On Ken Park (1993-1996)

I met Ken Park when I transferred in, as a Junior, to Bard College in the Fall of 1993. He was the nicest guy I have ever met; I had never before met someone who reminded me so much of myself. He wore English tweed sports-coats and always carried around a wire or metal contraption of some sort for dunking teabags in hot water. He frequently carried with him a volume of Nietzsche's Zarathustra or, in the second year that I knew him, he was often seen carrying Jurgen Habermas' book Legitimation Crisis. Ben Armento used to see him outside of the DeKline coffee shop and he's say, "Ken, how about a little Nietzsche?" and Ken would say, in semi-prophetic intonations, "Man is a tightrope stretched between animal and superman...." and we'd all laugh. Ken was a year below me, and the only one of my classes I can recall him being in was a course in Semiotics taught by a Professor Grab, who used to have Ken read his essays before the class to inspire us. However, Ken spoke in such a mumbled voice that it was hard to understand much of what he recited; his writing was mostly concerned with the critique of the theory of production, which I now suppose was partly the reason why he was reading those Habermas books. ==================== I never had too many interactions with Ken, aside from the one class, but I would frequently see him outside of Kline Commons, sitting on a low brick wall with his girlfriend, a Senior whose name I do not recall. (It would be easy to look her up someday, she won the prize that year for her Senior Thesis, which was (I believe) on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.) I once met him in his room, which was similarly bare-bones as mine, with just a computer, a desk and a bed - I asked him if he enjoyed a good love-life here at Bard. He looked up at me and said, beneath a shy brow, "There isn't too much of that here for me." During this period of time I was having sex with Debra Mandlebaum every weekend, either on her campus or on mine. Ken's girlfriend and he seemed to have more of an 'intellectual' camaraderie to them than the relationship between Debra and myself, which was intensely sexual. Someday, I yearned, I will have a purely intellectual girlfriend, too - I said to myself (I felt as much at least, Debra was very intelligent herself, as she wrote her senior thesis on the work of Phillip Roth, Bob Dylan and Woody Allen in her final year at Vassar.) =============== Even when I went to North Carolina to attend Wake Forest University, where I had received a full scholarship to attend their Master's Program in Literature, I remember I contacted Ken Park in Quincy Massachusetts, which is where he lived, as I remembered him telling me when we were at Bard. I do not recall what time of year I called him, how I got his number (I must have used directory assistance - this is still before the dawn of the internet or, rather, in its early days) or why I expected him to be at home, as it surely was during the school year, for I went back to New York during the summer months, when classes at Wake were not in session. Ken was very different on the phone, I can recall him not making much sense and when I asked him what he was reading, he muttered that he was spending his time playing basketball, "I shoot baskets," I recall him saying vacantly. Were I to have the knowledge then that I do now, I would have encouraged him to go see a psychiatrist at once. Unfortunately, I did not. =============== What I did not know was that Ken had been removed from Bard College the year after I left in 1995 or '96. Apparently he had been receiving messages from the CIA giving his instructions of some sort, a classic and textbook example of paranoia and the apotheosis of dementia praecox. Why did no-one intervene in this case? Ken Park was sent back to Quincy, Mass. to live with his family and apparently no psychiatrist was consulted and, when his schizophrenia reached a critical mass, he killed his father with a hammer and slaughtered his two sisters with shotgun blasts. After spending the day at Harvard Yard, chatting with the students he found there, he made his way to a police station and confessed his crimes. You can look him up yourself and discover what I may have left out of my relation of the incidents: just open another window and search for the terms: Kenneth, Park, Quincy. =============== O woe ! As Thomas Wolfe says in his many works, you can't go home again. Nevertheless, I plead with God to give me a second chance and let me return to the days when I viewed Ken and his tea-brewing equipment on Bard's campus commons and let me be able to offer him the advice I have only gained through my own painful experiences. O lost ! Come back and return to me, most unsolaced joy of my youth, how I wanted to be your friend, how I wanted to explore the Wake Forest library with you, how I wanted to write books with you, how I wanted to have a truly intellectual friendship with you! For years I blamed Leon Botstein, Bard's President, for not informing Ken Park's father of the state of his son's health and the urgent necessity to seek psychiatric care in this regard and saw in the failure to do so an indictment of a system that makes all medical information a private concern and a matter subject to HIPPA laws, but I don't feel that way any longer. =============== From my researches on the internet I learned that Ken Park's schizophrenic breakdown was precipitated by the death of his mother, from cancer, a few years prior to his coming to Bard College. Perhaps that's what gave him the death-hollow look in his eyes and perhaps that's why he refused to make eye contact with Ivar, when he visited me during my first year at Bard in the Spring of 1994. I don't know. I do know that I had my own sort of psychotic breakdown on the day of my sister's wedding to Bruce McBrien in 1991. Apparently I got stinking drunk, and had to be placed on the dais between the groom and the bride, in a half-mad state, alternating between fits of laughter and weeping. =============== Earlier this year, I came across something in my reading of Les Miserables which gave me more insight into this event. History tells us that a similar event occurred in Paris over one hundred years ago when, on the day of his wedding, the brother of the poet and novelist Victor Hugo had a psychotic breakdown in reaction to seeing the woman he loved become his brother's bride, which leads me to believe that perhaps I was in love with my sister, Christine? Again, I do not know, but I can only tell you that a similar mental condition of Ken Park's psychology and mine stemmed from a breakup in the structure of our families. Someday when this life is over, I hope to walk among the Elysian fields of heaven with Ken Park, arm in arms, hand in hand. friends forever, swinging our way forward with a straight gait, and seclusive no more.

Metaphysics, violence and pitiful non-questioning graffiti

J.H.G.: You’ve had more experiences with women than I Also, seems weird to go into stock trading for women Andrew money, power, women, darryl hannah in the oliver stone film Wall Street Mary Ruggerio was my Darryl Hannah she was a movie star J.H.G. Yeah, it always seemed coke-powered I never found Wall Street to be depicting anything enticing. Interesting how many people took the opposite message from what was intended I remember Heather Lynch Andrew I was also enticed by Hugh Grant's chracter in Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks J.H.G. And of course, I knew Missy Andrew I was also in love with a prostitute named Tangerine. J.H.G. How’d you meet Tangerine? Were you a client? Andrew Yes, I found her ad in the back pages of the Village Voice after I got back from Basic Training. J.H.G. You’re kind of a paradox; do you shift back and forth between Catholic moral traditionalism and sexual permissiveness or do you have an unconventional understanding of religion? Andrew I'm not certain (I lack insight into myself, in this respect) i have written about your specific concerns in your last statement on my blog in the most recent posting J.H.G. So you name these childhood crushes on your blog? Andrew yes J.H.G. Do they know? Andrew no i just posted it i am deeply influenced by dostoevsky, nietzsche and henry miller those are my three main influences i am also schizophrenic, like antonin artaud, dont forget that ! J.H.G. I never forget that! MAR 31ST, 8:33PM Andrew it explains why i thought of myself as "Superman" and felt myself to be of a divine nature of sorts.... Seen by J.H.G. at 1:25pm 8:50PM Andrew I'm going to see a movie in about three hours from now, called "I Can Only Imagine." My mother called me yesterday and told me she wants to see this movie and would I go with her ? I said, "Sure, of course" as I hadn't seen any of the previews, reviews or advertising for this movie or of its promotion or trailers. I could easily solve this informational deficit by opening another browser window and searching for the movie, but I prefer to go in tabula rasa. It's more fun that way, I think. My mother also wants to see the new film about Ted Kennedy's car accient that killed Mary Jo Kopecknie, called "Chappaquiddick" (I think I spelled that correctly). I think we ought to see that one as soon as possible, as I might not play for ore than one or two weeks, especially here in Kennedy country! The movie I Can Almost Imagine was great, it brought tears to my eyes. My mother and I are going to the movies again next Tuesday, to see Chappaquiddick, about the scandal that sort of ruined Ted Kennedy's political career. I don't really know the history so well, was he a viable Presidential candidate before the events the film depicts? What is your opinion, I am interested. 10:58AM Andrew Hi, J.H. ! Andrew I have almost finished the complete short stories of Guy de Maupassant - looking to start reading Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier online next and, as far as paperbacks go, I read the first essay in Jacques Derrida's Writing and Difference, which I understand a lot better than when I read it the previous time, which was in my early twenties. Andrew In terms of music, I am currently listening to Eric Clapton's last release, called "I Still Do", which I somehow forgot to play yesterday - to be followed by the Grateful Dead's "American Beauty" CD, which I play in the morning every other Friday. 4:56PM J.H. Hey Andrew. I've never been into the Dead. I like Phish. I mostly listen to classic rock/oldies radio for 70s/80s/90s and Pearl Jam on Sirius Yankees looked weak! How about the Mets and Ohtanhi? Seen by Justin Heiferman at 4:56pm 6:47PM Andrew I got to see the two Angels games where Ohtani hit home runs, as they were on the MLB Network. He is great ! I am really excited to think the Angels could be in the post-season this year, they have not made the post-season more or less since they won the World Series in 2005. Andrew I like Phish a lot, in fact I am listening to them for the next two weeks straight, I have several of their CDs lined up, including the triple-disc release called "Live in Brooklyn" - that's my favorite - along with another live release called "Slip Stitch & Pass." I have been sitting on these discs (not playing them) for the last three years ! Andrew I think this is the year of the Mets (and the Red Sox) - the Yankees are "dirty" players - I was glad that Joe Kelly treated Tyler Austin like a punching bag. LOL! ========================== Dear Jacob, "I'm One" and "The Real Me" are my favorite songs by The Who, so Quadrophenia is probably my favorite album. (I bought it in 2016 but I still haven't played it.) 1:53PM Rabbi Goldfarb What about Who By Numbers? Andrew That's YOUR favorite, I understand. I also can say that I finally have a real liking for Who's Next, not to mention Tommy. Rabbi Goldfarb I grew up with Sarah listening to those albums Seen by R M. Goldfarb at 1:57pm 7:11PM Andrew Interesting. My edition of Tommy comes with a second disc, a live version of the entire album (with the exception of one song), performed in Canada - very powerful. Towards the end of last year, I had planned to collect the Pete Townshend solo albums I had yet to purchase, including Psychoderelict and The Iron Man and White City, as well as the three Scoop double-disc sets, but I decided to put it off. (I did, however, purchase a used version of White City: A Novel because it appears to be going out of print. I just checked Amazon and it is available as an import only.) Those are really my favorite albums of all time, the albums that came out in the mid- to late-1980s, albums that I acquired while shopping with my mother, mostly at Pic-a-Disc in Nyack, NY: when I hear Radio Kaos by Roger Waters, Sentimental Hygiene by Warren Zevon, Workbook by Bob Mould or Gaudi by The Alan Parsons Project, I remember my childhood growing up in Rockland County, New York. ==================================== Dear Marcel, I have been re-considering Ivar's inclusion of the Sermon on the Mount in his course in Western Philosophy, in the light of a recently discovered series of quotes related to the primacy of ethical thinking, which I feel could also inspire you to do the good work that you do. Jacques Derrida makes use of the following texts by Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, a long amalgam of quotes within quotes, a segment of which runs as follows: "If for example there is an ontology or the Logos of the comprehension of the Being of beings, it is in that already the comprehension of Being is said to the existent, who again arises behind the theme in which he is presented. This 'saying to the other' -- this relationship to the other as interlocutor, this relation with an existent -- precedes all ontology; it is the ultimate relation in Being. Ontology presupposes metaphysics, [and] prior to the unveiling of Being in general, as the basis of knowledge and meaning in Being, there is a relationship with the existent which is expressed; before the ontological level, the ethical level. Ethics is therefore metaphysics, and morality is therefore the basis of first philosophy." What do you think of this quote ? Now what do you think of Heidegger as a Christian philosopher ? Best wishes, abn===================Andrew, when I read Heidegger in seminary, I asked the professor what he understood H's 'Being' to mean. I don't recall exactly what he said, but I do remember that it involved grappling with the non-intuitive product of intense systemic intellectual effort. After 30 years reflection I would say two things: philosophy at this level requires serious work, context, meaning-making from precedents. To fairly understand H on his terms requires an elite effort of systemic study. I think H appreciates that the Christian faith/practice gets to the big, foundational questions and truths, (I think he calls that "Being,") but instead of being intellectually "woke" to get there, Christians get there by way of accessible moral ideas (Christian "ethics") and so Christianity makes these big notions accessible to all by serious Christian practice. Christian discipline is an on-ramp to H's Being. Being for the masses.---------------My response: Got ist Zein, ist Dasein nach der Psyche