Farewell, Ken Mogg
Erudite and original, his writing conveyed the thrill of the hunt when watching Hitchcock’s films.
The Alfred Hitchcock Story, Titan Books, First Edition, 2008
I DISCOVERED KEN MOGG around 1998 while pretending to work an office job at the phone company. Alfred Hitchcock’s centenary was coming up and Ken had been quoted in a journal that described him as knowing more about the director than anyone else on earth. While he probably planted that seed himself, it's still only a minor quibble to point out that he was among a small handful of contenders for that spot. Furtively reading his comments on the alt.movies.hitchcock Google Group, with a trigger finger poised to toggle over to a work-related window if my boss came near, I gobbled up everything by him I could find. His companion to Hitch’s oeuvre, The Alfred Hitchcock Story, is a masterclass in lucid, concise intellection that’s also a joy to read. Just be sure to get the authorized UK edition, or he may come back from the beyond and gently chide you. Ken passed away February 2, 2023.
With his film analyses interlaced with musings on Buddhism, Hinduism and the metaphysics of Arthur Schopenhauer, Hitchcock’s films were central texts in Ken’s quest for meaning. And so, when I left the Jehovah’s Witnesses around 2003 and was casting around for a new cosmology, I fell right in with his train of thought. Lately, I’ve been musing on how profoundly spiritual Hitchcock’s movies are, and I need to give Ken credit for first tuning me into that wavelength. A couple of years in, he started a new forum, the “Hitchen” Yahoo Group, which aimed to give the riff raff over on Google the slip. Ken graciously allowed me in, and there I got my first concentrated taste of conversation with professional authors and academics like Dan Auiler and Steven DeRosa—great friends still. I learned a lot and discovered that I, too, had something to contribute. After a while, that group, like its predecessor on Google, went the way of all social media when personalities began dominating the discourse.
Though we drifted apart—Ken wanted me to remain an acolyte—a role in which I became increasingly uninterested—we maintained a friendship via email. Seeing a note from “muffin@labyrinth” in my inbox was always a signal to brew a cup of coffee and settle in for a good read. I wasn’t alone. He had a lot of pen pals. I still don’t know how he kept up with his correspondence while maintaining his teaching and writing commitments that included one lengthy blog post every week for about fifteen years.
Thomas Leitch has described Hitchcock’s films as a game between the director and the audience in which the latter hunt for clues to their meaning that the former may or may not have planted. When Ken’s writing was at his best, he played that game with joyful seriousness—a paradox that only the best sports can invoke. The games continued on his blog until last July ninth, when he wrote an addendum to his final post: “Respected Reader. I have decided that this blog may well be my last. Thankyou for all of the wonderful input that has flowed my way over the years.”
Goodbye, Mr. Mogg, wherever you are.
