11.07.06

rest in pieces

Posted in Politics, Me, Chicago, Malachi Ritscher, 1954-2006 at 2:04 am by Spencer

I am in shock. I have just learned that an old friend and comrade from my Chicago days, Malachi Ritscher, died by self-immolation in an act of political protest.

This past Friday [Nov. 3, 2006], as reported in the Chicago Sun-Times and on local television (like this report from CBS affiliate channel 2, see top right for video), a man doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire during morning rush hour next to a major downtown expressway, at the foot of a huge statue titled “The Flame of the Millenium.” Next to him was a hand-painted sheet that read “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” He died in solitary unimaginable agony as suburbanites drove past to their jobs in the huge towering skyscrapers of downtown Chicago.

While the identification is not yet official as I write, it seems quite clear that man was Malachi. According to posts to the chi-improv list on YahooGroups, his car was found nearby, and he had not been seen since Friday, a friend of his received his keys and a will in the mail and, indeed, Malachi posted a suicide note (titled “mission statement”) and his own obituary (titled “rest in pieces”) to his web site. As I peruse his web site as I write this, I find that in recent days he had also posted photos from his childhood. In the site’s navigation, on the last few pages he posted, he tagged these posts as “future.”

I knew Malachi during the late 1980s and early ’90s as a longtime and perennial fixture in the avant garde music scene in Chicago. He was a gifted audio engineer who recorded some 2000 concerts (a substantial number of them released commercially by the artists he documented). He collected instruments from all over. He played didjeridu, including once when he joined my then-band Wormwood (Eric Leonardson, Dylan Posa and myself) and almost a dozen other guest musicians for a multimedia sonic extravaganza at Chicago Filmmakers (the show with the speakers that fell from the ceiling, intentionally, and swung just over the heads of the audience).

My last memory of him is from one night after a show. It was just off Lincoln Ave. and may have been after something at the Blue Moon Cafe. I was feeling sad and kinda lonely, musing on friendships passed and passing, and was desultorily making my long way to Ashland Ave. to catch a bus south (or, more likely, just walk) to Wicker Park. We bumped into each other, chatted a bit, and as I started to make my goddbyes he suddenly offered me a ride. I remember feeling as though we connected a little more than usual during that ride. No particular reason, no weighty or profound conversational moment, nothing of any real note. But it seemed to me he felt a little less weighed down than usual. He was an intense, guarded, and rather dark-seeming guy, though once you got to know him a little you could tell there was great gentleness roiling beneath. During that short and un-momentous car ride, it just seemed like he opened the great iron gates just a little more than usual. Alas, I do believe it was the last time I saw him.

I really don’t know what to say. I’m writing on autopilot. This is still sinking in. So I’ll just shut up for now.

Malachi…I pray your death makes the difference you hoped it would. And I pray that now, wherever you are, you are becomming one with the compassion and understanding this world so desperately needs, and whose absence so broke your heart.

Boum Siva. Boum boum, mahadev.

Update: Fwiw, at this writing the identification is still not official. Peter Margasak, longtime music columnist for the Chicago Reader, has posted about Malachi on his Reader blog, and readers are responding with their own comments. I have also learned that, according to Chicago police, Malachi videotaped his death.

Update 2: Malachi’s identity has been officially confirmed. See followup post.

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