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Maura
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 2:17 pm: | 
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To all Ripperologists with a sense of humor:
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and ask for opinions on the "From hell" letter that will have to be based on one's life experience and gut feeling about humor, not on specific scholarship or research, as this is a bit like defining Jazz..if you have to ask, you don't know what it is. Though we have books on humor in language and in the subconscious from even the likes of Freud, for many it is a subjective topic, and what's funny to one may be not the least bit to another.
I would like to logically propel the feelings toward the veracity of the Lusk letter "From hell" one step forward. If one assumes that this letter is from the murderer, then does it project a sense of humor in the author, demented though it may be?
Being a proponent and appreciator of black humor, which may show fear of the unknown apropos the Hitchcockian style, I can vouch for the touch of the absurdist wit in even the most foul thoughts turned upon themself, witness the essay by Jonathon Swift [I think] concerning correcting the food famine in England, by the consumption of newborn babies. Now as I read that many years ago, please do not hold me accountable for its exact details.
My contention being though, that if the Lusk letter IS truly from Truly Yours, JTR...then rather than being the chicken scrawl of an illiterate nincompoop, I sense a rather sick minded entity, yet with a hint of tongue in cheek humor, manifested in statements like:
"..tother piece I fried and it was very nise."
or the false toadie-like respect in the appellation of "Mishter" and the sarcastic admonition of:
"Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk"
For me, seeing this letter as full of acerbic, black humor wherein the snide author gives food critics a run for their money with his five star Cordon Bleu praise for "kidne" appetizers, gives me a sharper portrait of its author. Why you may ask, does it matter if there is humor present. Because if there is a sense of unmitigating gallows like wit at work here, then I seriously doubt that Saucy Jack was one of little sophistication and intelligence.
So the most important question is, if you believe the letter is authentic correspondence from the killer, does it not seem a bit obtuse to see this as the work of some lowly itinerant street wino, instead of the master concoction of one well versed in language and putting on people, which I think shines through in every line.
One can always appear dumber in print, than smarter...duh. Would not even an illiterate monster who has cleanly gotten away with murder most foul, think twice before committing to paper anything that might pinpoint him. Now perhaps he/she is too dense to know better, but this author is certainly not too dense to set up the letter quite well according to formal standards of specifying the salutation, justified arrangement of the lines and proper indentations...hmmm. Consequently in a reaction formation kind of way, perhaps if this letter is really from the perpetrator, he/she just rendered the vision in print that the press and the public were already portraying the perp as, since the idea of bloodthirsty criminal was more in those days attributed to the lower uneducated classes...most likely. Only with books like Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and Wilde's Dorian Gray and his picture, was the idea of the dichotomy between clothes making the uppercrust and inviolate man, and that this well educated man still might have diabolic urges in his blue veins, really discussed.
Thanks for listening to this somewhat unscholarly [since the subject of humor is hard to categorize and is ephemeral] topic but one which has intrigued me ever since I first read this correspondence. I would not feel the "Dear Boss" to be as authentic, even without the rebuttals of it by informed sources, since its graphology has none of the elusive psychotic appearance of the "From hell" letter, which has it in spades.
If one does not think that the Lusk letter is authentic, then all of the above is a moot point.
Maura |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 167
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 4:38 pm: |
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Well, I believe your ramblings to be of a sound nature, but perhaps you are reading humour where no humour was intended.
Oscar's Gray looked a lot greyer when he peered out of his barred prison window and saw Jekyll and Hyde walking past arm in arm in the prison courtyard below, the sublime homosexual serial killer who had killed himself by staring into a mirror and seeing himself as forever a child.
Oscar could have been Jack if he had not been taken faint by the sight of blood; and what Oscar wrote did Sickert paint, the abomination of womanhood and all their earthly reproductive parts and every part of nature that reproduced the imperfect mirror image that terrified the unreproductive sexual urge inherent in the humour of the Lusk letter.
No, not a master.
Just worm in fabric of time.
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Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 58
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 5:44 pm: |
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Hi Maura
I view the letter as more likely genuine than bogus, and I doubt if the writer was indulging in macabre humour here. That letter just looks too tortured.
But for those who've decided it is a hoax, it's possible to see black humour : "prasarved(?) it for you" - as if Lusk had been calling for a preserved kidney. "I may.....wate a whil longer", and we imagine Lusk impatiently pacing around, fretting that the bloody knife hadn't arrived.
"Tother piece...nise". I can heartily recommend this kidney, Lusk!
The beginning reads a bit like a trade letter - he might almost have written "Please find enclosed". One pictures Lusk opening the parcel and muttering "That's not what I ordered."
He could have put an October date under "From hell" but that would have been going over the top.
But as I say, I think the humour idea only works if it's a hoax.
PS Please send all your Lusk letters exclusively to AP. Don't start sending them to me!
Robert
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RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 7:01 pm: |
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Dear Maura,
Where Jack's triscelled humour run
Blazed and blackened like the sun,
Here for sure when we are gone
That triple-knot remains An Dun.
Rosey :-) |
Maura
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 - 5:12 pm: |
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Darling AP,
Have you been dipping into that absinthe decanter for a sniff of Oil of Wormwood again?
Tsk tsk!
I do find it enthralling though that you have woven together lo these many people, Dorian, Edward, Henry, and Jack fictional and otherwise, in one neat tapestry of fabric all cut on the bias, as I like to observe life at a 90 degree angle.
Your vision of Gray looking out in the courtyard reminds me not a mite of the film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" which also seems to have a bit of the homicidal edge of the other books.
Thanks for your response, AP [if I may deign to call you that] and concerning my rambunctious ramblings, as the famous rock icon David St. Hubbins once said "There's a fine line between stupid and clever" as I so often illustrate.
M |
Jennifer Mohney
Police Constable
Username: Bootsoffire
Post Number: 8
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 10:05 am: |
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Maura,
How odd. Before I fell asleep last night I was also thinking of the darling men from "Tap" and
the whole bit about a JtR Musical..."you're a naughty one, saucy Jack"
This in turn, made me think exactly along the
same lines as your post and black humor. I think that whoever wrote the Lusk letter was having a
serious laugh- just my personal thought. It could be the genuine artifact, but I think that the letter is too silly to be from someone who actually comminted the crime- unless they were totally in a "put the lotion in the basket" mindframe 
boots |
Caroline Anne Morris
Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 35
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 12:59 pm: |
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Hi Maura,
Excellent and thought-provoking post.
I can never get away from the black humour I see oozing from every rotten pore of the Lusk letter writer and his offal offering. The gesture always reminds me of a cat dropping a mouse in front of its owner like a trophy, as if to say, "look what a clever creature I am to have caught this for you".
This, however, doesn't really help me decide whether the killer could have sent it. An awful lot of people suddenly thought it would be a wizard wheeze to write ripper letters, a right old laugh. So it doesn't surprise me to find these practical jokers using humour in many of their missives. Obviously some of the minds at work here were far sicker than others; some desperately wanted their taunts to be taken seriously while others just got a thrill from joining in with the joke and trying to improve upon it. But how can we judge whether sick humour alone, or the lack of it, points towards or against any one of those letters being authentic?
I don't know what prompts some killers to send taunting letters or leave messages about their crimes, but those who do must have quite a bit in common with the hoaxers, even if it is just a penchant for giving authorities, or personal enemies, the run-around.
I also see no reason why our Jacky could not have had a mind to play such games, as other hoaxers have, but added murder to his own repertoire to become the most practical joker of them all.
But those who believe the Lusk letter to be the real thing (and I have no idea, one way or t'other) must, I think, come up with a good argument if they don't consider the killer to be the type to seek a good laugh at his victims' expense, whether it be the thought of Mishter Lusk’s face on opening the box or Eddowes dying to give him a nise supper.
Love,
Caz
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AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 169
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 1:06 pm: |
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Maura
call me AP or whatever you like.
Since 1979 the wormwood has not touched my lips, the visions it induced were far too strong and wearisome... I stick to Safeways Spanish brandy these days as I know where I am, most of the times. But yes, said note was written under the influence and power of SSB.
It srikes me as a useful exercise to weave some history and character into the scenario, it will improve the feel and moment of what we are really looking at.
'Tis but a fine line.
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AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 170
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 1:12 pm: |
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Rosey
nice posey.
I think I better start a new thread for JtR poetry.
Better than that I'll throw in the only signed first edition mint copy of 'Jack the Myth' in the world as first prize for best posey in 2003.
Trouble is I'll probably win it meself.
Methinks I need an unbiased judge. |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 172
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 2:10 pm: |
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The Lusk letter.
I have always viewed this letter as being an intensely private communication, the writer never intended it for public consumption and would have been stricken if he had seen it published in the media of the time. The letter was not written for the press or the police but for a specific individual with a street-level connection to the crimes committed.
The letter was written from one person on the streets to another person on those same streets. The challenge of the letter is in the gutters of the streets not in the sewers of the press of the time.
This simple fact alone has always made me view the letter as genuine. Every other letter written seeks publication and broadcast, this does not.
I see no humour but total childhood confusion.
I see an educated boy attempting to write a grown up letter, the boy may well have been a man but he didn’t know it yet. The boy holds to essential politeness and etiquette, which is after all quite superfluous when you are sending body parts through the post, however etiquette is held and cherished.
There is form and formality in the letter. A tradition - long held - is being followed. There is artistry in the letter, the flounces and swirls are the hand of a suppressed artist, not an accomplished artist, the boy would like to paint in blood rather than write but he has not been taught.
He is a street artist, his works litter the streets, limbs akimbo and red patterns on the pavements. He brings his art home and sometimes sends it as an unsolicited manuscript to interested parties with a covering letter.
The boy is happy when he writes the covering letter, for he has finished one of his strange scripts, he is not tortured or driven, he is sublime in the conviction that he has done the good and right thing.
He wants to share his art.
I’m only surprised that he didn’t include a stamped and addressed envelope for the reply.
No humour, not even a shade of dark.
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Caroline Anne Morris
Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 37
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 2:22 am: |
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'...the writer never intended it for public consumption and would have been stricken if he had seen it published in the media of the time.'
But, AP, the writer surely must have realised the odds against it staying private. This was yet another one of many previous communications which the police would want to deal with, and the papers would love to get their hands on. The enclosed kidney made it more than doubly sensational.
Not a word of warning not to tell a soul about the little gift, he even promises to send Lusk the murder weapon too. Surely he wasn't counting on Lusk not going straight to the coppers or the press with a promise like this?
One thing's for sure - the writer didn't suffer from autism. Those words were written to produce a strong reaction in the recipient, a stirring of the emotions. As an autistic person has no concept of other people's thoughts or feelings, let alone how they might differ from his own, it would never occur to him to pull such a stunt.
Love,
Caz
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Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 65
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 9:57 am: |
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Hi all
Caz, it's possible to see black humour in the Lusk letter. And it's more than possible that the letter was sent by the killer. But I don't see why we need to say that the humour was intended by the killer. When someone from one world encounters someone from another, isn't this the sort of thing we'd expect to find?
For example, how many people believe that Watkins actually said "Oh dear" after discovering Catherine's body? I bet he said something a bit stronger than that - but a Victorian Coroner's court was no place for it.
We've all heard stories of eccentric academics,etc. Often these people aren't trying to be funny.
AP, it's a bit difficult for me to disentangle what I see in the Lusk letter handwriting, from what's coming from me. At primary school I was taught a similar style of handwriting. It was based on the Head's own personal style. He was a marvellous Head, but for me with my manual clumsiness it was torture. Later in my next school, we sometimes had to copy forty minutes' worth of notes, dictated to us by the masters at breakneck speed, and I was forced to modify my writing to the extent that I would never use a curve when a straight line would do.
I hadn't thought of the writer as sharing his work. Interesting. I'll have to ponder that one.
Robert |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 174
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 1:16 pm: |
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Caz
I see your point about the writer knowing that the letter would eventually be published, but I do disagree.
Unlike many others I ascribe no motive, forethought or conception to the crimes of Jack, and view this letter in exactly the same way, the writer simply sat down and thought I'll send this Mishter Lusk a kidney and a letter, and this means he must have known - or known of - Mishter Lusk on a street level and felt a certain amount of hostility and fear towards him.
The writer certainlly didn't plan to do this, it just occured to him much like a kid suddenly deciding it would be nice to write to Father Christmas.
Do you see the similarities in the Lusk letter and letters sent to Santa by children?
Only children put 'From' at the top of their letters and only children put 'Signed' at the bottom of their letters.
Adults do not do this.
The 'Catch me when you can' is pure infantile.
I have seen other similar letters from very backward killers who do offer to supply the weapon used in the killings, and the offer does appear to be genuine. |
Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 66
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 2:48 pm: |
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AP, I see what you're saying about the writer being a childlike person. But why the deliberate spelling mistakes?
Robert |
AP Wolf
Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 176
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 3:32 pm: |
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Sorry Robert
I intended to reply to your earlier note earlier but ran aground on a Spanish reef.
Are the spelling mistakes deliberate?
I wonder.
Without bias I try to look at the Lusk letter, but I see the same thing with or without that bias, the writer has been trained to begin each relevant part of his work with such a flourish and flounce that the eye goes no further than than that relevance, what follows is crass, but the eye would not see that... if it was written in a ledger. Not until the yearly accounts were taken to book and then the young man would have lost his job.
A blagger at work here, someone trained to blag his way through grammar and diction.
When you open one of the beautiful illustrated Bibles from the period of the true 'clerics' you would never notice a spelling mistake because your eyes would not move past the very first perfectly executed letter... the rest is immaterial.
This is the 'clerical' art at work.
The capital 'F' and 'L' are capital examples.
As regards sharing his work, I am also pondering this, but I think it useful. |
Robert Charles Linford
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robert
Post Number: 68
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 4:07 pm: |
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Thanks AP. The whole thing's a fascinating concept.
Robert |
Maura
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 11:24 am: |
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Robert, Rosemary and "Tapster" Jennifer,
Thanks all for your most erudite thoughts on this thorny Gordian knot humor problem and premise. Your comments [and that marvelous poem] were most appreciated!
M |
Maura
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 4:30 pm: |
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Caroline and AP,
I'm honored by the contributions of all and especially by both of your most thought provoking posts.
I really find most astute your analogy of a cat dropping a dead mouse as a gift at one's feet, Caroline; thanks so much for contributing. And though I have absolutely no poetic talent, I would so like to win the autographed first edition of "Jack the Myth" as I am not lucky enough to have owned a copy yet and more's the pity.
Though it is upsetting to think that one well versed in murder could perhaps also have more human redeeming qualities, as in the book by Anthony Burgess "Clockwork Orange" wherein the foul deeds of the protagonist Alex were off set and contrasted with his love of Beethoven, I will leave this door of my mind partially ajar for I find that in my reading of the bios of many serial killers and their notes to authorities, some seem to be influenced in their grisly attempts at jocularity...by this particular "From hell" note to Lusk, of Jack's or a Jack-wannabe.
Consequently I see the signs of this type of demented chiding, in copycat directives from ones like the Zodiac with its chilling remarks or David Berkowitz, yet with always that touch of blackest humor, that the humor deprived think is hilarious. This makes me tend to think of the Lusk note as the sine qua non of all such famous tauntings, and the Rosetta Stone of all "obsessed to see themselves in print" killers who came after. Consequently even if the note is bogus it still could have reverberations on the miscreants who have read it.
I should have said that I don't think myself the Lusk note is humorous, but I have thought it might have been an atttempt at snideness by the killer.
I do find your point about the Lusk letter not being meant for public consumption..a persuasive one, AP.
I always say though..one man's humor is another man's bad taste, just as one man's meat is another man's poisson...at least if he is French like Brian.
M
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RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2003 - 7:46 am: |
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Maura,
Just a humble gnomic omen!
Rosy :-) |
ex PFC Wintergreen
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 9:31 pm: |
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What are you people talking about? "The other piece I fried and ate, it was very nice" (sans-sic)
It's hilarious! Of course it's humour, the writer is hardly concerned about the reader wanting to know what a human kidney tastes like. He was trying to gross them out whether it's a hoax or not. Surely it's obvious |
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