So, FINALLY, about the plumbing here: first of all, the Dutch are really into the environment. I think I've mentioned this. And that they really like to keep things clean (but today I'm talking about plumbing so we'll have to save cleanliness for another post). First of all, the water quality is amazing here -- tap water tastes really, really good. What's even more amazing, however, is that it gets hot in like a split second. My Uncle Brian has this joke: how long is a split second? The length of time between when the light changes and the car behind you honks. Well, I've got a new definition: it's the amount of time between when you turn the water on and when it gets to boiling temperature. In the Netherlands, I mean. In the US some of us turn on the shower, go dig our cars out of the snow, drive to the gas station and load up, go to the Costco and buy a crate of Ruffles with Oleo, then get home just in time to hop in the shower and stand there, sobbing, for about 55 minutes.
The plumbing hardware is also pretty cool -- we live in short term housing but the faucets are all very fancy and space-saving. The bathroom is basically one rectangular room -- part of it is the shower area. There's a curtain you pull to keep the water from spraying all over, but the floor is all the same tile and on the same level. In order to drain your water you use this human-size squeegie and squeegie all the water over into the drain.
Also, the toilets: they are not bowls full of water. Why fill a bowl with water multiple times a day when you don't need to? It's hard to explain the toilets so I'm going to rip off some other American-in-Europe who already figured out how to explain it:
In place of the standardized shitter used by millions of Americans, Eastern Europeans have have devised whole a range of sit-down toilets. The vast majority are variations of The Gravity Toilet. The tank on a gravity toilet is mounted on the wall at eye level, and to flush it, you have to pull down on a special cord. Water comes rushing down a pipe into the toilet bowl, located a good three feet below. The force of the falling water pushes everything in the toilet forward into -and down- the drainage hole, which is located at the front of the toilet, unlike American toilets which place it towards the back. Many toilets are also Platform Shitters. Platform shitters are like a sit-down toilet gone horribly, horribly wrong. The "bowl" of a platform toilet is exactly that: a long flat (dry) surface six inches below your butt. Urine and excrement fall down on the platform and pile up. There is no splash, just an ugly, dull thud. The platform slab juts forward, dropping down into a drainage hole at the front -that's why platform shitters need the power of a gravity toilet to force the contents forward and down. An unfortunate side-effect is that sometimes the shit will smear.Indeed, sir, indeed. Our toilet does not require pulling a cord, however -- instead you push on a square area at the top of the tank. But it is a platform shitter. I diverge from my source, here, in that I think the thud is preferable to the splash. You really can't even hear a thud. Or at least, I can't -- this may vary by individual. And the drainage hole is very small and requires much less water than keeping a whole bowl full of (clean) water all the time.
Here's another take on this issue, with some cross-cultural comparison. Apparently this engineering is not just about saving the earth; it's also about the i-word: ideology! And apparently the Dutch and the Germans use the same kind of toilet.
"Famous intellectual discussing poop and other unmentionables"
There should be a link below this text for making comments... maybe this sentence will help resolve the technical issue?
13 comments:
What in the fuck does Zizek mean around :40 when he says "If you have worms, etc."??? Worms in your German Shit? What in the hell is wrong with Germans' pooh? Why are there worms in it?
Anyway, fascinating post. It sounds like a little amusement park ride right there in your apartment. In Spain they have those bidets: best things EVER.
you clearly led a very sheltered childhood. i can't explain this to you but someday you'll probably find out.
Please tell me. Are you serious? You have worms in your pooh? I don't think I've lived too sheltered a life--a little, maybe. What the F? How and why are there worms in there? Is it colloquial for something? Do worms come up into the toilet? PLEEEEAAASSEEE TELLLLL MEEEEEEE.
ok, calm down. for the record i do not have worms in my poop. i'll explain the rest to you offline -- this is a respectable blog for christ's sake!
Finally Googled it. 393,000 hits for "worms in toilet." Had no idea. Maybe I do live a sheltered life?
When you say you're voting for McCain, do you mean in the primary?
dude, the worms are in the poo not the toilet -- is that what your googling told you?
google "pinworms"
although frankly, i really don't know what zizek was referring to -- i am assuming i do but maybe there's some eastern european experience that's foreign to me... maybe it relates to that meat recall...
Jord, what about gummy worms? or bears?
That's a whole other story.
Emily, an update: I learned about these strange pinworms. You were right, they're not unique to Germany or to German pooh. Look, when I was about 10 I saw an episode of "Tales from the Crypt" on HBO where one of the characters gets infested by thousands of giant, like 10-inch worms--you can see them racing around in his body and shaping his skin. All around, this was one of the more disturbing images from my childhood. I guess since then--and even though I've changed many diapers--I always just thought that real worms living inside of real humans was a big fantasy or only happened if you were really bad or something. But look, I know stuff, okay? Just ask J--I beat him at Trivial Pursuit during Christmas. So can we please just put this thing to rest already? I'm really ready to move beyond this issue.
Yes yes, let's move on. And really, not knowing about pinworms is probably a good thing. In fact I know it's a good thing.
Let's think about this guest post you're going to do for me. What do you thing about the YouTube Obama video? I will admit that when I saw it last night, it moved me from "ambivalent" to "leaning" (towards Obama). Justin, meanwhile, was very upset by it. Then we had a while debate about whether (of course!) and why (more debatable) the baby boomers suck, and also what elections are driven by: policy, emotion, hedged bets, voluntary risk, all, both, neither?
not that the baby boomers suck PERSONALLY, on an indvidual level (by mom is a baby boomer and she's a fine, fine person); they just such as the generation that so completely screwed up this country and in fact the world
Yes we can. I got emailed a link to the vid on about 10 separate occasions--definitely an all-time high. My better critical instincts tell me to resist it, for it is pure, unadulterated Obama propaganda. Probamaganda? It doesn't surprise that J doesn't like it. Another person's opinion I respect deeply has mocked it since she's seen it--and she has nothing in particular against Obama.
However...the video works very well in terms of genre. Turning a speech into a song--I'm not sure whether this is the first time it's been done, but it's certainly the apotheosis at this point. This is enough of a reason to appreciate it.
Of course, Obama's oratories lend themselves nicely to this experiment; his youth, culture, and message lend themselves well to populist YouTube and the vid's hip-hopiness. If Obama wins, as A. Huffington has said, the president of the United States will be a YOUNG BLACK POET. I repeat, a YOUNG BLACK POET is very close to becoming our next president. Even though it's corny and schmaltzy, "Yes We Can" goes along way in capturing this excitement.
Watching the video, it was difficult for me not to think of "We are the World" and of "Just Do It," or "Be Like Mike."
Separate--truly separate--from my fear and disgust of a corporate America is my DEEP and PROFOUND LOVE for the way corporate America sells us stuff. Everyone is wet with these waters--how deep can you dive?
Demographically, I suspect that Baby Boomers say they like the video the best--it gives them an opportunity to get into "the youtube." Also, I don't know that they get that the video is almost a joke. For Boomers, a commercial where Grant Hill drinks Sprite and then misses a dunk is the zenith of commercial irony--it represents everything TV should be doing always.
For Xers and Yers, however, I think these kinds of anti-ads are seriously suspect. "Yes We Can" does not represent the tone we're used to seeing on YouTube--it's medial context is copyright infringement and skydiving accidents. A context, in other words, where irony is life-blood, not resistance. If Sprite makes TV meta-ironic, "Yes We Can" makes YouTube meta-meta-ironic, or perhaps meta-sincere. The sincerity is what our parents are probably seeing, the meta--the audacity of a sincere slogan--is what I think we see.
Does the experiment to thwart our political and corporate cynicisms with this sort of "blatantly-pandering" and "insubstantial" optimism, in these kinds of contexts, work? Yes. Obviously. We are hungry for a sincerity that's in on the joke, not another joke about sincerity.
p.s.: more on boomers screwing up the world, please.
My email: my full name (minus the hyphen and the middle) at gmail. send me something so I've got yours, then in the next few days I'll either edit the obama comment or do something with the oscars. peace out.
Post a Comment