Dr. Reist's personal library has been gifted to Hillsdale, and has overrun ole Mossey Library in the process. I can hear him giggling.
The other good news, for a limited time, is that there's a narrow window to make a request to receive a book from the collection before it lands in a "free pile" (after the dutiful librarians pick through). It will be stamped with a proper bookplate: "From the library of John S. Reist."
If interested, there may still be time to email Mariel[dot]Johnson[at]gmail[dot]com with a note and your request.
Thanks to Collegian editor Macaela Bennett for the photo. She's working on a story about the situation.
When I first received the opportunity to speak about Dr. Reist, I recognized immediately that it was something I needed to do, despite the unease I feel when it comes to public speaking. And as Nov. 2 was set in stone, and the date in which I and others would gather to honor the professor inched closer, I set to work trying to craft some coherent remarks to illustrate just why the man touched my life, and the lives of so many others. Of course, we were all too late. Reist succumbed to illness the day before three of us on this blog arrived on Hillsdale's campus. The tribute to him was postponed to another date, one I'm afraid I won't be able to attend. And while these words will be heard, read by someone else, it seemed appropriate to leave this here, too. I've left it in its roughest form. It was written as a speech, and you'll see that here:
--
First
of all, I want to thank Dr. Somerville for pulling much of this
together. I don’t get back to Hillsdale very often, but I couldn’t think
of a better reason to return than to say a few words about Dr. Reist,
who, in my opinion, has played an integral role on this campus for many,
many years. I took Dr. Reist every year I attended classes here, so I
learned very early on about this neat, kind, and totally strange man --
someone that I’ve consider to be an invaluable part of my education.
Now,
I’m a reporter, which is basically to say that I’m naturally
predisposed to be a bad public speaker, unlike Dr. Reist, who really
knew how to work a room. I spend most of my days talking one on one with
all sorts of people, then retreat to a desk in a messy newsroom, where,
from behind a computer screen, I write stories about other people’s
lives. It’s a day-in-day-out solo effort (for the most part) and I
rarely speak to crowds, and honestly, that’s probably for the best. But
in thinking about what I’d say here, and how I’d say it, I did consider
trying my hand at Reist’s own style. But I think everyone knows it just
can’t be replicated -- so very much unlike Dr. Reist, I’m going start
at the beginning.
Full
disclosure: I’m a Dr. Reist fanboy. Have been for years. My best
friends and I started a group blog named in his honor (The Sad Bear, an
expression of his) a year or so before we graduated, and have used it
to stay in touch over the years. It’s there where we’ve archived some of
Reist’s most quotable gems: the weird, the alarming, and the downright
gut-busting things he’d say off the cuff in classes.
Originally,
he was my academic adviser, and thus, the first professor I actually
met when I arrived here from Louisville, Kentucky. I’m not sure how they
do it anymore, but when I first got here, you had dinner with your
academic adviser and small group of your freshman peers a day or so
before classes. The idea was that you’d break bread, talk a little about
yourself, and get your first introduction to what you could expect from
the Liberal Arts. Capital “L,” capital “A”.
And,
like most college freshmen, I didn’t really know what to expect, but
still had this general romantic idea of what higher education would be
like. I mean, I’d seen the library, sat in on a class or two during my
visit, yadda yadda yadda.
Right.
Let’s
just say this: It is impossible to meet a man like Dr. Reist for the
first time and not be totally disarmed, sort of amused, and utterly
befuddled. Within minutes of sitting down at his kitchen table for
pizza, I’m pretty sure he’d dropped a curse word, possibly told us that,
“There is a God and she is black,” and brought up the Roche scandal. I
remember the prudes all shifted in their seats, something for which I’m
sure he took much delight. And then he interviewed us, with rapid-pace
abandon, leaving us completely stunned with his turn-of-phrase
commentary and songs. When we left, the sun had already set. It was dark
outside, and I couldn’t make eye contact with any of my peers as we
walked back to our cars. The silence reeked of just how bewildered we
all were. I think we all had the same question: Who was this jokester
and what the hell just happened?
And
more importantly for me, what was going to happen at 8 o’clock on my
first day of classes. I was, after all, slated to take Reist’s
hour-long, freshman English course first thing in the morning...multiple
days a week.
It’s
fair to say that, as freshmen, we weren’t prepared for what we got.
Anyone who’s taken a class with Reist knows his teaching style is
untraditional. To us, it seemed like an hour-long sort of schizzo,
semi-Socratic runaway train of jokes and warped metaphors. A kind of
comedy caravan that included deep questions about God scorning Job,
Oedipus and his mother, and mentions of some strange work called “Soul
on Ice,” by Elder Cleavage. It was wild stuff -- but fitting, especially
for students who would go on to count themselves as non-traditional
students
Of
course, it never took much to ignite discussion. I remember when we
were studying Oedipus, and one of the athletes in the room raised his
hand during our third day of discussion.
“So, like, why is his last name Rex?”
Reist
howled, though not unkindly, and we were off on a meandering course
that surely led to an answer for that intrepid student, but also Heisman
trophy trivia, a stream of compliments about his wife (who I can attest
is a wonderful woman), and jokes about the college. Dr. Reist delighted
in proffering his opinion about college matters, and admitted
(sometimes with a giddy air of pride in his voice) to being a “pain in
the ass” for administrators.
“Listen, Larry,” he said once of Dr. Arnn, “Winston Churchill did not die for your sins.”
And
he often critiqued the obvious. I remember the time he reminded us of
the college’s unspoken rule that there be six eagle statues for each
student on campus. Which really isn’t that hard to believe given the
state of the Heritage Room in the library.
Of course, as my time at Hillsdale progressed, I dedicated most of my life to The Collegian,
which always had the unquestioned support of Dr. Reist. He actually had
a small stable of satirical names for the paper. I’d pass him while
walking across campus, and he’d always stop to ask me a question about
the latest edition of “The Hellsdale Collision” or “The Hillsdale
Concussion.” I remember that whenever he did voice a criticism, he
always balanced it by talking about why he felt a student press was
essential to the college campus. I cherish the several closed-door talks
I had with him, when I had questions about the especially sensitive
article ideas that inevitably cross an editor’s desk at the paper. He’d
sit with his arms crossed (exposing his infamous weather guards), and
listen with pastoral interest before helping you work through the matter
at hand.
There
is something very real, and very earthy about Reist and his presence
here. Like I said before, coming to Hillsdale is a commitment to the
Liberal Arts, and it’s easy to get swept up in the high-minded
principles espoused by the professors here (Reist included). It’s not
like you abandoned those when you walked into Reist’s classes, but he
brought you back to Earth. He was always a reminder for me that I live
outside those texts, and the liberal arts bubble. He, and his jokes and
his songs and his whistling, helped keep me from taking myself too
seriously.
One
of my most vivid memories of Reist actually took place when I was in a
crazed sort of haze. It was in my junior year during an evening class on
Kurt Vonnegut (one of my favorite courses here, and one that, frankly, I think should be taught more often). Reist had an ironclad
attendance policy: you miss a class, you drop a grade. So, one
night, even though I was a feverish incubus of the bubonic plague, I
kept to the syllabus and decided to attend.
Anyways, it was a bad idea, and an hour-and-a-half later, I was
staggering home in a snowstorm alongside my good friend Tony Gonzalez,
who, encouraged me along with conversation. I’m pretty sure I was
slightly delirious, and probably responded in unintelligible grunts.
When we got to our apartment, which was behind Simpson, I immediately
got in the shower and sat there for about a half-hour under lukewarm
water. I could barely concentrate, and I remember just hearing Reist’s
one-liners playing over and over in my head.
“SHOOZOOKUM!”
“Get a job, Larry. Go suck an egg. Go hug a nut.”
“Hey whoa man, yeah man, hey whoa!”
I’m
pretty sure the synapses in my brain had reached a critical failure point, causing them to explode left and right, cementing Reist into
my conscience, for good or for bad.
Maybe
he wanted to entertain, possibly. But there was something to his
story-style teaching that stuck. There was an implicit sense of trust
that, on the other side of the course, you’d have picked up something,
some invaluable lesson. Maybe it’d be rooted in the text, but it would
always apply to life. To the bigger picture. And that stuck with me.
A
couple of years ago, for The Sad Bear blog, my friends and I asked Dr.
Reist if he’d record a video of himself offering us some life advice, the idea was that we'd save it on YouTube.
It’s weird to think that one of my favorite possessions lives on the
internet, but I’ve gone back to that video multiple times, and each time
I swear I walk away with something new to think about. It’s also odd
because, in a way, the video was our attempt to bottle and preserve Dr. Reist
-- something that seems impossible based on experiences in the
classroom.
There
is one Reist line that I’ll never forget. It’s come in handy as I’ve
graduated and moved into the “real world,” where you don’t have seasonal
breaks, and where you experience the ups and downs that you just can’t
learn in college. I forget which class it was where he said it, but
sometimes when sitting at my desk on a down day, wondering what the hell
I’m doing with myself -- it pops into my head:
“Life’s a bitch, but some days it has puppies.”
It’s
true. And today, being able to come here and say these things, it’s one
of those days. One of those puppy days. And I couldn’t be more honored
to talk about this man, a self-professed, “neat, funny little guy” who
touched many, many lives while he was here and shaped this campus for
the better. Thank you.
Additional eulogies and links can be found at The Original Sad Bear: Dr. John S. Reist.
The bewildering wisdom of Dr. John S. Reist will live on through his students.
Reist, a fine whistler, a rascal, and a beloved professor of English at Hillsdale College, died early Thursday in Kalamazoo, Mich. He was 76.
Colleagues at the college confirmed his death after a long illness. The professor was to be celebrated by friends and former students at the college on Friday. That event has been postponed, but prepared remarks by Chase Purdy are now available.
Visitation hours for Reist will be 5 to 8 p.m., Monday, Nov. 5 at Eagle Funeral Home, 40 S. Manning Street, Hillsdale. The funeral will be 2 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6, at Holy Trinity Parish, 263 Spring St., Hillsdale.
Reist's rambunctious style of lecturing — which synthesized one-liners, show tunes, college football trivia, and a deep knowledge of literature — made him divisive among students, but also created a devoted following, including through this blog, The Sad Bear, named in honor of one of his many energetic sayings.
Reist announced his retirement in September 2010, leading to a profile in The Hillsdale Collegian. The story is no longer online (PDF here).
"A cheerful whistle, a bobbing newsboy's cap — certain evidence of the approach of one man: John Reist ..." the story began.
Reist joined the faculty in 1985 and "became known for peace signs, off-color humor and 'how I met my wife' stories." He said students at the college needed to "chill out" every once in a while. He found comfort in stirring the pot.
An ordained Baptist pastor, he preached at Jonesville Presbyterian Church. He had baptized at least four students and married at least 30 college couples. He served in the U.S. Army.
"I used to think heaven was going to be beer kegs and broads," he told the newspaper. "Now I think it's going to be books."
Listening to the fantastic new Arcade Fire album got me thinking about how much they've changed since that first album. Doing some YouTube searching dug up this old vid, which I'm sure made it on Tony's Music Tape (RIP):
The performance styles aren't different, really (like this one, which is sweet), except the feeling is for me.
Here's why.
A scene: Fall 2004, fourth floor of Galloway Dorm, Hillsdale, Mich. A few of us are sitting on the floor, another is perched on one of those crappy rocking office chairs they gave us and Tony is on his blue "Captain of the Camping Trip!" fold-up chair. The smell of Ramen (spiced with Noodles and Co. seasoning) wafts down the hallway as we watch a man wearing a crash helmet drum the shit out of another man in a crash helmet during a giant group sing-along.
Bought a jug of juice, drove toward West Virginia. Stirred a turkey into flight. Saw a cow lick its back hoof. Glimpsed a turtle walking along the highway, south of Chillicothe, Ohio.
I saw steep valleys; a big boat on a trailer. Opened my window in Van Wert just as the town dump came into sight. Found Ohio farms smellier than Virginia's.
Looks like I'm one of the few stragglers who can't make it for graduation. Which sort of makes me feel even more isolated out here in Mizzou-rah. Hell, Tim even flew out. From Washington. That's some commitment to see a tall bastard graduate (his words there).
Anyhow, since I couldn't physically be there I tried hard to rack my brains about an appropriate musical tribute to my soon-to-be fellow alumni. It's harder than it looks. My options were that Vitamin C song or this Drive-By Truckers song.
Obviously neither really fits the mood.
Instead I think I have another song that I'd like to send out to all of those future Hillsdale College grads out there. (Like this: "You speak of helpless voids/ Discovering where strangers stay/ Here we are at the end of all things/ And its not so bad")
"But the day we all got back together for some baseball ... was the day I got us into the biggest pickle of all time, and it all started with an omen." - The Sandlot
In this case, the pickle followed a sports story, Lost in left field, and a staff editorial criticizing the baseball program and its players.
A Facebook group formed in defense of the team and more than 75 130 comments landed on the Collegian site. The editors apologized online. Then an editor found carcasses on his porch, seemingly after everything had blown over. The baseball team, which had waltzed its way to the moral high ground, was back in the gutter. (Latest Collegian coverage here and editorial here.)
Perhaps surprisingly (no offense), The Hillsdale Daily News came through with a ton of context (this link shows the full version at the reporter's personal blog). His story provided insight into why the Collegian published its initial scathing editorial. He also grabbed a baseball player's Facebook wall post, which got closer than most news sources to a baseball statement. Something about the structure and pace of Walter's story made sense -- even more than the final Collegian story, which felt extremely old to me.
Instead of pushing the story forward and clarifying the timeline and causation, it stayed with the 3-day-old narrative lede, which evoked a mystery long since solved. Also, unfortunately, the Collegian pulled all of its comments (although the "C" word "F" word and others were not initially enough to provoke much moderation).
National Attention We know Romenesko had the scandal scoop first. By the time some of us got to work in the morning, Fark was also running a link on its main page.
Among the newspapers that bit at the carcass bait: USA Today, Chicago Tribune, The Star Tribune, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, Editor and Publisher, The Seattle Times, The Charlotte Observer, Forbes, The Baltimore Sun, The Sun-Sentinel, and the list goes on.
Michigan papers took note too, including the Battle Creek Enquirer (not the first time they reported on Hillsdale), the Livingston Daily, and MLive, which had a different photo, featuring Rob Ogden, of Juny fame, in his skivvies. Good choice, Collegian, in supplying that one to the AP.
Even papers who seemingly shouldn't care ran the story. Like the Anchorage Daily News, the Honolulu Advertiser, and KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. A full list of AP pickups can be found at this Google News link.
The blogosphere was not to be left out. In addition to Romenesko and Fark, the story also got interesting play at the Boston Globe, Deadspin, and Sporting News.
Despite all the attention, questions still remain about: 1) discipline of the team 2) whether all the animals were roadkill 3) if other editors were going to get similar treatment.
I remember reporters and editors wondering how the college's administrators would handle national (negative) media attention -- especially when they got so heavy handed about preventing (what we thought were) piddily things from being printed. A passing grade, in this case, and no doubt alumni glee nationwide as we thought about how this news was spreading across campus, then state, then county, as administrator phones rang off the hook.
Imagine: Administrators looking out their windows to see police and security gathered around a bunch of carcasses (that house is visible from campus buildings). At the very least, our campus newspaper controversy was exciting, unlike UCLA's famed "Hagen-Dazs ad wrap fracas."
The media blitz also came with a set of ridiculous commentators who couldn't resist taking shots at the baseball team. Choice comments culled by the Sadbear include:
Freep:
:: "...we’re doing our best to recover, apologize and move on.” Nancy-boy. Grow a testicle.
Det News:
:: Journalism - 10, Hillsdale baseball - 0
MLive:
:: Screw the political stuff, why is the best picture they could use is with a kid standing in bright blue underwear?? :: Anyone interested in a Republican rally to protest the blue skivvies being shown in the paper? :: Hillsdale has always been know for its beastiality.
Deadspin:
:: Gary Busey must be a walk-on. :: Looks like a job for the 21-year-old mayor of Hillsdale. Dude's totally gonna unfriend the Collegian. :: Ted Nugent is a little old to be playing college baseball. :: If this keeps up, they're not going their picture on the cover of Imprimis like they were promised. 1.5 million free copies a month, goin' strong. :: Same thing happened to Mitch Albom, except it was dead hookers, and he put put them there. :: Another famous alum is the guy who runs Blackwater. That writer was lucky dead animals were all he got.
Boston Globe:
:: ... Mr. Krudy has handled the situation with swagger.
:: No comments, but two story tags: "Colleges and Universities, Animals."
Battle Creek:
:: Is he sure it isn't stemming from the bad review he gave Ted Nugent's latest album?
Fark:
:: Hillsdale College...Hillsdale College...why does that ring a bell? Oh, yeah. "Hillsdale gained national attention in 1999, when Lissa Jackson Roche, the daughter-in-law of college president ... " :: I guess you could say, "they thought the article was baaaaaad"
Another shellacking Unfortunately, this was not the biggest tangle of of the week for the Collegian. Much like they kicked the baseball team while players were down, an audacious fourth-grader named Augustine Siegel (not "Seigel") took the editors to school on a few inaccuracies in a previous article.
A fourth-grader? For shame, Collegian, for shame.
Disclosure: A majority of Sadbear authors have worked in some way for The Collegian.
Done said his club may have attracted a stigma through association with a previous classical liberal club, which ended in 2007.
"It was a Libertarian club," Done said. "It wasn't a classical liberal club."
From what Done knows, the previous classical liberals were boisterous and aggressive.
"That's not what the classical liberalism is about," Done said. "It's about the ideas of liberty and how we can express them, spread them, discuss them and how we can improve upon them."
So then is classical liberalism about things we've never done, like catching an arrow with our bare hands, punching a horse or self-publishing our own sci-fi novels (errr...sorry Jon...)?
For some reason the Collegian feels more exciting and controversial to me now that I'm away than it did when I was actually writing for it. (Come to think of it, so does Hillsdale itself...damn nostalgia.)
Edit: Reading Karen's comment I just reminded myself about this little nugget I just found a while back: Gennadi Stolyarov. He plays for this Khazakstani hockey team. I wish our friend had his own wiki page, and I wouldn't put it past he (or his girlfriend) to do so eventually.
But a similarly-named hockey player? In Kazakhstan? I beam just thinking about our Gennadey body checking someone from Dynamo Moscow.
Econ I was in my office. It was lunch time, so almost everyone was gone. Some of my coworkers had gone to Burger King. At first I thought that they probably hadn't thought about watching it, but later I realized that they have TVs at Burger King, so they watched it after all. I hadn't really planned to go anywhere special, so I decided to watch it where I was. Nobody really talked about it when everybody got back, though. That surprised me, because usually the managers here talk about politics during lunch, but I think they'd probably already covered all the Obama topics a while ago. Around 3 p.m., someone made a comment about the verbal gaffe between Roberts and Obama, but that was it.
Shortly before noon, I started flipping through the list of websites and networks broadcasting the inauguration online. The first six I tried just said "Buffering..." and never loaded. Finally, I found one that worked, although the image quality was pretty bad, and it skipped sometimes. I watched the swearing-in, and when that was over, I read some other stuff while I listened to the rest of the main inauguration program. As soon as all the essentials were over, I closed the tab and got back to work.
Tony Gonzalez I may be a proud member of the He-Man Woman Haters Club, but I spent the Inauguration hour 1) At an all-girl's college with more than 100 women and five men and 2) feeling floaty and tingling and emotional, but stubborn: like during a mediocre movie that nevertheless raises goosebumps in a heroic concluding scene.
Snapping photographs was technically challenging in the dimly lit auditorium, but as everyone watched the big screen, it made for candid subjects (and one girl wearing an Obama yard sign across her chest). I didn't know what to look for or what to write, so I just jotted notes about everything. When, exactly, the women reacted to events playing out on screen; which ones snapped photos of the screen; the TV news guy trying to ready his shots. It was a prime time to observe and have an excuse to write grafs and grafs of description. But I knew it would be hard to describe the feeling inside. Later, I would write:
For some people, it was the idea of a “patchwork heritage” that made a tingling sensation rise inside them — a literally uplifting feeling — Tuesday during President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. For others it was ...
I don't know if it was the moment or the women, but I kept swallowing what seemed to be rising tears. The first person I saw crying was a white woman, a senior from Pennsylvania, who was sitting alone with one leg crossed over the other and her chin in her hand. A tear streak ran down her right cheek. She was wide-eyed and looked ... saintly. Like she'd just learned something or had come to some resolution that she was sure she could follow that would just make things better.
I talked to her later, then listened to some professors discuss the speeches. Then I walked from the campus, checked my watch, and thought about deadline. I knew that all other news was irrelevant for the pending edition. So I made awkward inquiries about wifi and pizza slices at a pizza place before spreading wide the day's Washington Post in a booth. And I ate most of an entire General Tsao's pizza, although it could have fed two. Then I did something for the first time ever: despite eating alone, I ordered two beers.
Then I walked past the courthouse, thinking the feeling of brotherly love in the air might actually change how people treat one another. I drove home, wrote some more:
Besides the anticipated moments to cheer and rise, perhaps the biggest laugh of the day came when Obama was caught on camera delivering a signature wink; or when he stumbled over the oath. “I guess his heart was racing,” said Kenisha Commander, a Baltimore freshman. “It made you want to cry."
K. Jan Harvey I was sitting in the dimly lit lobby of my apartment complex with my laptop plugged in among the phycus plants. Behind me, the TV was very loud. The faces on the TV seemed happy when I walked in. Then someone said inauguration. My newly wedded wife made pretense of some foreknowledge of the event. Everyone knows Obama's being inaugurated today. Everyone knows the molecular structure of your cuticles. We were sitting side by side. Her seventeen-inch laptop screen dwarfed my ten-inch Acer. I turned around once to face the TV when Aretha Franklin sang. I look forward to the election of the first American one-armed president.
Dunn I was in a morphology seminar during the inauguration.
Chase Purdy Watching the inauguration at Hillsdale College boiled down to just about what you'd expect, if you're at all aware of the school's reputation.
The man is a democrat and the nation's first black president. His middle name is different.
So when Barack Obama stood up to be sworn in, the students watching at Hillsdale College wretched on the inside, just a bit. You could see it in some of their mean, plaster-on smiling faces. They laughed at his different middle name. A professor chuckled in the knick of time; right after the president and chief justice stumbled over their lines, but right before the crowd burst.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!," they yelled. You could hear it from the other side of the building. You could even hear it bouncing in the stairwell.
Let any question about the matter be answered now: No, many people at Hillsdale College did not respect the tradition of the moment. And no, nobody seemed to find the stumble humanizing. Instead they hissed.
The speech began. Everyone listened closely.
"Oh that's just not true," one girl said to her friend. "You see how the socialists just bend the truth?"
I turned around and gave a frosty stare.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
Three Mississippi.
I turned back around, but even in the corner of my eye I could tell she gave her friend a nasty look that said, "Look at that asshole." Still, she didn't pipe up again.
It'd be a fib to pretend I didn't play my part. Politics don't interest me much, but I still nodded my head during the speech. Forged an adoring smile. I'd like to think one political science professor caught my watering left eye, perfectly timed to an exhalation of the speech. But I'd also be lying if I didn't admit to being swept up in the moment. One line actually did get to me, whether it was the content of what was said, or how he said it: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."
When the speech ended, almost everyone dispersed. Funny though, nobody really talked, and I remember a lot of people looking at the floor as they walked to their next class.
JHitts I missed almost all of what is probably the most important political event of my generation.
I woke up late that Thursday Tuesday and, as I was getting ready for work, remembered that it was happening. So I turned it on the MSNBC (the first channel I could find).
They were showing our president leaving the podium. I didn't hear any of the speech. I kicked myself. I did, however, hear Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann blabbering on about something. I hit the mute button to watch the pictures. I felt angry that I had missed the beef of it, but I knew I could find it online.
At work, our news editor (obviously) wanted to put inauguration coverage on page 1. The problem? A year or two ago, our previous publisher decided not to pay for the full AP coverage. When the regime changed, we forgot to upgrade. Thus, we only get regional stuff from the lower Midwest. This means no political stories from Washington unless they concern Missouri politicians.
She was able to compile a story on her own, but she, too, missed the speech. I think she was covering county commission or something.
I regret not hearing the thing as it was spoken. I don't agree with a lot of Obama's policies, but I feel cheated. Like the Kennedy assassination for our parents, this is our generation's defining moment. All that change and hope rhetoric, I tend to think most of it is bull. But a black man became our president. Could anyone have fathomed this even 10 years ago?
I regret missing the meat of it, because now the only answer I have to "Where were you when Obama was sworn in?" my only answer will be, "I didn't see it. But I saw Rachel Maddow analyzing it."
And who wouldn't be embarrassed by that?
Boo I didn't watch the inauguration. I was busy listening to Animal Collective. . . who are fucking amazing. And when I use the word "fuck" to describe the degree to which they are amazing, I don't mean it flippantly or lightly. It's not like someone saying "Chimpanzees? Yeah they are pretty fucking cool, with all the body strength, agility, and natural monkey coolness." It's more than that. It's like a friend dares you to bend a spoon with your mind. You think it's probably impossible if not totally pointless to do, but you attempt it anyway because it's a Saturday and you don't have any immediate responsibilities that demand your attention. So you glare at the spoon for maybe a solid minute, beginning to focus with what becomes a furious sort of intent. Your friend stands there unimpressed because he's probably an asshole who just threw out the whole spoon bending thing so you can be distracted and he could steal a pop-tart from you. (Your family prides itself on its storage and maintenance of all different flavors of pop tarts in equal amounts, so the pilfering of any form of a microwaveable pastry is nothing less than an atrocity to them.) In any case, as he sneaks pop tarts into his lame scenester hoodie and you stand drenched in sweat attempting to mangle a utensil with brain waves, Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes comes in riding on a giraffe from the back patio (see Coquelicot's "Butterscotching Mr. Lynn"). Your scenester friend, of course knowing who this strange figure is, momentarily recovers from being awestruck and begins to let out a breathy and hushed "Hissing Fauna was beautiful. . ." Unfortunately, the domesticated but opinionated giraffe has strong beliefs about both plaid and pastry theft, and swiftly kicks him in the penis halfway through his compliment to the songwriter. Messiuer Barnes informs you that he was in the neighborhood, and while creating synth-pop with obvious hooks, but less obvious hints at darker emotional undercurrents of his personal life, sensed your attempt at bending a spoon with your mental abilities. He regretted to inform you that such a thing can't be done, noting that philosophically, a dualist perception of reality would render the physical and mental components of reality as related but totally separate, and that even the most intense and potent mental exertion would not be able to manifest a physical result as you wished it to. He then belts out an alto-range "Let us exit, my beast chaffeur!" and they remove themselves from your premises. Emotionally beaten, you place the spoon back in the drawer, realizing that you have a hankering for lasagna and a spoon simply isn't the appropriate piece of silverware for that purpose. However, as you reach for a fork and knife, you let out an uncontrollable "Oh my holy fuck."
The row of forks in the drawer is mangled to shit.
. . .Oh, and I just hope Obama doesn't mess up the country too much.
My allergies have gone haywire, and my medicine(donated by one Evan Moran) induced a constant flow of tear drops from my right eye.
But it helps to keep my mind off the fact that one year stands between myself and something very new. I'm still at The Sad Bear, a place that's changed some on the surface but still boasts bits of The Beat and first-generation Sad Bear residential life; both through relics and spirit.
I'm staying in touch. And I'm happy. The exploding typewriter still hangs on the wall.
Probably a lot of thing could be said about life in Hillsdale right now. But a recent text message ("Be chill") kind of started me off on the right foot for the year. So maybe I'm heading in a direction that'll keep me happy, excited to learn, and forward-thinking.
I cover three beats for a local newspaper as a freelancer, I'm still doing crime writing, and I'm managing The Collegian. Still a lot of things ahead.
I guess it'd be nice to hear from Jack Hittinger more often...but I can deal.
So for anyone who's been there to see me swoon over the design in The Virginian-Pilot, you'll recognize the name. Charles Apple, who has been with the Pilot's design team for many years now, has decided to change direction.
"My last day at work at the Pilot will be Friday, July 11. I’ll begin work in Charlotte on July 15. Sharon will pack up the cats, the dog, the guinea pigs, the turtles and other household vermin and follow as soon as she sells our condo in Virginia Beach."
In the past year he's actually mentioned me, Tony, or The Collegian in one capacity or another on several occasions.
Anyway, he's decided to begin working for an online, sports 'newspaper.' Which actually looks pretty interesting in its design. Sporting News Today offers readers a PDF for every edition that's released. But, different from other online media resources, its presentation looks similar to the printed page of a 'normal' newspaper.
"Sporting News Today an exciting new idea and I’m just tickled to be a part of it. And honored. I’ve been a fan of The Sporting News ever since I was introduced to it by my best pal in high school, Bailey Harris. Bailey’s now a big-time high school basketball coach in Lexington, S.C. I can’t wait to tell him I’m working for TSN. He’ll freak.
The New York Times did a big piece on the renaissance at The Sporting News a couple of weeks ago, focusing on this new venture."
