Deceased August 6, 1996
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In Memory
“…genius can be bounded in a nutshell and yet embrace the whole fullness of life.”—Thomas Mann
On Aug. 6, 1996, the very full life of Scott F. Riklin ’74 came to a close. And those of us fortunate enough to have embraced some of the fullness of Scott’s life are stunned to know that his boundless energy is now lost to us. His was a life that was sometimes graced with that comet-sheen of what we have to call “genius.” As well, the earthbound Scott we knew could be impish, impulsive, whimsical, sometimes even—though, seldom—scaring. And it’s the echo of his full-body laugh that puts flesh and blood into that poet’s powerfully simple claim that Energy is Eternal Delight.
Scott’s life was a weave that defies the straightforward narrative, yet there are strands of accomplishment which stand quite recognizable. In the immediate post-graduation years, Scott was the editor of an iconoclastic San Francisco-based literary journal, Odalisque. He also won an award directing a documentary film about an Appalachian coal-mining town for the Maryknoll Fathers. Then, upon completion of the Yale School of Management in 1984, he held executive positions in New York with Warner Communications and Columbia Pictures. With the latter, he was one of the top management team of six.
In 1987, Scott moved to Los Angeles and soon thereafter left the directorship of an ill-fated small production company to strike out on his own. Perceiving early the opportunities made available by the electronic communications revolution, Scott secured a “seat” on the “Cyber Stock Market” by creating his own investment group, RIKPIK. At home with his Powerbook, Scott exercised a grasp of certain sectors of the market that, again, compelled some to call Scott “brilliant,” “intuitive,” “incisive.”
These are notable accomplishments, but for an image that appropriately conveys the tapestry of Scott, we cannot speak of him without reference to the arts, to poets and to painters, for his creative soup was from the same stock. His brush strokes were the indefatigable curiosity of his probing intellect, often so swift and clear, and his buoyant laugh—the human as energy.
There are those many times when Scott was there with us, fully present, so incredibly interested in what we were doing, who we were—plus occasionally, often playfully jabbing us with a penetrating question, the answer to which would reveal more of ourselves. His friendships were legion. He not only made many fast friends but would become friends of friends and friends of family of these friends. Scott’s energy for getting to know you came naturally, and he would entertain all with his sense of humor and articulate irreverence.
A classmate describes Scott as “not so much as full of capacity as capacity itself.” He went on to say that Scottie drew him to remember some lines by Walt Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? I contradict myself. I contain infinities.” How many of us have stories about the crazy things Scott did that annoyed us but that we love to recount? Which points to one of the reasons why so many people loved Scott. He was so completely and sometimes maddeningly true to himself.
Scott remained true to his nature during the eight years he lived with the AIDS virus. Eschewing drug therapy, he chose instead the alternative therapies of Chi Gong movement and meditation, diet and stress management. For his nature realized that one’s strength and wholeness comes from the inside out.
Psychologist James Hillman writes, “A genius belongs to everyone. ... Extraordinary people excite; they guide; they warn; standing, as they do, in the corridors of imagination ... they help carry what comes to us as it came to them.”
To us all, Scott will be remembered both as a warm, loyal friend, and one who excited, warned and who gave us guidance about the grand halls of the imagination, where we so often stand alone. Those many memories of Scott trying to communicate to us his zany clarity and flooding heart will haunt us like the best of poems.
Scott is survived by his family, parents Marilyn and Bernard, brothers Jeffrey and Matthew, niece Leah and nephew Eric and countless friends.
Mark Mangini ’74 and Kevin Scribner ’74