Friends Remember P. Malloch

There are always a few people in life who are on a higher plane. They seem slightly out of sync with the world that we know, possessing a talent and intelligence that puts their thoughts and works beyond the scope of the everyday world. They are the creative, incendiary personalities who give the world its art, literature, and zest.

Per Malloch was one of these people. Malloch was tall and thin, with a mind that would dive into one passion after another and a manner that delighted those around him. His friends describe him as "crazy alive," with an "otherworldly uniqueness" that drove his work and drew a large and disparate group of friends to him.

"Everyone was drawn to him because he was so out there. He was so funny and smart," said Chelsea Peretti, BC '00, one of Malloch's friends.

The qualities that made him unique seem all the more precious now. Per Malloch died in his room last Wednesday night.

The cause of his death has not been determined by authorities, but foul play has been ruled out. Authorities estimate that it will be several weeks until more information is known.

In the meantime, Columbia has lost a creative and dynamic soul. Malloch was a prolific artist in the community, a published author, a Spectator columnist, a member of the Philolexian society, the incoming editor of the Columbia East Asian Review, and the host of a program on WBAR. And he did all of this while remaining, in the words of close friend Jasmine Hyman, GS '01, "an effortlessly straight-A student."

For his friends, all of these accomplishments serve to deepen the impression of Malloch as someone uniquely gifted.

"I was in awe of him," Hyman said. "I was in awe of his humanity, and I was in awe of his intelligence."

Both of those qualities came together in one of Malloch's projects, The Chicken Musical. Malloch wrote, scored, and produced a wacky musical about chickens, with singing roles for all of his friends. He produced and sold the musical on CD and built a website devoted to it. He had planned to hold a cast party last Friday.

Paul LeBreton, GS '01 and one of Malloch's best friends, called The Chicken Musical "brilliant."

"It was incredibly eccentric, very weird, and yet totally memorable," LeBreton said.

To LeBreton, the musical was an example of Malloch's artistic talent and devotion to his friends. "Per was a genius. He was the most intellectual, the most intelligent, the most prolific, the most creative person I've ever known," he said.

The musical was not the extent of Malloch's artistic work, though. He also produced a large body of his own music in a variety of genres.

"He wrote videogame music, he wrote dance music, he wrote death metal," LeBreton said. "Everything conceivable, he applied his intellect to it."

That also applied to his philosophy. Canon Pence, a former Columbia student who transfered to the University of North Carolina, said that Malloch "embraced a number of philosophies wholeheartedly, only later to become dissatisfied and move on, while taking the key understandings with him," attributing it to Malloch's "excitement and enthusiasm."

During the last few years, Malloch had gone from Objectivism to Egoism to Libertarianism. But through all his philosophical shifts, his friends said that he had an "extreme tolerance" for other viewpoints and would often integrate the important points of what he was confronted with into his own philosophy.

And he would bring his friends with him. "Per was extremely influential," Pence said. "Once people got to know him, he introduced us to a lot of different concepts."

As with many geniuses, his brilliance came hand in hand with a social awkwardness. Friends describe him as having been "kind of standoffish" and "not quite all there" socially.

Charles Saliba, CC '00, said Malloch reveled in his eccentricity. "I think he would enjoy being the weird guy, standing out," Saliba said. "I think he took amusement from the fact that he was different from everybody."

But friends describe a major change in Malloch during the year he spent away from Columbia, during which he lived in Seattle and produced a videogame and a book.

"His eyes were more open than they'd ever been before," LeBreton said. "He was far more confident and not afraid… He was talking about it like it was an emotional breakthrough."

"He was learning to open up. He was learning to, I think, come to grips with his personal demons," he continued. "I mean, We went to SoHa and picked up women. This is fucking Per, the most antisocial guy."

LeBreton wasn't the only one who noticed the change. Peretti said that the change in Malloch after his year off was dramatic. "When I last saw him, he was straight-edge, wore all black, had a ponytail. Then he came back and he was a self-proclaimed candy-raver," Peretti said.

"He got more and more into creativity and productivity," Pence said.

LeBreton said that Malloch had made a conscious decision to take more enjoyment from life. "I've got the intelligence," he recalls Malloch saying. "Now I need the wisdom."

Hyman, who met Malloch after he returned to Columbia, described him as having a powerful lust for life.

"He was really brilliant and really funny, the most warm-hearted, wear his heart on his sleeve, belly-up kind of guy," she said.

And for all his friends, the change in Malloch makes his death all the more tragic.

"Death is natural, but the tragedy of Per is that he had a lot more to say," Hyman said.

His friends are working to see that he gets the chance to say it. LeBreton said that they would work to get more of his music and writing published, although no plans had yet been made as to how that would be done.

His friends will also work to have his spirit remembered. There will be no campus-wide vigil or memorial service, but there will be a more intimate gathering of Malloch's friends sometime this week.

"We're not going to have anything big on campus. It's not in Per's spirit," Hyman said.

At the gathering, Malloch's friends will remember a creative and kind spirit--in Saliba's words, "a brilliantly intelligent guy," who was "in a league of his own."

Hyman gave the same description. "He was just in a different league in terms of where his ideas were coming from and where his values were coming from," she said. "He was just so cool. He was an original."