April 30, 2008
"I'm kind of a neat, funny little guy, right?"
This semester, while in the Vonnegut seminar, I occasionally jotted down some of the comments made by Dr. John Reist. Listed below are the quotes I found in my notebook, if you can list another, put it in the comments and I'll add it to the list. But before the list of quotes, here is a possible definition for a term he used in class:
Flippydippin - (v) the way in which young women prepare to jump into a pool.
"I'm kind of a neat, funny little guy, right?"
"Every table participates in what? ... Tableness."
"Let's play suckface, but that's not being coy."
"The first honeymoon is Niagra, the second honeymoon is Viagra."
"Get up, there's plenty of time for sleeping in the grave."
"I'VE GOT A CRAMP IN MY LEG!"
"Life is a bitch, but some days it has puppies."
"What is sex? About twenty minutes."
"Kurt Vonnegut is SHABOOM! SHABOOM! SHABOOM!"
"I've got wrinkles, but they're Vonnegut wrinkles."
"When you get up in the morning, smile and get it over with."
"Dole-Rigiasiti Bingo!"
"Hey whoa man yeah man hey whoa."
"After their third cocktail, everyone looks - what? - sociable."
"Sexuality is about as meaningful as peanut butter."
"Cheap intimacy is worse than a Gatling Gun."
"Or call me Knob; that's what they called me in college."
"A picture of somebody's butt is not a picture of somebody's elbow."
"[Singing] Silent night, holy night, INCOMING!"
"Shooby-doin the chow chow."
"Go get a job, Larry. Go suck an egg. Go hug a nut."
"If you have an English teacher who doesn't know the answer, you might as well major in spaghetti."
"Why do you wear your hair that way? Hey nice wig."
"It's enough to make a monkey bite its mother."
"You haven't tasted anything until you've tasted Pennsylvania Dutch sticky buns."
"I've got principles. If you don't like them I've got other principles."
"If you read your autobiography and didn't know it was yours, you'd be bored to death."
"This chooch!"
"I'm gonna die anyway, so why didn't it happen last year?"
"You don't have to been-there to done-that."
"Today we're looking at ... Soul on Ice, by Elder Cleavage."
"Fiddler! Messiah! Let's get packing!"
"You're right to hate religion. Religious people are boring, arrogant, or both."
"The Hellsdale Collision. The Hillsdale Concussion. What is this, a college?"
"Someone asked Sophocles once about what sex was like at age eighty-three. He said, 'I'm glad to have that monkey off my back.'"
"People who have ennui are what? Indescribable sloths." [points to self]
"If you can't figure out your emotions on your own, you're either a woman, a Christian, or both."
"Columbus was Italian, Catholic, and a sailor. How you can be all three at once, I don't know."
[To a history major who recently got engaged] "History, Hillsdale, and what's the third strike? You!"
"We used to call happy people gay. Now it means you're a homosexual. Many homosexuals are not gay. They're not happy. They're miserable, in fact. And it's not all their fault. Is it?"
"Wha' happened?"
"Is there something wrong with me? I can't find chalk."
"Did you know John Calvin had migraine headaches and spit blood? The only way he survived is he convinced himself it was predestined."
"This is Wendell. This is what he did. Now, he dead."
"When nobody bathes, nobody notices."
"You need to get married, fall out of love, and proceed to your funeral."
"It's always sad when people take their faith seriously."
"Every time my wife leaves me, she comes back. You know why? One: I got lots of money, and two: I got forearms like railroad ties! Would you leave a guy with THESE?"
"In a Puritan cemetery is the gravestone of an eight-month-old infant. It says, 'Since I was so early done for / I wonder what I was begun for.' And you say Puritans had no sense of humor."
"Let me take the other glove off."
"You know what's so great about harassment? The her-ass part."
"I'm not much to look at, but I sure am provocative and challenging, eh?"
"That [flares nostrils] was my siren call to my wife."
"If everyone said what he wanted to, right now, civilization would collapse."
"Shizookum is Jewish for 'Don't.'"
"Bernice, bobbing, barbershop, bathing, BITCH!"
"Why do I know everything and you don't?"
"Please excuse my long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one."
"Do you know that awful song? Sing with me: 'Jesus loves the little children, / All the children of the world, / Chinks and niggers, kikes and wops, / Jesus thinks the kids are tops.' What's wrong? You stopped singing?"
"I look cool in white knickers."
"If I ever write a novel, I'd call it 'Road Kill.'"
"I've got to check my plumbing."
"It wouldn't make any sense if the world didn't make any sense."
"If my name was Atticus Finch, I'd shoot myself."
"Flakey, flunky, flukey, flu."
"Skank bags."
"That's funnier than a truck full of dead babies."
"Six eagles for every student."
"Cats -- meow, scratchy, scratchy, scratch."
"Some people think Vonnegut is one big, fat juicy nihilist."
"Well, I like to make love and I like to laugh, and I'm working on a way to do both."
"It's not hard to love a snail. Some people eat them."
"Revolution is coming. It's in a phone booth."
"When an 83-year-old woman says that to you, it's time to back up the truck."
"Hot black coffee and junk magazines."
"I know that sounds seixst, but studies have been done."
"To me it was like watching somboedy go to the bathroom."
"I haven't done my herbarium."
"I've spooned with so many women."
"Monkeys at the monkey house play with each other's...ear lobes."
"At a Bennigan's or a Hooligan's or whatever..."
"High school girls are...flag twirlers...oh, sexy to death!"
"Hamlet is not about Wendy's hamburgers."
"Save yourself from self-slaughter: read Kurt Vonnegut."
"Midland? Hey woah, I wonder what kind of art show they have there!"
"Harvard is the Hillsdale of the East."
"We blacks and Jews gotta stay together!"
"You should wash your hands. It's hygienically and Biblically okay, I guess."
"The Greek word for soul is 'neutere. Or in this picture's case, it's 'nuder.'"
"There's always windows in buildings that are civilized."
"You know what the pastor room is like? It's filled with wine bottles. And potato chips."
"In heaven there is no beer; that's why we drink it here."
[in reference to the film Splash, with Tom Hanks] "How can you make a banal movie about a mermaid!?"
"Listen Larry, Winston Churchill did not die for your sins."
"Ever have a nightmare where mosquitoes are coming after you? How about your college professor?"
"You have to know what sleeve garters are for or else you're not a human being."
"You always have to be in the mood or in the nude."
"Being a pastor is good beer money."
"A young prude is worse than an old prude."
[in reference to a Cuneo]: "He's going into the priesthood instead of the Reisthood...probably a good choice."
"Anyone here's mom perpetually virginal? As your dads. [short pause] Wait, no don't ask your dads!"
A note from one of Reist's past seminary students, Rick Behrens:
Don't know if anyone looks at this blog anymore, but I was a seminary student of Reist's at CBTS. Some of his gems have stuck with me. "Fundamentalism is neither fun nor mental." "God bless you, godamnit!" From his daughter about the joy of a good crap, "Daddy, how come when I'm about to poop it feels like Christmas is coming?"
by Chase at 10:39 PM |
14 Comments:
Damnit, I wrote down all the good quotes from Tuesday and I was gonna share but I think I accidentally threw the paper away. Fuck.
"If you read your autobiography and didn't know it was yours you'd be bored to death."
In reference to Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat": "You can make your life interesting if you row."
I found a bunch...
"This chooch!"
"I'm gonna die anyway, so why didn't it happen last year?"
"You don't have to been-there to done-that."
"Today we're looking at... Soul on Ice, by Elder Cleavage."
"Fiddler! Messiah! Let's get packing!"
"You're right to hate religion. Religious people are boring, arrogant, or both."
"The Hillsdale Collision. The Hillsdale Concussion. What is this, a college?"
"Someone asked Sophocles once about what sex was like at age eighty-three. He said, 'I'm glad to have that monkey off my back.'"
"People who have ennui are what? Indescribable sloths." [points to self]
"If you can't figure out your emotions on your own, you're either a woman, a Christian, or both."
"Columbus was Italian, Catholic, and a sailor. How you can be all three at once, I don't know."
[to a history major who recently got engaged] "History, Hillsdale, and what's the third strike? You!"
"We used to call happy people gay. Now it means you're a homosexual. Many homosexuals are not gay. They're not happy. They're miserable, in fact. And it's not all their fault. Is it?"
"Wha' happened?"
"Is there something wrong with me? I can't find chalk."
"Did you know John Calvin had migraine headaches and spit blood? The only way he survived is he convinced himself it was predestined."
"This is Wendell. This is what he did. Now, he dead."
"When nobody bathes, nobody notices."
"You need to get married, fall out of love, and proceed to your funeral."
"It's always sad when people take their faith seriously."
"Every time my wife leaves me, she comes back. You know why? One: I got lots of money, and two: I got forearms like railroad ties! Would you leave a guy with THESE?"
"In a Puritan cemetery is the gravestone of an eight-month-old infant. It says, 'Since I was so early done for / I wonder what I was begun for.' And you say Puritans had no sense of humor."
"Let me take the other glove off."
"You know what's so great about harassment? The her-ass part."
"I'm not much to look at, but I sure am provocative and challenging, eh?"
"That [flares nostrils] was my siren call to my wife."
"If everyone said what he wanted to, right now, civilization would collapse."
"Shizookum is Jewish for 'Don't.'"
"Bernice, bobbing, barbershop, bathing, BITCH!"
"Why do I know everything and you don't?"
"Please excuse my long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one."
Here are some more quotes from what Reist called The Complete Mutual Admiration Society:
"I look cool in white knickers."
"If I ever write a novel, I'd call it 'Road Kill.'"
"I've got to check my plumbing."
"It wouldn't make any sense if the world didn't make any sense."
"If my name was Atticus Finch, I'd shoot myself."
"Flakey, flunky, flukey, flu."
"Skank bags."
"That's funnier than a truck full of dead babies."
"Six eagles for every student."
"Cats -- meow, scratchy, scratchy, scratch."
"Some people think Vonnegut is one big, fat juicy nihilist."
"Well, I like to make love and I like to laugh, and I'm working on a way to do both."
"It's not hard to love a snail. Some people eat them."
"Revolution is coming. It's in a phone booth."
"When an 83-year-old woman says that to you, it's time to back up the truck."
"Hot black coffee and junk magazines."
"I know that sounds seixst, but studies have been done."
"To me it was like watching somboedy go to the bathroom."
"I haven't done my herbarium."
"I've spooned with so many women."
"Monkeys at the monkey house play with each other's...ear lobes."
"At a Bennigan's or a Hooligan's or whatever..."
"High school girls are...flag twirlers...oh, sexy to death!"
"Hamlet is not about Wendy's hamburgers."
"Save yourself from self-slaughter: read Kurt Vonnegut."
I found some other stray quotes from other question papers and (yikes!) up to two-year-old notebooks I found while cleaning my room:
"Midland? Hey woah, I wonder what kind of art show they have there!"
"Harvard is the Hillsdale of the East."
(to Charles Henry, in Dreiser seminar): "We blacks and Jews gotta stay together!"
from 370 last year:
"You should wash your hands. It's hygienically and Biblically okay, I guess."
"The Greek word for soul is 'neutere. Or in this picture's case, it's 'nuder.'"
"There's always windows in buildings that are civilized."
"You know what the pastor room is like? It's filled with wine bottles. And potato chips."
"In heaven there is no beer; that's why we drink it here."
[in reference to the film Splash, with Tom Hanks] "How can you make a banal movie about a mermaid!?"
"Listen Larry, Winston Churchill did not die for your sins."
"Ever have a nightmare where mosquitoes are coming after you? How about your college professor?"
"You have to know what sleeve garters are for or else you're not a human being."
[not quite sure what this is referencing, but it's probably better out of context anyway] "You always have to be in the mood or in the nude."
from Jewish-American Lit:
"Being a pastor is good beer money."
"A young prude is worse than an old prude."
[in reference to a Cuneo]: "He's going into the priesthood instead of the Reisthood...probably a good choice."
And finally, the Reist quote to end all Reist quotes:
"Anyone here's mom perpetually virginal? As your dads. [short pause] Wait, no don't ask your dads!"
I also attempted, unfortunately unsuccessfully, to dig up some old questions from Dave/ Luke/ Alan Mellish. They always had some doozies. I do have some that I drew tangentially related pictures on, maybe I will scan post those at some point.
Another:
"If you can see the hair on a woman's arm you're either too close or not close enough."
Don't know if anyone looks at this blog anymore, but I was a seminary student of Reist's at CBTS. Some of his gems have stuck with me. "Fundamentalism is neither fun nor mental." "God bless you, godamnit!" From his daughter about the joy of a good crap, "Daddy, how come when I'm about to poop it feels like Christmas is coming?"
We do still check up on this post. Thanks for commenting!
I must have thrown out all my notes from Reist's classes but here's a few I remember off the top of my head:
"You do know that Adam and Eve had no belly buttons"
"In all seriousity ..."
"Mr. Mellish thinks that because he had something to say about "Murder in the Cathedral" this week he doesn't need to say anything about it this week"
"You're like me Mellish, you've got to have a nicotine fix before you have a nicotine FIT!"
ps I'm ashamed to say that i found out about this blog by googling myself
Had a chance to have dinner with Reist last Friday, and if we're still adding to the list, here are some gems that bear repeating:
(before getting up to go to the bathroom) "Watch out, I gotta drain the dragon."
"You look around at this restaurant, see all these refined Hillsdale virtuists talking, eating nice food. But you know what's really going on? We're all just sitting here, making shit."
(upon seeing a large group of Hillsdale girls sitting at a table nearby) "Aw, you shouldn't have!"
Waitress: "The lettuce, onion and tomato come on the side."
Reist: "Oh, do they?"
Waitress: "Yes."
[Reist makes an annoyed face.]
Reist: "Madam, let me ask you a favor, and upon your performance rests your entire tip. Do you know how to use a camera?"
[Waitress nods.]
Reist: "Are you sure? You look frightened."
(after a colleague stopped by our table to say hi)
"Thought the dumb bastard would never leave."
(in a serious tone, after telling a series of hilarious misogynist jokes) "You know, there is a faculty member on the campus right now about whom several young women have complained to me. They come into my office, they sit, they cry. They tell me he's very good-looking but they don't appreciate his advances. And at least two young male students have observed this professor watching hard-core pornography on his computer. And I'm sad to say...it's me!" [loud cackle, fist-pump]
I had a seminar on John Updike with the venerable Dr. Reist this semester. Here are the gems I collected in the margins of my notebook:
"The syllabus was made for us, not we for it. Who said that? Jesus said that."
[during first day's role call and general introductions]: "I know it bores you when I do this, but you know what I'm doing--I'm trying to give the illusion I care!"
"I'm not divorced, I'm not gay, and I'm not in jail. Have you ever seen such virtue in all your life?"
[on the subject of being an American Studies major] Student: "I sold my soul to Dan Sundahl."
Reist: "Well, it ain't the Devil, but it's sure close."
"All you need to teach kids in first grade is a baseball bat."
"Hi. Coffee, tea, or me?"
"You never have all the facts. You have to say, 'Okay, I'm going to marry her.'"
"Why waste your time being wrong?"
"You know what a football tackling dummy is? Yeah...they all play for Hillsdale!"
"Just because something's interesting doesn't mean its dirty...although it probably is."
"Birth control is the worst idea since...gun control."
"Grandmother's die--that's what they do."
"You just gotta admit it--Updike has it and you don't."
[on the nature of the students in the Updike class]: "The youth group at this church was the worst group of young people I've seen besides this group."
"Just because you're at Hillsdale College doesn't mean it's not going to rain on your parade."
"First, we throw water on you. Then you throw rice on us. Then, we throw dirt on you."
"First, you're born, and then you die. In between you work on cars. Some guys have all the luck."
"A keg of beer! Wouldn't you kill people for that?"
"The only reason I pastor in addition to being a teacher is it's good beer money."
"What's an idiot? Well, you're looking at it!"
"Maybe we're in a prison at Hillsdale College and we don't even know it."
"Do you know why Helen Keller was a bad driver? She was a woman."
"The teacher is the man trying to avoid work."
"Ever been to the Hillsdale County fair? Everybody down there's pretending they're happy."
[on the subject of a fellow professor and his teaching style]: "He doesn't have tenure--I do. That accounts for my teaching freedom. [a series of blabbering noises] I don't care."
[on the portrayal of sex in the Rabbit tetralogy] Reist: "These sexual acts are not...what?"
Student: "They're not beautiful."
Reist: "Worse than that, they're not even sexy!"
"I used to have longings...."
[cont]
"The first honeymoon is Niagra--the second honeymoon is Viagra."
"If you don't behave yourself, I'm going to do a squat-jump."
"Have you considered seminary? If you call yourself a Christian and you haven't considered it, you're a Protestant."
"I think everyone in here knows what a cell is--you're in one right now."
"That was way back when you were 10 and I was only 15."
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Without paint, women would rust."
"You've got to love everybody, even...what? Faculty!"
"Do you know the number of men, statistically, who have died of a heart attack while making love to their wives? Shazookum!"
[on finally getting around to creating a gradebook for the Updike class and the resulting attendance policy]: "If you're late from here on out, I will beat you severely about the face and neck, smite you hip and thigh and cause you to measure your length upon the ground. And I'll call your mommy!"
Student [upon hearing that Reist had replied to an email]: "Wait, you read email?"
Reist: "No, female."
"Now, what do you think about rough sex, folks?"
[on the word "gay"]: "It didn't mean what it does today. And, by the way, most homosexuals are not happy."
"Did you know that this school was founded by Evangelical Baptists? What progress we've made...."
"That's not true, although it's almost completely true."
"In order to make sense of life, you must not only major in English, you must visit a children's hospital, a cancer ward, a veteran's cemetary, and a bar."
"Do you know what the white stuff is in bird shit? Bird shit!"
"That's an acute observation. You're pretty cute yourself."
[on me nodding off in class]: "He's better-looking asleep than he is awake."
"It's natural to produce death."
"Do you know what's happening to your great-grandfather right now? He's decaying, just like the food in your stomach."
"Ever sleep with your dog?"
"Do you know why dogs lick their doobie-doos? Because they can."
"How do you like not being missed?"
"Now, some women are worth hating. But, then again, so are some men."
[on the subject of divorce]: "If you can stay with a woman for 25 years, you can stay with her for 26."
[upon receiving the response "I'm doing good"]Response #1: "You're doing well. You're a sinner and you're going to Hell, but you're doing well."
Response #2: "No, you're doing well. If you were doing good, you'd be performing acts of charity."
"It's clear that 'Hamlet' is not about milkshakes and hamburgers."
This doesn't make any sense at all, but I'm about to take a cruise and it's been a little stressful during the run up to "getaway day" and I figured I should check on the words of Reist. What a magical potion. All is well. To the ocean.
Thank you for the laugh today.
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