Three Things

First of all: Jake, why didn't you tell us of this rival poop blog? (warning: gross) You link to it with no mention of its toilet talk?

Here is some news: I saw Transformers tonight. Sometimes these things happen without my knowing how. What is not news is that it sucked so horribly. That's right. It was horrible at sucking. It sucked so much that it didn't even know how to suck. (I have clearly taken too many headache pills.) I can't even go into all the reasons it was so bad, but here are a few:

1. Every time someone (robotic-car-person or human) opened his or her mouth I was forced to curl up into a fetal position. In all seriousness. It was very embarrassing.
2. Trying to be an adult version of a kid's toy which begot an 80's cartoon is impossible.
3. I don't care how old a pair of glasses are, complex maps that show up on holographic screens are not imprinted on them because an evil robot alien gazed upon them with his laser eyes.
4. Hoover did not build the Hoover dam.
5. Shameless product placement.
6. Too long.

At least the autobots looked cool when they transformed...

Here is a totally un-funny drawing about headaches:

The Sound of Revolution

Though I'm sure you were as glad as I to have done with toilet talk, this comment, just added to an old post, should not go without readers. Writes "anonymous":

I'm glad this has been brought up because as it so happens I work at the same fancy law firm as the poster. Moreover, I work on the same floor and ergo use the same bathroom, and while I am not a lawyer, I admit that it's entirely possible that one of those noisy shitters could have been me.For a long time I agreed with the poster's position on noisy shitting. The sounds are as quirky as they are unpredictable, and like all things unknown in this world, we are quick to fear them. This need not be. I assure you, noisy shitting need not be embarrassing, and in due time, noisy shitting in the hidden presence of others can be a liberating, enjoyable experience.The
Anonymous Law Firm (henceforth known as ALF) provides the most serene,
civilized, and proper interactions known in New York City. Any service that
is performed by anyone for anyone must be accompanied with a "thanks," regardless of how inane or thankless the job may have been. Often, these "thanks" are communicated in single line e-mails between colleagues. For example, you might get an e-mail with the subject line "Thank," and the body reading "You." Complex hierarchies are established to provide easy to navigate routes for complaints, commendations, and inquiries. No consideration is left unconsidered. No minute or hour goes by unbilled. In this castle of perfect stone, nothing can subvert the sterility like the sound of feces being propelled through one's anus by the winds of sulphur. From behind the vanilla swing doors of a bathroom stall, anyone can subject the most feckless and elitist corporate evil-doer to the sounds of "embarrassment." Doing so can provide the shitter with immense joy. Just think: minutes ago Partner X was listening to a verdict from distinguished Judge Y. Now, he's listening to Halal chicken and rice from Thursday. Sucker.The truth is this: know your audience. It is important at ALF to not subject those on the same level, or worse, a lower level, to your sounds. However, should someone above you be in the bathroom (you can tell by their shoes), do not stall! From within that stall, you must go, and go violently, and loudly, and proudly. For every blast is the sound of revolution. Every blast is the echo of those poor souls who came before. Every blast is a devilish fist wave in the face of subjugation. So, dear poster, fellow user of the 24th floor bathroom, fear not the sounds of fury, for they sound not against you, but for you.

Oh, to write as well as one's readers. . .

Quartet with Catheter

If you can pull yourself away from toilet talk for a few minutes, check out this short essay on Morton Feldman's long String Quartet No. 2, written by one of the musicians who premiered it. Topping six hours, the piece creates problems for performers on all sorts of levels (not least - managing body fluids) but this one was surprising:

"Another big challenge, perhaps less obvious, is the act of playing very quietly. It actually requires much more physical energy to do less than more. Playing a virtuoso concerto that requires great technical agility is actually less physically demanding then playing softly, because we are accustomed to being in motion, not still. Downshifting both the speed and pressure of the bow goes against many years of training."

Using electronic instruments, where volume shifts are easily accomplished with knobs and pedals, I sometimes forget how tough it is to play quietly. But it is incredibly difficult: one tends to slow down, miss notes, lose pitch consistency.

Really curious to hear the piece now - and trying to imagine how one feels after six hours of repetitive music. This guy seemed to like it. Might try myself and report back. If you're in New York and curious, you need not commit.

The Anti-Crap Sound

I was thinking about Jake's post this afternoon and wondering if there is some totally impractical way of reducing bathroom noise. It doesn't take much wondering to realize there is, and here's what I'm thinking: phase cancellation devices in bathroom stalls.

You've heard of those noise-canceling headphones, right? Well, those work on the principle that two sound waves that are out-of-phase with each other will cancel out. The closer they are to 180 degrees out-of-phase, the closer to silence the result is. It's like when you're in the tub and the water is getting cold so you run more hot water in and you start pushing it towards the back of the tub and it makes this wave back and forth but then eventually the waves sync up and flatten out and you can't seem to get the bath water in the back of the tub as warm as the water under the spigot.

So, what if MCW could go into the stall and flip a switch that was calibrated to the specific sound waves he emits during number two's? Maybe his sound waves have a frequency of 80Hz with an amplitude about 72 dB and a wavelength of about 4.3m. The machine would just reproduce those waves out of phase.

My whole theory breaks down, though, because it's not a constant sound he's making; it's intermittent, and probably random. Now, I may have absolutely no idea when I'm talking about (and I don't) but wouldn't that mean when no noise is coming from MCW there is a noise coming from the phase-shifter, and that noise sounds very much like MCW taking a dump? So then it'd only get quiet when he actually is pooping, and then you get to the point where which is more embarrassing?

Here is a photo of the graph I tried to draw when thinking about all this:

Crap Sound

I work at a fancy law firm and as one would expect the office is pretty tasteful. The lighting is mostly fluorescent, but tinted so it doesn’t look cold or strain the eyes. There’s expensive art up the walls (including some drawings by Sol Lewitt and Warhol), the air temperature is perfectly modulated, and office doors are thick so talking and other sound doesn’t escape into the halls.

In general, things are clean and quiet and, to me, anyway, pleasingly impersonal. So why, then, nearly every time I go to the bathroom, do I have to hear some uptight lawyer taking a noisy shit? It’s disgusting, humiliating for dumper and dumped-on alike, and totally out of place in the otherwise straitlaced corporate environment.

If I'm feeling gassy and sense someone else is in the bathroom, I usually flush a few times to block the sound. I thought this was known as a "courtesy flush," but I was mistaken. Turns out people are more concerned about smell than sound.

Since this is a waste of water, and no one else seems to do it anyway, I'd like to propose another solution: white noise generators. We have music and other camouflaging sound in almost every sphere of life – is there any reason we need to preserve silence in bathrooms? Would any of you mind a small box on the wall gentle whoosh as you go about your business?