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IN "The Philosophy of Horror," Noel Carroll argues that monsters violate our core conceptual frameworks. By merging otherwise exclusive states of being -- zombies, for example, are both alive and dead -- they undermine our faith in a safe and orderly universe. Their threat is as much existential as physical. Which brings us to Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a.k.a.

Re "To Know You Is to Love You," Column One, July 24 I find especially amusing K. Connie Kang's fascination with the English pronoun "you." For all of its alleged simplicity in comparison to the same grammatical concept in Korean, English speakers have been striving to create regional substitutes such as "youse," "y'all," "ye" and "yiz" to replace the second person plural now sadly lost but sorely needed for centuries. That absence is an Achilles' heel to our native tongue.

IS the leader in the global fight against movie piracy a pirate too? That's exactly what director Kirby Dick is charging. He says the Motion Picture Assn. of America made a bootleg copy of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," his angry broadside against the organization's film rating system. The MPAA has admitted that it duplicated the documentary without the filmmaker's permission -- Dick had submitted his movie to its rating board in November.

THE ability to understand and speak a foreign language exponentially improves the travel experience, so linguistic preparation is as important as planning and packing. Learning a language can be relatively painless, even fun, for people with an aptitude, especially if they studied the language when they were young.

A visit to Stratford-upon-Avon in England next year and in 2007 will be anything but routine. The Bard's birthplace, about 100 miles northwest of London, is the stage for the Royal Shakespeare Company's most ambitious festival ever. All of William Shakespeare's plays will be presented over a yearlong period starting April 6. Besides 15 productions by the resident company, more than 40 visiting troupes from 18 countries, including the U.S., India, Japan and South Africa, will participate.

That graveyard Friday night time slot should have tipped anyone off that "Jonny Zero" was not long for this world, but I went ahead and fell for the recently canceled midseason Fox drama about a pumped-up, tatted-out, recovering addict struggling to walk the straight and narrow after doing four years in prison for a homicide. Jonny, played by charismatic TV newcomer Franky G, soon finds himself pinched between his old criminal boss and the FBI, which forces him to become a snitch.

A treasure-trove of nearly 500 artifacts will fill Pirate Soul, a museum about the oft-romanticized robbers who terrorized commerce on the high seas. Aided by an animatronic Blackbeard, simulated ship battles and interactive displays, entrepreneur Pat Croce hopes to offer "the most outrageous pirate museum in the world" when it opens Jan. 5 in Key West, Fla. Think Smithsonian wed to Disney.

On Friday, the day after a Washington-based highway lobbying group put five Southern California freeway intersections on its list of the top 15 bottlenecks in the country, I found myself doing about 5 mph on the Santa Monica Freeway. I wanted to go from Santa Monica to Silver Lake. But 35 minutes after entering the freeway at Lincoln, I had only reached the 405 overpass. According to the American Highway Users Alliance, the 405-10 junction is the second-worst in the region.