My Friend: she told us to pick an artist
Me: I would pick Rembrandt.. I wish.. damn
My Friend: and we have to attempt to draw in the style of that artist
Me: maybe in that case I would pick Matisse.
"I write the names of people I know next to psychological disorders in my notes." - me
"They're plotting a 'Survivor' on the carpet." - Shannon
-"What?" - Josh
"They're going to see how long they can stay on the carpet without getting food or water."
-"We really have to get out of Williamsburg."
"People are funny." - me
-"Yes " - Roomate Rebecca
"We need to write a book about people."
-"I think that's been done."
"Damn it."
"You retain language well."
"I retain water well, but..."
"I would have been a good gnome" - Rebecca
"Ok - there's a 40 percent chance of snow tomorrow, and a 60 percent on Sunday That adds up to 100, so we're going to get some sort of snow this weekend." --me
Sign in Laundry Room:
"I accidently stole a sock....please pick it up." (to which was added below:)
"You know what we do to sock thieves in these parts.. We string 'em up!"
"Whenever I think of psychopaths, I think of Vincent Price." -- Rebecca
"Look at the sky! It's all reddish and strangely bright!"- Laurie
--"A night for the Witches' Sabbath!" -Rebecca
"Indeed - I expect the Berlioz symphony to start sounding at any time.."
--"You know, that's the problem with atheism. We don't get the all-powerful, omniscient Christian God, or the pagan rituals and sacrifices!"
"Yeah - what the hell do WE get? -- biology!? - Watson and Crick!!?"
--"I know! That's no fun!"
"I mean, the Greek gods run around and have affairs and turn into animals, and.. and we have Newton?! He was a virgin for crying out loud!"
--"Well, I'm not so sure about that."
"Oh! -- have you done extensive research on the subject?"
--"No... ! Just for my paper.. Apparently his sweetheart from school married some other guy, and then he died, and Newton was "generously supporting her" afterwards.. and they lived close - near each other..."
"Yeah, he was getting some."
--"Quite possibly."
"This would be a great idea for a Monroe research summer project."
--"Oh yeah! Hahah.. 'I'd like to propose....'"
"Yeah, why not? It's the Monroe thing to do - study the sex lives of great scientists. And hey - where'd he live - England? We could read the first hand sources! They're in English! YEAH!"
--"heh.. Oh boy"
"Do you realize we're having a serious discussion about this?"
"This is not good: you do research and the topic gets more confusing."
"We need something better to do on friday nights. I am reading Greek history and my roommates are speaking to each other in Latin via IM."
"And that's even accurate grammar because I used the accusative case for the direct object!!!" -anne
"Are you back to the grandiloquent dictionary?"
-"No, worse. Now I"m in the Latin-English dictionary."
Political Philosophy Class:
“God is like a woman – you don’t know what she wants.”
“The feminist Gloria Steinem just got married.”
-“To a man?”
“So let’s say a man attacks me, and I kill him in self defense. Now does it infringe on his rights? – Of course it does, he’s dead.”
“I don’t know if the revolutions bring about social justice, but they sure do bring about bad art.” a professor
“You can see Thomas More as the first hippie.”
“Bad things and forms of transportation are feminine.”
History Class:
-Survey of American history 1500-1812
“Young twenty-somethings – the Generation X of the 17th century – males. Always a bad combination.” prof
“Let’s face it, the tidewater is a nice way of saying ‘swamp.’’ prof
“Which proves that Axtell is a good historian – he’s using two different interpretations of the same piece of evidence in the same book.”
“Imagine if the Puritans had gone to Providence [West Indies] – think of the first Thanksgiving – seafood, sugar cane…”
-Seven Years' War
"Just be glad we're not reading Gothic German Script" - Prof Mapp
"Is it plausible that it did happen to him or he is just making this crap up?" - Elijah
"If I'm an Indian captive, I'm not going to fight about working on the Sabbath!" - Elijah
"The Illiad is a captivity narrative!" - prof
"And.. we've got class next week.. yep, I'm running out of things to say, go home!" - prof
Prof: Will - profanity in the British army?
Will: oh yeah...
Prof: When does disease stop being a big killer?-
Seth: When the army's all dead
Kid: You see what I'm saying?
Prof: .... keep talking....
Prof: I know you're having trouble concentrating on this and other classes - there's something more interesting going on -
Will: SENIOR THESIS!!
"If I just started walking down that hall saying 'I BELIEVE IN HUMAN NATURE' - I'd be out that window in no time!" - Prof
"War is unpredictable - and that's a good theme." - Prof
"- A paper so good the professor is tucking his pants in his socks!" - prof
"Oh yeah - this Mapp fellow - TWO P's even - he's THAT pretentious!" - prof mapp
"That's true - that's true... but not true enough" - prof mapp
Chemistry Class:
--“I don’t think improper fractions should be taught to children.”
--“Is it an exothermic reaction to burn a squirrel?”
--“Sounds like one of these reality shows – like Cops. We could put it on UPN – ‘Extreme Real Gases.’”
--“How boring must my life be if it’s fun to use orange chalk?”
--“Was the wicked witch of the east really melting? No. Dorothy poured water over her – she was dissolving. But we can forgive her for that mistake in her dying moment.”
--“Silly Putty wins the Viscosity Challenge.”
Philosophy of Kant and His Successors:
"Does Kant win a writing award?" - prof
"Am I clear? If not, be an independent agent and say so." -prof
"I don't want water, nuts, and sex; I want... JEWELRY" - on how man's desires grow
"Internally and externally, (looks at clock) Aw, damn it"
(I'm sorry to report this happened in a William and Mary classroom-)
Prof : Let's say Stalin is on some deserted planet and he's beating up robots - is he not immoral then?
Kid: He's not hurting anyone because he's got robots.
Prof: But he thinks he's harming someone
Kid: well he's not
Prof: So he's not immoral.
Kid: yea..
Prof; But he's really viscious-
Girl: If I saw some guy punching a wall, I'd think 'gee, he's really viscious' even if he weren't hurting someone
Prof: If I saw some guy punching a wall, I'd think 'gee, he's really stupid!'
OtherKid: But I think he's immoral because he thinks he's hurting someone
Prof: So why does that make him immoral?
OKid: .......... he thinks he's hurting someone..
"There's such a thing as self-deception"
"Heaven would be decent chalk"
"Atheists are more likely to get cures [for diseases] because they don't believe in afterlife and immortality." - reasoning by some kid
"Hegel is crystal clear." - prof
Music Class Quotes:
“People have gone legally, clinically insane from stopping on the dominant.”
“Aria – a belted out solo.”
“Gotta wield that Sprichtstimme when you can!”
“What do we know about Aaron Copland?
-He writes for the Common Man.”
“If you read his letters you get the idea he didn’t like anything – not even a hot bowl of soup.” -prof about copland
“It’s a Hegelian piece – You’ve got the thesis in the first section, then the antithesis is the ostinato part, then the synthesis is the two themes at the same time…” -- the Token Philosophy Minor in music class
“Reserve ‘riff’ for talking about the Beatles.” -prof
"The violin is doing its cute little Romanian folkdance thing, and the woodwinds are just wandering around in a completely different symphonic poem...." - Bartok Rhapsody for violin & orchestra.
"That man [Andrew Lloyd Webber] is going to Hell. Phantom of the Opera is like Puccini for dogs!" - Prof Williams
Williams: Brahms was a player
Girl: Yeah, he was hot
Me: What - he looked like a 7 year old girl!
Williams: well that was popular in the 19th century
Me&Williamsf: --except for Tchaikovsky, who liked 7 year old boys!
"God - I used the word 'feel' as a noun" - Prof Payne
"This is something Wagner would do - the influence of Wagner on Bach!" - Payne
"I wouldn't hesitate to copy Webern scores - the copyright's run out and all his kids were Nazis" - Williams
"These guys thought they were coming out of the Brahms/Wagner tradition and they wound up on the limits of the solar system without noticing it" - Williams, on the Second Viennese School
Ted: I've heard of him
Williams: In what context?
Ted: ....I've heard of him
"You've got all this technology and no content.. I guess you could have Arnold Schoenberg blow up a bus." - Williams, on modern art
"There are algorithms that produce dumb tonal tunes."
Laurie: I hear development in this piece
Williams: good! Everyone then thought like Laurie.
Laurie: Great, I'm in the mindset of a disaffected , early 20th century young man!
"Wagner tubas in a minor two suspension, that'll do it everytime" - Prof Gutwein, on Bruckner 8 slow mvt
Laurie: Tchaikovsky's life is a soap opera that to this day could probably not be shown on network TV
Williams: Maybe FOX....
Ted: She [another professor] said that Bruckner was not harmonically progressive compared to his contemporaries..
Williams: Like who?
Ted: Uhm.. she said like Richard Strauss
Williams: Did you tell her he isn't a contemporary of Bruckner?!!
Laurie: What the- he was born FORTY years after Bruckner!
Williams: That's what happens when you don't study your history.....