Althouse: "My dad, Richard L Cohen, on December 8, 1980: 'We were living in an NYU-owned studio apartment...'"

December 8, 2015

"My dad, Richard L Cohen, on December 8, 1980: 'We were living in an NYU-owned studio apartment...'"

"'... on the fifteenth floor of Washington Square Village on Bleecker Street. I was awaiting the publication of my first book and writing the second one; Ann was in her last year of law school and pregnant with our first child, who, three months later, we decided to name John. The clock radio woke us, and the first sound that came over it was an announcer’s voice: "We’ll have more about the murder of John Lennon after this."...'"

John remembers.

28 comments:

traditionalguy said...: To Boomers, a sneak attack upon a Beatle was far worse than Pearl Harbor. It made no sense to us.; 12/8/15, 10:41 AM
Curious George said...: John remembers.

He wasn't born yet so this cannot be true.; 12/8/15, 10:44 AM
Fernandinande said...: Chapman allegedly started planning to kill Lennon three months prior to the murder.
"He had been a big Beatles fan, idolizing Lennon, and played guitar himself, but turned against him after claiming to become a Christian; he was angered at Lennon's comment that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus." In the South, there were demonstrations, album burnings, boycotts, and projectiles were thrown. Some members of Chapman's prayer group made a joke "It went, 'Imagine, imagine if John Lennon was dead.'"[10] Chapman's childhood friend Miles McManushe recalls his referring to the song as "communist". Jan Reeves, sister of one of Chapman's best friends, reports that Chapman "seemed really angry toward John Lennon, and he kept saying he could not understand why John Lennon had said it [that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus]. According to Mark, there should be nobody more popular than the Lord Jesus Christ. He said it was blasphemy."[14]"

In clinical practice, no clear guidelines exist to distinguish between "normal" religious beliefs and "pathological" religious delusions.; 12/8/15, 10:52 AM
mccullough said...: Happiness is a warm gun; 12/8/15, 11:03 AM
William said...: I liked the Beatles and thought that John was the most talented member of that group. I suppose you could even say that he was the voice of his generation although not in the presence of Dylan fans.......Anyway, it was a shame that he got killed, but it didn't have much impact on my life. I thought there was something self indulgent about all the grief directed at his passing. It wasn't exactly posturing. It was sincere, but that made it seem even more annoying. John Lennon was not a prophet of great, world altering truths, and he wasn't even a good person in his private life. It was just too overdone.; 12/8/15, 11:15 AM
tim maguire said...: Washington Square Village? What's that?; 12/8/15, 11:23 AM
rhhardin said...: Imus's Bernard McGuirk speculated that the shooter was actually after Yoko, but John bent over to pick up a dropped pencil.

"Here, let me get that."

Nobody would have convicted the shooter.; 12/8/15, 11:23 AM
Sydney said...: I remember that day. It had no impact on my life whatsoever. I was a college freshman. What I remember most was a girl in my dorm with a tendency towards histrionics. She had a huge crush on a guy who was a big Beatles fan. She spent a week crying publicly. Sheesh.; 12/8/15, 11:35 AM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: I was living alone in a drafty trailer in Kodiak, Alaska. I got home from work to hear the news on NPR. I cried.; 12/8/15, 11:36 AM
cubanbob said...: Chapman is yet another poster boy for why the death sentence should be meted out and carried out routinely for first degree murder.; 12/8/15, 11:48 AM
Jake said...: Let's be honest. This may be the day the world remembers John Lennon's death, but Yoko had killed him long before.; 12/8/15, 11:55 AM
mccullough said...: Imagine is a trite song. Lennon's Beatles stuff was mostly good but his post Beatles stuff is pretty weak and I hold him, not Yoko, responsible.; 12/8/15, 11:59 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "He wasn't born yet so this cannot be true."

He remembers his father's old blog post. He remembers the story his father told him.; 12/8/15, 12:11 PM
FleetUSA said...: I lived in Hayden Hall 1970-71, a quaint old place. I had a murphy bed and a closet/study desk. Wonderful time.; 12/8/15, 12:24 PM
MadisonMan said...: I was up late studying (Junior Year in college), heard the news on the radio, told a roommate who was also up studying. Then I went to bed, falling asleep pretty quickly.

Impact on me: Zip.

I do recall subsequently thinking that the song and album he had out were played more because he'd been killed.; 12/8/15, 12:25 PM
FWBuff said...: I was a sophomore in college and didn't really care about the Beatles. But my older brother was (and is) a huge Beatles fan, and I remember how upset he was about Lennon's death. I also remember thinking how I couldn't relate to his sadness at all.
A few years later, Karen Carpenter died of anorexia, and her death hit me really hard because I was (and am) a huge Carpenters fan. One of the first things I did when I heard the news was call my older brother to tell him that I finally understood how he felt when Lennon died.
There was silence on the phone, and then he said, "It's NOT the same!"
So much for fraternal understanding . . .; 12/8/15, 1:21 PM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: Sorry, FWBuff, it isn't the same.; 12/8/15, 1:50 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Lennon was murdered. Carpenter's own actions led to her death. I think.; 12/8/15, 1:59 PM
vanderleun said...: As it happened I was working with him at the time....

The Day We Killed John Lennon @ AMERICAN DIGEST; 12/8/15, 2:01 PM
Clark said...: I was holed up for several weeks in an old farmhouse in the little swiss town of Ringoldingen. My only contact with the outside world—other than exchanging a few words with someone out walking or with the lady at the tiny little general store—was by walking down to the whistle stop at the bottom of the valley and taking the train down to Spiez. Every few days I would make the trip and pick up a newspaper. That was how I learned about Lennon's death. It's funny strange how certain events burn a marker into your memory.; 12/8/15, 2:03 PM
FWBuff said...: "Superstar" vs. "Imagine". You're right, Tyrone Slothrop. One is definitely superior to the other; therefore, not the same.; 12/8/15, 2:30 PM
AMDG said...: I was a senior in college I remember hearing the news from Howard Cosell.

The following Sunday there were a group of hippies marching through Quincy Market singing "Give Peace A Chance". I found the spectacle somewhat pathetic.

I am a big fan of the Beatles, however, for some reason,the passing of Carl Wilson hit me harder.; 12/8/15, 4:10 PM
BN said...: I was and still am a big Beatles and John Lennon fan. At the time I thought his murder was another sign of the continuing decline of western civilization. I know, I know, everything is a sign to me, but would you argue that a beautiful artist being murdered walking down the street is not a sign that the society in which it happens is a bit sick?

I also thought that it could have only happened to Lennon. Not to McCartney, Dylan, Jagger, Hendrix, or even Sinatra or Elvis. Nobody. What an ending. What a life.

As for it affecting my heart, head, or life at the time, no. I had my own problems.

Too bad his last album was so bad. I hated it. Very bourgeois, except for Yoko's caterwauling every other song--which I thought was awful but at least "edgy" in a Patti Smith sort of way.; 12/8/15, 5:17 PM
Anonymous said...: I believe Karen Carpenter was killed by the big laxative companies.; 12/8/15, 6:30 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: He was the first non-political celebrity, AFAIK, said to be ASSASSINATED rather than simply MURDERED. He was definitely a trend setter.; 12/8/15, 8:14 PM
Emil Blatz said...: I was living on Langdon Street in Madison, studying as a special student to get some foundation courses out of the way for graduate school. I worked at American TV. It was the lowest living I have done, leasing a room in a dorm style apartment building (now slated for demolition) on a week by week lease. On reflection, I was living a parallel experience to Mark David Chapman, who enjoyed the fine environs of the YMCA in NYC. Except that I wasn't crazy or homicidal.

I walk over to Rocky Rococco's pizza on State Street, order a slab of cheese, and sit down to MNF on the big parabolic projection screen TV. Howard Cosell announced the breaking news that Lennon had been shot and was en route to the hospital. I walked back to my low rent digs and watched the rest of the game, during which Cosell got to break the news that it been been fatal.; 12/9/15, 1:25 AM
John Althouse Cohen said...: Washington Square Village? What's that?

Let me Google that for you!; 12/9/15, 8:38 PM
John Althouse Cohen said...: John remembers.

He wasn't born yet so this cannot be true.

Clearly I hadn't been born yet, since the post says my mom was pregnant with me at the time. So we can infer that my mom meant "John remember this old blog post about what it was like when John Lennon died," not "John remembers firsthand what it was like when John Lennon died."

You might find this Wikipedia entry helpful.; 12/9/15, 8:43 PM