Chicago Jazz Critic Commits Suicide By Self-Immolation

This is getting posted because I am a huge jazz fan, but not because I know Malachi Ritscher's work. I don't... and it's a shame, because he seems like an extremely talented and intelligent person, deeply troubled by the loneliness of his own life and his incapability of dealing with the larger world outside of himself.

Ritscher was a jazz reviewer in Chicago and a sporadic musician himself who killed himself last Friday by setting himself on fire in rush hour traffic.

His website, Savagesound.com, was updated with a suicide note and an obituary shortly before his death. Both are astonishingly sad: his obituary because it comprises the last words of a deeply sensitive and talented man; his suicide note because it makes it clear that he was deeply mentally ill.

From his suicide note:

I too love God and Country, and feel called upon to serve. I can only hope my sacrifice is worth more than those brave lives thrown away when we attacked an Arab nation under the deception of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. Our interference completely destroyed that country, and destabilized the entire region. Everyone who pays taxes has blood on their hands.

I have had one previous opportunity to serve my country in a meaningful way - at 8:05 one morning in 2002 I passed Donald Rumsfeld on Delaware Avenue and I was acutely aware that slashing his throat would spare the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. I had a knife clenched in my hand, and there were no bodyguards visible; to my deep shame I hesitated, and the moment was past.

Regardless how you feel about the war on Iraq, this sort of statement is very much indicative of a person who is mentally ill... especially taking into account that he killed himself by setting himself on fire. Coupled together, it is hardly the Buddhist protest against the Vietnam war by way self-immolation that it was, perhaps, modeled after.

But Ritscher's obituary also makes it clear that he was also an extremely intelligent and interesting man. It's the kind of deeply personal self-appraisement that people deserve to be remembered for. Here's just a snip of Ritscher writing about himself in the third person.

He had memorized Pi to the 1101 decimal place, and would recite it at will. He could shave with a straight razor. He loved cinnamon rolls. He loved the smell of turpentine. He also loved motorcycles, which he wisely avoided. In the words of Stephen Wright, he was a 'peripheral visionary'. His sense of humor was droll - he theorized that surprise and not tragedy was the most important element of comedy. His favorite joke was to walk into a room, sniff the air, and observe "it smells like snot in here". His favorite word was 'ominous'. His favorite two words were 'Tahitian hiatus'.

It's been a very sad day for the Chicago jazz scene. Go on by the Chicago Reader, read up on Malachi Ritscher's suicide and then go visit his websites, read some of his works. This is someone we all should have paid more notice to.

Malachi Ritscher's apparent suicide [Chicago Reader]

Malachi Ritscher's apparent suicide [Chicago Reader]