{"id":10,"date":"2008-06-28T00:34:24","date_gmt":"2008-06-28T07:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjville.com\/?p=10"},"modified":"2013-05-20T00:16:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T07:16:55","slug":"ross-mcconnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjville.com\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Ross McConnell \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ross<\/a>PHOTO CC: MJ Vilardi some rights reserved<\/a><\/strong><\/h5>\n

<\/a>Last month my lifelong friend Ross McConnell died near Tbilisi, Georgia in a freak traffic accident. He was on his way to a Black Sea resort in Turkey, and had just stepped off the bus at a rest stop when he was struck by a speeding minivan. He died shortly thereafter, in the “reanimator room” of a nearby hospital. Ross was 55, and had been living in Tbilisi for several years. Here is a news report<\/a> by Georgian State Television, with English transcript courtesy of Ross’s friend, the expatriate writer Brian Adrian, who also lives in Tbilisi.<\/p>\n

NOTE: The remarkable life and untimely death of Ross McConnell is the topic of our first MJville podcast. If you knew Ross and would like to share your thoughts and memories, please leave a comment on this post and we’ll work out a time for a phone or Skype conversation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I first met Ross back in the 70’s when we were both students at Antioch College<\/a> in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I was trying to sleep off the effects of a long night of partying, when I heard a loud noise at my dorm room door. It wasn’t knocking, not even pounding, but an insane hammering, like they were tearing down the building. I peered through the peephole and spied a big guy using a brick to nail something to my door. “What the hell-?” I yelled as I swung the door open. A preserved fox face fell to the floor. This is what the mystery man \u00e2\u20ac\u201c obviously inebriated \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had been trying unsuccessfully to mount. Without further comment I picked up the furry mask and held it in place, while Ross nailed it securely into the wood.<\/p>\n

\"Ross<\/a>DRAWING CC: MJ Vilardi some rights reserved<\/a><\/strong><\/h5>\n

I will never know how he came to acquire that fox face, or why he chose my door for it. At the time, it seemed no stranger than all the other cosmic events happening constantly at Antioch, a school that seemed, at times, to levetate. Ross and I shared a beer etc. and talked about the cosmological knowledge of ancient civilizations… Mystic Crystal Revelations late night in an undergrad dorm room… a familiar way to pass the time. Typically talks like these are fueled by beer, weed, and the sweet imagination of youth… but Ross seemed to offer the real deal: primary experience of mystical forces and divine revelations. And he knew his shit!<\/p>\n

Ross was tall and solidly build \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not like a Venice Beach muscle boy, more like the frantic, impassioned heroes in the paintings of William Blake; naked or trailing wispy gossamer long hair and beards, these figures take mountain-high steps on tree trunk legs, and implore the moon with arms that almost reach it. But Ross’s arms were almost always filled with books: rare old tomes from the collection of his grandfather (a famous WWII general); astronomical journals, the works of Plato, even a history of Atlantis by the sleeping prophet of Virginia Beach, Edgar Cayce. Ross brought plenty of theories and challenges to get us motivated… I say “us” because almost overnight Ross had himself a following: smart kids looking for inspiration (and something more interesting than the predictable liberal art curriculum were were getting). Some of these kids had rich parents, so intoxicants were always available to keep our reality engine adequately lubricated…<\/p>\n

Ross and I taught two classes together, and used our “instructor” status to rent films at educational rates for free showing to classes. But we’d publicize them campus-wide, and charge admission, using the money to rent better films. Extra profits funded extravagant pre-film parties with spiked punch and electric brownies … it was the 70’s, after all. Eventually we could even afford Kubrick’s 2001 – A Space Odyssey,<\/em> which we showed in Main Hall with yours truly manning the giant projector. Tense moments (audience riot) when, during the crucial ape scene, the film got stuck under the hot-as-the-sun xenon bulb and some frames burned. At least one person in the crowd thought it was the end of the world, because there were screams. Ross calmly locked the projection booth door and together we figured out how to splice the film back together and get the massive Simplex projector running again.<\/p>\n

Other films in our series included:<\/p>\n