.

10. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice (writing as A. N. Roquelaure)

The first book in the Sleeping beauty trilogy, with Anne Rice writing under a pseudonym. Not one of my favorites but I thought the opening chapters were nicely written. I know it’s an erotic novel but it didn’t amuse me, perhaps erotic novels just aren’t my cup of tea. This is quite too much for my taste however I couldn’t get over Prince Charming’s brutality and elegance at the same time.

9. Persepolis I

Amusing, I really like this book and its illustrations. Here lies the youth of Marjane Satrapi, a woman who was born and raised in Iran during the never ending conflicting war within their country.

Entertaining and funny, it takes away the tragic connotation of war, oppression and death. Sprinkling it with a bit of sarcasm and Satrapi’s criticism of her very own government.

If you’re an activist by heart then this book is a must read.

8. Persepolis II

In this book continues Marjane Satrapi’s autobiography in comic strips. She was sent to Europe to study and there she lost more than just her virginity.

Not as amusing as the first book but it’s the sequel, it puts the end to ending.

7. Animal Farm by George Orwell       

It was as though the history of the Philippines was re-written as a fable. Classic and witty, I almost wept when Boxer was taken away. Sometimes almost depressing yet it was faithful to the realities of political corruption and deception. Good for people who are starting to take the pleasure of reading.

6. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

A story of teen rebellion, angst and depression, here’s a boy who doesn’t know what he likes but know what he doesn’t like. A critic to the culture of America’s high elites, exposing their hypocrisy through the window of a child’s eyes

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Unhappy marriages (after more than 50 years, nothing has changed. Marriages are still quite unhappy) and the same dream Americans try to fool themselves, set after the first World War I. Love found and lost in its most tragic circumstance and no one to stand up and take the blame.

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

It’s a good story but there are a lot of better novels out there about crime fiction or murder mystery than this one. Nonetheless it’s still quite a good read, I just wouldn’t spend my money on this one. I’m very grateful this was a gift.

3. The man who mistook his wife for a hat by Oliver Sacks

An analytical eye for the human subconscious and soul, the drama and tragic tale of people disfigured figuratively. People in pieces, for the lack of remembering others and worse, even themselves.

A peek at the world of people’s sanity thrown out the window and their personal search for every day meaning.

2. Blood and Gold by Anne Rice

It was both passion and his rupturing love that drove Marius to leave the love of his life and embrace the permanent aspect of his perpetual loneliness. Here, he tells his story to Thorne, a fledgling of the new embodiment of “Those who must be kept”.

Marius de Romanus’s rich and enthralling past of a foolish yet eloquent man battling his conflicts within and with his weakness… Pandora.

New stories and puzzles that fits sensibly with Anne Rice’s previous novels and her Vampire Chronicles.

1. The Alienist by Caleb Carr

Set at the latter part of the 18^th century, New York, Alienist Dr. Lazslo Kreisler was commissioned to investigate gruesome murders regarding immigrant children butchered in the most inhumane ways.

The era where psychopaths and the use of psychology to profile murderers were fairly modern and the idea of serial killers begin to emerge.

John Moore, the narrator aids Dr. Kreisler in the search for this dangerous killer. Posing real threat to this face of New York, infested with immigrants coming from all corners of the globe and lodging themselves in the city’s foulest and poorest tenements while the political government and church, control and maintain the city’s rotten status quo.

Dark and Vintage… the great kind.

I am on the search for the story's sequel The Angel of Darkness by the same author. If you happen to have a copy, I am very much willing to make a trade.

----

For the year of 2011, I welcome it with a good read of The beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Movies and Psychopaths

I just saw the movie, The Orphan, last night since it was aired by HBO and I was nailed in front of the television. I already knew the plot that some adopted kid was despicably an evil entity out to wreak havoc and destroy the family who took her in.

There was this girl I dated before who loves horror and gross out movies as much as I do and she told me to watch The Orphan, I guess that encouraged me. Too bad we don’t see or even talk to each other anymore, would really love to tell her what I thought of the movie.

Nonetheless I liked it, it was entertaining and it gave me a few laughs while watching. I liked the girl who played the orphan, she was cute and had an interesting accent (And I love Russian, German etc. accent when they’re speaking in English). That was also the reason why I watched it ‘til the end. I have no patient watching predictable movies. In a show or movie I seek for content, art and execution etc. so I can appreciate it more. Although at times, I simply watch for the stars but how rare of this to happen.

Also before that I saw “Enemy at the Gates” with Jude Law and Rachel Weisz. Loved it. I love movies about war and holocausts. I’m quite excited about the upcoming Saw 3D movie and would really go to the theatres to see it, sigh… gut wrenching terrorized screams. How relaxing…

Alright then, back to my writings.

The orphan’s behavior was psychopathic but as much as I would love to discuss her behavior, psychopaths in our modern society are not necessarily like her, the orphan.

Psychopaths could be your boss, your friend, your mother, your father, your child or the one you sat in the bus with. Psychopaths aren’t always driven on such extreme levels like the orphan or the guy in the popular movie “Psycho”.

Of course in the movie, it had to be driven to such extent to be entertaining however in real life that is not how psychopaths play it. They are not necessarily anti-social and most of the times can get a long well with people. They are not always evil, there are psychopaths who didn’t have to kill just to achieve what they want like con-artists.

And psychopath does not exactly mean they are mad geniuses roaming our land.

Psychopaths are completely devoid of feelings and would stop at nothing for their desires since they lack guilt and conscience that the weight of responsibility and obligation is unknown to them. Since conscience is something that can’t be seen and in a naïve’s world, conscience is something thought as universal, psychopaths can easily hide the fact that they are conscious-free with not so much an effort lifting a hair strand.

If a psychopath is a genius it is probably he or she was surrounded with intellectuals and if they’re rich then they are pretty much pre-disposed to it. Like Dr. Hannibal Lecter, now that is one evil genius, he was well educated since he came from a rich family more so.

What makes other psychopaths smart or geniuses is of course their desire to gain knowledge or money just like the next guy. It’s just that they would stop at nothing to gain it. And there are those dimwitted psychopaths who were hill billies roaming around with a gun.

The dumb chainsaw wielding maniac in the Movie “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is a psychopath. It’s not genius when he used other people’s faces as mask, it’s just that he didn’t have the necessary feelings that would complete a morally bounded human being. Respect to life, an original quality of a soul, is missing. Therefore he’s pretty much only limited by his imagination. Which to my opinion is pretty dull, his family has a vast amount of land he can farm or sell and get education or a plastic transplant if he really wanted a pretty face. Then again what was on the movie was nothing more than an exaggeration, something to get the audiences at the edge of their seat. He was too obsessed, too exaggerated to play the role of the psychopath, yet the movie, in one of them, made him look like he had feelings. Think back, a scene where he sees his face and at the sight of it threw a fit of sadness, hatred, disgust and he threw objects and wrecked his place, he even let out a scream or maybe it was a grunt?

I love the franchise though, saw at least 4 movie versions of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, some were hilarious and worth a few laughs.

Most psychopath movies were American Movies, because they have a lot of psychopaths in that country.

Psychopathic movie here in the Philippines: Sigaw with Iza Calzado and Richard Gutierrez, no he wasn’t the psychopath in the movie. I don’t think he can act the part.

Apparently, I think the Philippine Cinema don’t know the profile of a psychopath that is why evil villains here lack the character of one and one can’t exactly diagnose them as psychopaths. The villains here are always portrayed as borderline evil and confused.

More talk next time on Psychopaths, I’m going back to work.