Pavilion Digest: March 2009

[Adam-Troy]

Name: Adam-Troy Castro
Source: unca20090603.htm
I have the irresistable mental image of autograph-seekers during Harlan's next personal appearance going through the extensive decontamination procedures in the first half of Chrichton's THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, as they descend into the clean room.

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You know what I hate, as long as we're sort of on the subject? Men's bathrooms that don't have splash guards between stations. I mean, you ladies may not know this -- my wife certainly didn't until I informed her -- but even for those of us who are meticulous for our aim and sober enough to follow through are occasional subject to the dismaying but very real phenomenon of "sideways pee," the stream that inexplicably leaves the sphincter not straight ahead, as we intend and have every right to expect, but at some completely unexpected angle, which includes a hard right. Every man knows about the phenomenon of "sideways pee," even if he hasn't bothered to name it, and every man fears the possibility of someday baptizing the shoes of some hard-nosed biker in the urination station beside him, who will likely think it either a deliberate provocation or an off-putting attempt at a sexual advance. "Sideways pee" is a nasty trade-off for the entertainment value we sometimes find in mentally drawing the face of a despised enemy on the urinal cake, and playing attack on Pearl Harbor. (Yes, we do that; as a man, you will occasionally encounter a guy at the urinal making rat-tat-tat and other dive-bombing noises under his breath, and smile indulgently, because whether you admit it or not, you've done the same thing.)

But, like I say, that's no trade-off for the scourge of sideways pee. I gotta say, you ladies have been dealt a couple of bad cards by mother nature, including processes that require an entire additional industry of hygiene products, but I'll say one thing for you: if any of you ever manage the phenomenon of sideways pee, it's only through careful planning and brilliant feats of engineering. You sideways pee someone, and I wanna give you a medal.

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[Keeney]

Name: Keeney
Source: unca20090603.htm
Alas, it has come to this:

sideways pee. Whatcha gonna do.

Rick

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[Robert Ross]

Name: Robert Ross
Source: unca20090603.htm
There is also the dreaded split-stream ...



Did I really just post that?

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[Pogue]

Name: Pogue
Source: unca20090603.htm
Bear in mind, Harlan, that all those pee-splattered hands you don't want to shake have been clutching the book you're signing. And God only knows what else is on it, if they read while sitting on the toilet.

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[Elias]

Name: Elias
Source: unca20090603.htm
Mr. Ellison,

After picking myself off the floor from reading your essay I promptly raced to the bathroom and took a nice,hot shower.

Your story reminded me of something I read recently in "The Glass Teat" about a couple who used to throw parties. At these parties their LITTLE DARLING BOY would come down and relieve himself on the rug and Mummy and Daddy would gush about how he was "expressing himself." After the kid "expressed himself" on your pant leg, you stopped attending their parties.

Maybe "The Leaky Firehouse" you encountered later was that kid, all grown up and still expressing himself.

I wish I could remember which essay that was, but alas, The Ole Gray Matter, She Ain't What She Used to Be.

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[Susan Ellison]

Name: SUSAN ELLISON
Source: unca20090603.htm
Christopher Day, Dartmouth St., Pawtucket, RI.

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[Dennis C]

Name: Dennis C
Source: unca20090603.htm
No Glove, No Love.

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[Zack Malatesta]

Name: Zack Malatesta
Source: unca20090603.htm
We had wild dogs all around our house until I started peeing on all the trees and barns and such. Now the bastard dogs won't come into the property. I see them down at the edges, near the ditches, staring at me. They are forlorn graveyard hounds, and they will stay away from all my lot.

So, in my experience, marking works wonders. Unless it was all the times I would chase the dogs away with an axe or stick. Once with a bed frame. But I think it was the marking...

What? They were after my sister's kitten. And thanks to me the punk dogs never got him. Verily, it was me that got him in the end. Shanti shanti shanti.

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[JohnPacer]

Name: John Pacer
Source: unca20090603.htm
Hi there everyone.

I just had a thought after reading Harlan's essay and figured I'd offer a possible solution to the problem of catching germs from the great unwashed, particularly at signings where it's large groups of people you're dealing with.

My solution is to try Barrier Cream. Barrier Cream is a product used by Artists/Painters/Illustrators in lieu of Nitrile gloves when dealing with the various toxic substances artists tend to use, such as Turpentine, Mineral Spirits, Lead and Cadmium paints, etc. It's a cream that you just lather your hands up with as you would any hand cream and it should last for a while. You could always just re-lather every hour or so just to be safe. Winsor and Newton is a manufacturer of Barrier Cream and you should be able to find it at most decent art supply shops.

I only offer this as a possible solution. I'm not entirely sure if the cream would protect against germs. I'm just making the assumption that if if protects one from poisons such as lead and turpentine it's good enough for germs as well. Piss even.

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[sjarrett]

Name: Steve Jarrett
Source: unca20090603.htm
With the lawsuit press release currently making the rounds, I'm imagining all sorts of people coming to this page prepared to debate the minutiae of contract law and guild regulations, and finding us absorbed in an extended serial disquisition on the biokinetics, pathogenic hazards, and gender psychology of micturition.

I think that's pretty funny. But I'm easily amused.

Steve J.

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[jeff sturgeon]

Name: jeff sturgeon
Source: unca20090603.htm
Harlan
Since i've had the pleasure of shaking your hand on numerous occasions, I we the lucky thousands tax exempt from the glove?
We CAN and some of us ARE Pigs...and now when i go to the can in a public place i will be scanning the crowd for you...nice words Mr. H
Heading up here to the great white north anytime soon? Take care!!
Sturg

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[JanMSchroeder]

Name: Jan Schroeder
Source: unca20090603.htm
Not sure I get what the big deal is about 'pee germs'. If I recall my high school biology correctly, barring a urinary tract infection, urine is practically sterile. Which doesn't mean that both men and women aren't pigs in restrooms, but the concern over all the teeming masses of germs specifically from urine is probably being blown way out of proportion.

Boy, I'd've bought tickets to that chase, though! I've been tempted to do the same many a time after walking into a stall where some pig-woman had just liberally sprayed seat, floor and sometimes walls. Thanks for sharing, Mr. E.

Jan S
Florida

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[Lori Koonce]

Name: Lori Koonce
Source: unca20090603.htm
Thanks for the best laugh I've had all week 'unca Harlan....

But just one question, wouldn't it be just as easy to carry that Purell with you?

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[Travis Yoder]

Name: Travis Yoder
Source: unca20090603.htm
Man, whenever Im away from the Pavilion for some time, I come back to be refreshed with astonishment at the high level of discourse on all features great and small. Steve Jarrett, your magniloquence virtually launders the topic! I wish I had these posts as a crawl on the bottom of my screen so my coworkers walking past would see Great Endless Lake of boiling, maggoty, disease-ridden Moroccan Baboon vomit and spill their coffee!

I feel forced to agree with the most guys are pigs assertion. Our bathroom is being redone so Im showering at the fitness club near our downtown office. Christ-in-quarantine, some men act like they were raised by apes! I approach the sit-down facilities with Lovecraftian dread. Is anything in there really safe to touch? Is the air even safe to breathe? No wonder some guys pee in the shower!

Sidney Doubleposter, youre a frickin riot! You made me laugh so hard, I actually coughed up really interesting things you might want to see sketches of.

Regarding H.E.s suit, what rankles even further than Paramounts wrongness is that it wouldnt hurt a giant like them to simply pay creators what theyre due. Why is it always the richest who want to be exempt from their debt? All the studios whove ripped off writers since Edison lensed The Kiss couldve conducted their business more smoothly and pleasantly, without so many expensive lawyers, if theyd have just met their obligations, which in the grand scheme of things, are petty considerations to them. Hollywood couldve been a much happier place if the suits didnt need to grab all the small potatoes too.

The web of these topics put me in mind of W.H. Auden:

"The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews LIKE GREEDY CORPORATIONS,
"Not to be born is the best for man WHO URINATES WILDLY;
"The second-best is a formal order: PAY THE WRITER,
"The dance's pattern; dance while you can, CUZ A LAWYER IS SHOOTING AT YOUR FEET.
"Dance, dance, for the figure is easy, LIKE PEEING STRAIGHT,
"The tune is catching and will not stop, LIKE BACTERIA;
"Dance till the stars come down from the rafters ON THE S.S. INTERNETS;
"Dance, dance, dance till you drop, LIKE HAMSTERS."

By the way, all this glove back-and-forth reminds me of the classic Spinal Tap album SMELL THE GLOVE. Remember Nigels backpedal? She should be made to smell it. But not, you know, over and over.

Now were rockin,
T.Y.

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[Harlan Ellison]

Name: HARLAN ELLISON
Source: unca20090603.htm

THERE WAS NO SUFFICIENTLY ORIGINAL THOUGHT WORTHY OF SHARING WITH YOU TODAY. TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY. -harlan

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