Richter wasn't ever "normal", as can be attested to by his lovely yet lethal sister. However, he often had to commute from Providence to Boston, and the constant exposure to the weird radiations of the MBTA took him from "quirky" to "mutated". He became fascinated by the strange angles and weird geometry of the crack in the universe that is represented by the MBTA, and spent years trying to recreate those angles here on Earth. However, only the edges of these angles actually exist in this dimension, so it appears that things get sharp around him.
"Appears."
See, they were sharp all along. It's just that he exposed more of them to real space, and wiggled them around until he had a deli-slicer for the universe. Not for people or planets or even stars. He's slicing the universe. "Ham for the Ham God!" he roars, as he reduces another chunk of reality to shaved sandwich meat. This is why nobody can decide whether the universe will expand forever, or go crunch. The amount and type of matter keeps changing, as Richter eats his sammiches and poops out "dark matter".
Richter sometimes sails a yacht. There is photographic evidence of this. He doesn't own a yacht...Who precisely DOES remains unclear. But still, he sails, and I alone have survived to tell thee. The rest all suffocated out in the between spaces, lost a dimension or two, or were hauled off the ship by giant squid. Call me Ishmael, fuckers, and just leave me here on my floating coffin. It's safer than what's going to happen to YOU bastards.
Just you wait and see.