Breakdancing with Jack the Ripper by Reb MacRath
Saucy Jack! Black Jack! Leather Apron!
Oh no, no. One name alone does justice to your deathless razzmatazz.
And nothing can do justice to the leap from your brief reign to world-wide Rippermania. It all started on four fog-swept nights...
The Facts
Scene: The impoverished areas in and around Whitechapel, London.
Year: 1888.
Five prostitutes--Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly--were murdered between 31 August and 9 November 1888. These women are the "canonical five", believed to have been murdered by a single killer. Three had had internal organs removed with surgical precision. And the fifth kill was the grisliest.
Why Black Magic Beats Mere Numbers
Oh, Jack. You might have been only a footnote in the annals of serial killers. The competition today is tremendous:
Luis Garavito. Colombian child-murderer, torture-killer, and rapist known as ”La Bestia”. Confessed to killing 140 children over a 5-year period in the 1990s.
Pedro Lopez. Colombian child-murderer and rapist, known as "The Monster of the Andes". Targeted young girls, between the ages of 8 and 12, 1969-1980. Confessed to killing 300.
Ted Bundy. The American serial killer and rapist confessed to 30 homicides, 1974-1978, but may have killed up to 100.
No, you can't touch their numbers. But they can't come within a country mile of your name. It first appeared in the famous 'Dear Boss' letter, supposedly written by you, to the press. Far more likely, a journalist wrote it. Either way, the moniker electrified the city. Not Brad the Berserker, Bill the Butcher, Debbie the Destroyer, Dennis the Demolisher, Jan the Judger, North the Nullifier, Wendy the Eraser, Valerie the Savager, Claude the Carver, Lev the Liquidator or Rob the Marauder.
No. It took three words.,..the right three...to assure your immortality. And the key to those three was the third--how it rrrrripped!
Killers' Faces: Now and Then
Ah, Jack, once again: luck was on your side. No one lived who saw your face--and knew that it was yours. But, clearly, you didn't resemble any of our whacked-out creepoids.
Nor could you have looked like any of history's fave Ripper suspects:
Eeeek! Lewis Carroll?
Tiptoeing Gingerly Inward Toward Jack
Surely, any man with the name Jack the Ripper:
1) Wore a top hat and good evening clothes.
2) Hobnobbed with high-muck-a-mucks.
3) Walked on cat's feet through the fog.
4) Had a dangerous dark side he couldn't control--and yet was attractive enough to inspire the confidence of his poor victims.
5) Had a devilish sense of humor. Best displayed in the 'From Hell' note that came with the kidney part sent to George Lusk:
I send you half the
Kidne I took from one women
prasarved it for you tother piece I
fried and ate it was very nise. I
may send you the bloody knif that
took it out if you only wate a whil
longer
We're closer now to seeing you.
A charismatic man like you hadn't crude or reptilian features. Nor did he stutter...have bad breath...wear caked or crazy undies. He could use knife and fork in smooth Euro ballets on his pink flat-iron steaks. He might have beaten Oscar Wilde in a verbal duel; boxed; or been a whiz at Go.
The Real Face of The Ripper
Yes! Through the process of elimination, we narrow our choices for your face to these:
The Devil's in the Details
Still, Jack, dear Jack, the devil's in the details. So we try not to think too much about exactly how you worked.
(Click this link, if you dare, for one image of the Ripper's fifth victim.)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/MaryJaneKelly_Ripper_100.jpg
As a matter of fact, your romantic appeal has little to do with the details. It has to do with something else:
The Eternal Mysteries
1) Why did you start when you did, Jack?
2) Then why did you suddenly stop--as the Beatles did after twelve albums or Harper Lee after one book?
3) Did you die...commit suicide...or simply know you'd completed your work?
4) Many of the letters 'you' wrote to the press were, more than likely, hoaxes. But Jack, please, tell us: did you write even one?
5) How did you swing the black magic of the infamous double event? You struck once...were interrupted...then--with the cops and their dogs on your tail--you struck an hour later...and escaped. How? Did you jump from the Tower of London when chased, then run like hell to London Bridge to swan dive and swim to a freighter?
6) Were there actually two Rippers--you and a roadie who aided and drove?
7) And...would we be as hooked on you if your victims had been men?
Breakdancing with Saucy Jack
Now, Jack, we don't mean to upset you. But you're more important to us as a myth than as a man. As for me, to be brutally honest, I don't really give a hoot if you wrote most or any of the letters to the press. I like to think you wrote them all, forerunning our most fecund Tweeters. Nor do I pay any mind to other proposed body counts. You murdered five and only five. Yes, our Myth Jack's built for speed--and suddenness was at your heart. You outwitted and outran hundreds out to get you. You became Hell's patron saint for all souls who face insurmountable odds.
And, though we do know it's wrong to respect you as a man, we're only human. So we can't help wanting to breakdance with your elemental force...and hoping to learn how to turn it to more loving ends.
Rest in peace, Saucy Jack.
I’m not a butcher, I’m not a Yid,
Nor yet a foreign skipper,
But I’m your own light-hearted friend,
Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.
--Anonymous
Oh no, no. One name alone does justice to your deathless razzmatazz.
And nothing can do justice to the leap from your brief reign to world-wide Rippermania. It all started on four fog-swept nights...
Scene: The impoverished areas in and around Whitechapel, London.
Year: 1888.
Five prostitutes--Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly--were murdered between 31 August and 9 November 1888. These women are the "canonical five", believed to have been murdered by a single killer. Three had had internal organs removed with surgical precision. And the fifth kill was the grisliest.
Why Black Magic Beats Mere Numbers
Oh, Jack. You might have been only a footnote in the annals of serial killers. The competition today is tremendous:
Luis Garavito. Colombian child-murderer, torture-killer, and rapist known as ”La Bestia”. Confessed to killing 140 children over a 5-year period in the 1990s.
Pedro Lopez. Colombian child-murderer and rapist, known as "The Monster of the Andes". Targeted young girls, between the ages of 8 and 12, 1969-1980. Confessed to killing 300.
Ted Bundy. The American serial killer and rapist confessed to 30 homicides, 1974-1978, but may have killed up to 100.
No, you can't touch their numbers. But they can't come within a country mile of your name. It first appeared in the famous 'Dear Boss' letter, supposedly written by you, to the press. Far more likely, a journalist wrote it. Either way, the moniker electrified the city. Not Brad the Berserker, Bill the Butcher, Debbie the Destroyer, Dennis the Demolisher, Jan the Judger, North the Nullifier, Wendy the Eraser, Valerie the Savager, Claude the Carver, Lev the Liquidator or Rob the Marauder.
No. It took three words.,..the right three...to assure your immortality. And the key to those three was the third--how it rrrrripped!
Killers' Faces: Now and Then
Ah, Jack, once again: luck was on your side. No one lived who saw your face--and knew that it was yours. But, clearly, you didn't resemble any of our whacked-out creepoids.
Nor could you have looked like any of history's fave Ripper suspects:
Eeeek! Lewis Carroll?
Tiptoeing Gingerly Inward Toward Jack
Surely, any man with the name Jack the Ripper:
1) Wore a top hat and good evening clothes.
2) Hobnobbed with high-muck-a-mucks.
3) Walked on cat's feet through the fog.
4) Had a dangerous dark side he couldn't control--and yet was attractive enough to inspire the confidence of his poor victims.
5) Had a devilish sense of humor. Best displayed in the 'From Hell' note that came with the kidney part sent to George Lusk:
I send you half the
Kidne I took from one women
prasarved it for you tother piece I
fried and ate it was very nise. I
may send you the bloody knif that
took it out if you only wate a whil
longer
We're closer now to seeing you.
A charismatic man like you hadn't crude or reptilian features. Nor did he stutter...have bad breath...wear caked or crazy undies. He could use knife and fork in smooth Euro ballets on his pink flat-iron steaks. He might have beaten Oscar Wilde in a verbal duel; boxed; or been a whiz at Go.
The Real Face of The Ripper
Yes! Through the process of elimination, we narrow our choices for your face to these:
The Devil's in the Details
Still, Jack, dear Jack, the devil's in the details. So we try not to think too much about exactly how you worked.
(Click this link, if you dare, for one image of the Ripper's fifth victim.)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/MaryJaneKelly_Ripper_100.jpg
As a matter of fact, your romantic appeal has little to do with the details. It has to do with something else:
The Eternal Mysteries
1) Why did you start when you did, Jack?
2) Then why did you suddenly stop--as the Beatles did after twelve albums or Harper Lee after one book?
3) Did you die...commit suicide...or simply know you'd completed your work?
4) Many of the letters 'you' wrote to the press were, more than likely, hoaxes. But Jack, please, tell us: did you write even one?
5) How did you swing the black magic of the infamous double event? You struck once...were interrupted...then--with the cops and their dogs on your tail--you struck an hour later...and escaped. How? Did you jump from the Tower of London when chased, then run like hell to London Bridge to swan dive and swim to a freighter?
6) Were there actually two Rippers--you and a roadie who aided and drove?
7) And...would we be as hooked on you if your victims had been men?
Breakdancing with Saucy Jack
Now, Jack, we don't mean to upset you. But you're more important to us as a myth than as a man. As for me, to be brutally honest, I don't really give a hoot if you wrote most or any of the letters to the press. I like to think you wrote them all, forerunning our most fecund Tweeters. Nor do I pay any mind to other proposed body counts. You murdered five and only five. Yes, our Myth Jack's built for speed--and suddenness was at your heart. You outwitted and outran hundreds out to get you. You became Hell's patron saint for all souls who face insurmountable odds.
And, though we do know it's wrong to respect you as a man, we're only human. So we can't help wanting to breakdance with your elemental force...and hoping to learn how to turn it to more loving ends.
Rest in peace, Saucy Jack.
I’m not a butcher, I’m not a Yid,
Nor yet a foreign skipper,
But I’m your own light-hearted friend,
Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.
--Anonymous
Comments
The fact that he wasn't caught owes more to the infancy of the police force and the lack of forensic knowledge than any talents of his.
Why this despicable nothing continues to be admired and written about is beyond me. The power of the press, eh?
Sorry to be so blunt, Reb, but this is how I feel about this subject.
I don't think it's the power of the Press, either - the whole thing was an archtypal myth, and the potty theorists who perpetuated it, and still do, were operating under a stimulus far more complex than sensationalism. The other examples Reb cites were much more prolific than J the R, and received a million times more lurid and wide-spread coverage, but while their names are still with us their deeds are just a ragbag of obscurity.
And talking of the power of the Press, isn't it fascinating that the malign amoralists of the Daily Mail et al, however hard they've tried, seem to have hit a brick wall of distaste about the way they've demonised the current tragic refugees?
Or swarms, as our dear Prime Minister likes to call them There's myths and myths, ain't there?
An odd side-effect of serial murders, and almost certainly not one that the Ripper either intended or would have taken much interest in. As Sue and Valerie say, the man himself was probably a pathetic specimen of humanity.
Also, those are some fairly impressive mustaches up there.
-Lev the Liquidator
That's to say nothing of the modern walking tours and the benefit to the economy. See--I understand satire! Hahaha!
"7) And...would we be as hooked on you if your victims had been men?"
Interestingly, I just read a post by Tess Gerritsen where she examined this issue in the crafting of thriller novels. Turns out, the women she spoke to didn't read thrillers where the victims were men. They said they identified with the female victims in the novels, and that reading them was sort of a way of facing their own fears through a safe medium.
Lev, I'm not sure if you've seen this but a new recent suspect, a German sailor, looks uncannily like Mads Mikelson of Hannibal fame:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/31/article-2032258-0DA6FFB400000578-866_468x609.jpg
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breeding world. I’m cured of fantasy obsessions, paranoid delusions. I master words. ‘I’ – straighten up there. ‘AM’ – close up with ‘I’ – you horrible little word. ‘GOD.’ I AM GOD. Not the god of love, but God Almighty. I massacred the Amalekites and the Seven Nations of Canaan. I hacked Agag to pieces and blasted the barren fig tree, for the day of vengeance is in my heart! You lunar jackass, she betrayed you. Guilty, guilty, guilty. The punishment is death. I’ve finally been processed. They made me adjust to modern times. This is 1888, isn’t it? I’m Jack, Cunning Jack, Quiet Jack. Jack whose sword never sleeps. Hats off, I’m Jack. Not the good shepherd, not the prince of peace. I’m red Jack, spring-heeled Jack, Jack from Hell. Trade name: Jack the Ripper! Mary, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, Alice, Marie Kelly. ‘Six little whores, glad to be alive. One sidles up to Jack, and then there are five.’
Now, me try to get this straight. An outrageous bit of satire--in which the joke is clearly on those who romanticize a notorious serial killer--is taken as a tribute to Jack the Ripper? And the author--cheekily claiming that he doesn't care about the facts (the number of victims or letters to the press) and doesn't really like to think about what Jack actually DID--is mistaken for a fanboy?
MacRath was right in pointing out certain 'tells' in the prose: his 'seriously' wondering if Jack jumped from the Tower of London and then swan dove off of London Bridge...his delicious portrait of a suave Ripper slicing a pink flat-iron steak...his comparison of Jack's retirement of the breakup of the Beatles...his jawdropping interest in the Ripper's underweear...These tells and many more are there.
And yet the satire is more than a spoof. Far-out though it may seem, the concluding section on breakdancing with the Ripper asks a legitimate question: can we tap into the negative energy of a colossal force run wrong--and turn it to more living ends?
I, for one, would like to see more writers take chances like this one and risk the censure of their peers.
Well done, Mr. MacRath.
It's akin to insulting someone and then, when they react, saying, 'Haven't you got a sense of humour? Can't you take a joke? - Oh, it doesn't matter that we glamourise a serial killer: it's outrageous satire! Don't you get satire?' - Yes, I do, thanks.
Just as the joke is still an insult, the satire is still a piece of writing that talks about the glamour and charisma of Jack The Ripper.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be written. I'm saying, don't be surprised when people react against it.
The quote from the Peter O'Toole film again turns a dirty inadequate little murderer into an eloquent, mythic character he never was.
What if the victims were men? - I've read such novels and non-fiction accounts, and think the killers every bit as vile. I think the reason for their lesser popularity in fiction is that when serial killers, who kill for sexual gratification, kill male victims, they are almost always, like Nilsen, gay men. Gay men are a minority, and there is also still something of a stigma attached to being gay, so publishers and film-makers find gay ssrial killers less lucrative.
Misognyny sells.
And, as a teenager, like Dennis, I experienced some of the Grand Guignol 'gaslight Victorian mystery/evil fantasy story.' Slashings and dismemberment in dark alleys - all jolly good fun!
But, as I've grown older, and seen that the human race seems to grow no wiser, prettier or gentler, I've grown pretty sick of the constant commercialisation of a man who was, in fact, the usual dreary, sick killer - a type still very much with us. And most of them kill women, because they're easier targets.
I think most of the theories about JtR's identity - if it matters - range from ridiculous to thin, especially in the light of modern profiling. The most convincing I have ever heard was one put forward very recently by a Swedish journalist, who pointed out that a man was found crouching over the first body discovered. The Police at the time accepted his story that he'd just come along and found the woman already dead - these days he'd have been questioned, and checked, and re-questioned until his eyes crossed. And, when his story unravelled, jailed.
The journalist researched this man, and applied modern profiling to him. He seemed to fit every criteria. He was, as usual, a local misfit, and not upper-class, or an artist, or in any other way unusual or glamourous. Just another dreary, nasty piece of work.