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| universal sign for toilets |
This popular quote by the poet Terence (c.190-158 B.C.), "Nothing human is alien to me" has a new, slightly anal meaning to me, after watching one of the weirdest - and incredibly Austrian - TV shows I've ever encountered. Namely, a documentary on the potty.
The 45 minute show, part of the Panorama series on ORF (the "educational" network...sort of like Austrian PBS) went through a number of topics related to the toilet: the history of the water closet and indoor plumming; the artistic value of public restrooms in Vienna; the lives of Austrian sewage workers; and the biographical account of a woman-janitor who made her living cleaning toilets.
I must admit, it was educational. I learned all about the Nachttopf (chamber pot), the invention Wasserklosett, WC or Klo for short (the indoor plumbing part), and the bidet - originally much more a status symbol than a hygiene apparatus. Also, I had no idea that public toilets could be considered works of art. I suppose Hundertwasser was, after all, Austrian.
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| Hundertwasser's We Live in Paradise |
My favorite quote from the show - an interview with one of the sewage workers:
Interviewer: "Was ist am schwiereigsten in Ihren Beruf?"
{What's the toughest part of your job?}
Sewage worker: "Schaufeln."
{The shoveling.}
And there you have it - a particularly disgusting revelations was "Italian Week" where the sewage workers (shoveling the human feces out of the underground system) pointed out all of the spaghetti still visible through several breakdown processes - I don't need to go into them specifically. All I can say is 1) GROSS!!! and 2) Austrians totally have anal fixations. Perhaps this is where we get Freud's claims about the human psyche...he was right about one thing: his research demographic!
My pleasure!
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