Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  It takes as little as five minutes to feed Cloaca, but the machine needs 22 hours to fully digest each meal. People don’t need to completely digest one meal before they eat another one, and neither does Cloaca. It eats twice a day—breakfast and a late lunch in some museums, lunch and dinner in others—and it eats every day, even if the museum is closed. It’s easy to tell when Cloaca is hungry: A blue light flashes when it’s ready to eat.

  IN ONE END…

  After Cloaca’s garbage disposal “chews” the food, it’s fed into a meat grinder for further processing, and then pumped through the six glass vats, each of which simulates a different stage of the digestive process. In most Cloaca models the food will travel about 33 feet—from one end of the machine to the other—in the 22 hours it takes for the meal to be digested. That distance is a pretty close approximation of the human digestive system, which if stretched end-to-end would be about 30 feet long.

  Every 24 hours, Cloaca pumps—or poops—the remains of its most recent meals onto a rotating circular tray that could probably be referred to as the machine’s toilet. What happens next depends on where the machine is being exhibited. When the first machine was unveiled in Antwerp in 2000, the Cloaca-doo was carefully collected and entombed in resin-filled glass flasks, which were then sold with a copy of the corresponding menu for as much as $1,000 apiece (there were plenty of takers, even at that price). In SoHo, workers just scooped up the waste and flushed it down a (real) toilet.

  So make tea? The leaves of the coffee plant contain more caffeine than the beans.

  CLOAC-U-LENCE

  It’s not easy building a machine that mimics the human digestive tract, and Delvoye’s machines have had humanlike problems along the way, including constipation and diarrhea. After the first Cloaca was unveiled in Antwerp’s Museum of Contemporary Art in 2000, it developed flatulence so severe that the museum staff went on strike until the management piped the fumes out of the building. By the time Cloaca arrived in SoHo, the flatulence problem had largely been solved, and the three-month visit went off without a hitch as Cloaca ate and excreted 188 meals without causing any visitors to lose their appetite, at least not from the smell.

  FOOD FOR THOUGHT

  Even so, Cloaca did manage to generate criticism during its stay in New York, and from a surprising source: the gourmet chefs who prepared its meals. Many came to see Cloaca as a tremendous missed opportunity to raise issues about contemporary eating habits, nutrition, and health. “When I heard Delvoye speak, it was odd to me, because he didn’t ask questions that make us think about culture and diet,” Peter Hoffman, owner/chef of Savoy restaurant, complained to The New York Times in 2002. “Like, if I throw in greasy food versus more healthy food, what happens? Do various diets make any difference? Does it need 2,200 calories a day, and how would it deal with 3,800?”

  Delvoye says that the pointlessness of the machine is the point. He’s a conceptual artist, after all, and the concept he’s trying to get across has nothing to do with nutrition or food. Delvoye believes all modern life is pointless, as is all art; that’s the point he’s trying to get across. His original goal was to build the most pointless machine he could think of, and he came up with Cloaca: a machine that turns the finest cuisine a city has to offer into crap without benefiting anyone or anything. “I like the beauty of it doing all this work for nothing,” he says.

  Pointless, but not unappealing, as proven by the huge crowds who pile into modern art museums in Antwerp, Vienna, Zurich, Toronto, New York, and anyplace else where Cloaca is exhibited, just to watch it eat and excrete. “I think Cloaca is a machine that can be understood by any culture,” Delvoye says. “It’s a machine that poos. That’s very universal.”

  The word most often misspelled in search engines: resturant…no, restauraunt…er, restaurant.

  OL’ JAYBEARD

  AND BRIAN

  Ol’ Jaybeard likes to burst into the BRI and interrupt Brian with his strange challenges and weird word puzzles. Now we pass them on to you. Good luck! (Answers are on page 535.)

  1 Ol’ Jaybeard held up a Bathroom Reader and said, “I’ll bet you I can place this book on the floor and none of you will be able to jump over it.” Brian replied, “I’ll take your bet, but you’re not allowed to put the book underneath anything like a desk or a chair.” Jay agreed to the terms. He placed the book on the floor—not under anything—and still won the bet. How?

  2. Ol’ Jaybeard said to Brian: “Tell me what these words have in common: hijack, coughing, astute, worst, and define.” Perplexed, Brian asked for a hint. “No hints!” replied Ol’ Jaybeard. “I order you to figure it out yourself!”

  3. “Brian,” said Ol’ Jaybeard, “if you can tell me how much change is in my pocket, you can have it. All but three of the coins are quarters. All but three are dimes. All but three are nickels. All but three are pennies.” How much money was in his pocket?

  4. Ol’ Jaybeard challenged Brian with a question: “What common abbreviation has three times as many syllables as an abbreviation than it does when you say the full words?” Stumped, Brian decided to look it up, which prompted Ol’ Jaybeard to say, “Don’t cheat and use the Google or whatever it is you kids are calling it these days!” Brian replied, “Thanks for the hint—I know the answer!”

  5. Uncle John took us out to an exclusive nightclub, and wouldn’t you know it—Ol’ Jaybeard was the doorman. “You can’t come in unless you know the password!” he barked. Then a man walked up to the door and Jaybeard said, “12.” The man replied, “6,” and Jaybeard let him in. Then a woman walked up and Jaybeard said, “6.” The woman replied, “3,” and was let in. Brian exclaimed, “This is easy!” and stepped up to the entrance. Ol’ Jaybeard said, “8.” Brian replied, “4.” Ol’ Jaybeard yelled, “Wrong! Now go away!” While we were driving back home to the BRI, Uncle John figured out what Brian should have said. What was it?

  Blood is about three times thicker than water.

  6. “As I was speeding through Flushing,” recalled Ol’ Jaybeard, “the streetlights went out! And my headlights weren’t on! And there was no moon in the sky! Suddenly a lady dressed all in black stepped out into the road right in front of me, but I saw her just in time to stop! How?”

  7. “I’m thinking of a four-digit number,” said Ol’ Jaybeard to Brian. “The first digit is one-seventh of the last digit. The second digit is six times the first digit, and the third digit is the second digit plus two. What is the number?” Brian replied, “Uhh…” Ol’ Jaybeard reassured him, “You don’t have to be a math whiz to get this.” What’s the number?

  8. “I placed a $50 bill between pages 57 and 58 of that Bathroom Reader,” said Ol’Jaybeard. “The first one of you to get it can keep it.” Everyone lunged for the book, except Brian, who remained in his chair. Ol’ Jaybeard snarled, “What, are you too good for my money?” “No,” said Brian. “I just know that you’re lying.” How’d he know?

  9. Ol’ Jaybeard burst into the BRI during a winter storm. “Man, it’s really coming down out there, but this stormy weather reminds me of a certain seven-letter word. Each time you remove one letter, you have another common word; remove another letter, and you have another word. You don’t have even to rearrange the letters. It works all the way down until you’re left with one letter, which is also a word.” What is this seven-letter word?

  10. “Did you know that I used to sell eggs?” asked Ol’ Jaybeard. “One day, I had a total of three customers. The first one said, ‘I would like to buy half of your eggs plus half an egg more.’ So I sold him the eggs. Then the second customer said, ‘I would like to buy half of your remaining eggs plus half an egg more.’ So I sold her the eggs. Then the third customer said, ‘I would like to buy half of your eggs plus half an egg more.’ ‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘That’s all I have left.’ How many eggs did I sell that day? And keep in mind that I didn’t have to break any of the eggs.”

  The highest point in Florida, Britton Hill, is only 345 feet above sea l
evel.

  WEIRD ANIMAL NEWS

  Strange tales of creatures great and small.

  DOG GONE

  “It was like something out of The Wizard of Oz,” said Agnes Tamas, whose dog was blown away by a storm in Gesztered, Hungary, in 2010. Tamas, 57, could see the roofs being ripped from nearby houses when she ran to her cellar. She’d hoped her dog would be safe, but to her horror, she watched as his doghouse was swept up into the air and blew out of sight—with the pooch still inside! After the storm passed, Tamas searched but could find no signs of her pet. A few days later, a man found the dog…20 miles away. Tamas was reunited with her dog, whom she renamed Lucky. The dog’s house, however, was never found.

  CAT BURGLAR

  Harry, a two-year-old Burmese cat, is notorious in his Five Dock, Australia, neighborhood for breaking into people’s homes and stealing underwear, gloves, bras, and anything else he can carry. But his favorite thing to steal is footwear. “Harry has a shoe fetish,” says his owner, Sue Pope.

  CHEETAH SCENTS

  Biologists have long known that big cats are attracted to cologne and perfume, so in 2010 they performed an experiment at the Bronx Zoo to find out which one the cats like the most. (The findings will help the scientists set scented remote camera traps.) Cheetahs were given several scents to smell, and the ferocious felines’ favorite fragrance: Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men. According to zoo curator Pat Thomas, “The big cats would literally wrap their paws around a tree and just vigorously rub up and down. Sometimes they would start drooling, their eyes would half close, it was almost like they were going into a trance.”

  GOAT TRIP

  During a DUI checkpoint in Bedford County, Virginia, in June 2010, police nabbed four drunk drivers, one drug offender…and one goat. It was heard knocking around inside the trunk of a sedan driven by 32-year-old Fiona Ann Enderby, 32, of Washington, D.C. The officers were shocked to find the animal bound in ropes and panting heavily in the 94°F trunk. Enderby, however, didn’t see the problem with it. “I’m from the U.K.,” she explained. “And it is acceptable there to transport goats in this manner.” Enderby said she’d purchased the animal from a farmer; it was a present for the passengers in her car—four men from Kenya who live in Lynchburg, Virginia. Police gave the goat some water and had it transported to a shelter. Enderby was cited for animal cruelty. The four men never did get their goat.

  Goofy’s original voice and laugh were provided by a circus clown named Pinto Colvig.

  COW TALE

  In August 2010, a Chinese farmer from Fuijan province named Sheng Hsueh noticed that one of his cows was missing. There was no trace of theft or foul play, which left him mystified. Four days later, some of Sheng’s neighbors started to hear mooing coming from the ground. Then, through an open manhole, the missing cow reared its head. Somehow, she had wandered off and gotten lost in the sewer system. Sheng retrieved her with a winch and some rope. “She didn’t seem upset by her ordeal,” said one villager. “As soon as they freed her, she found a patch of grass.”

  BEAR LEFT

  Campgrounds and national parks frequently offer metal food boxes that keep out hungry bears. One night in July 2010, a bear climbed into the Story family’s Toyota Corolla and went after a peanut butter sandwich that was left on the back seat. Except the Storys weren’t in a national park—they were in their home in Larkspur, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. Once the bear got in the car and had a snack, he took the car for a brief spin. To be fair, the bear wasn’t trying to steal the car—he just knocked the gear shift into neutral, sending the car down the Storys’ driveway and into a thicket of trees. That woke up the neighborhood. Animal control authorities were summoned to remove the bear, who couldn’t get out of the car. Ralph Story told reporters that the bear left “a nice pile” on the front seat as a parting gift.

  Another cause of lightning: friction between ash particles from an erupting volcano.

  STAND-UP FOLKS

  Here’s a humor break courtesy of some of the world’s funniest comedians.

  “Bozo the Clown. Do we really need ‘the Clown’? Are we going to confuse him with Bozo the Tax Attorney? Or Bozo the Pope?”

  —Jerry Seinfeld

  “I must be going bald. It’s taking longer and longer to wash my face.”

  —Harry Hill

  “Studies reveal that rectal thermometers are the best way to take a baby’s temperature. Plus, it really shows them who’s boss.”

  —Tina Fey

  “I can’t swim. I can’t drive, either. I was going to learn to drive but then I thought, well, what if I crash into a lake?”

  —Dylan Moran

  “Woman don’t want to hear what you think. They want to hear what they think, in a deeper voice.”

  —Bill Cosby

  “Kissing is just pushing your lips against the sweet end of 66 feet of intestines.”

  —Drew Carey

  “Here’s some advice: At your next job interview, tell them you’re going to give 110%. Unless you’re applying for a statistician job.”

  —Adam Gropman

  “It’s one of life’s most memorable moments: the marriage proposal. I fantasize about it. Will he hire a plane to write, ‘Will you marry me?’ in the sky? And if I don’t want to marry him, do I have to hire a plane to write, ‘No’?”

  —Rita Rudner

  “I've always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those red knives.”

  —Billy Connolly

  “My first job was selling doors, door to door. That was tough. Ding Dong. ‘Can I interest you in a…oh, you’ve got one already. Never mind.’”

  —Bill Bailey

  “I have a lot of growing up to do. I realized that the other day while sitting in my fort.”

  —Zach Galifianakis

  Chinese officials have smeared a bridge with butter to make it too slippery for suicidal people to climb up (and jump off).

  WORD ORIGINS

  Ever wonder where words come from? Here are some interesting stories.

  HECK

  Meaning: A mild exclamation of surprise or irritation

  Origin: “How much truth is there to the legend that Mark Twain invented this word to spare his wife from the godless word ‘hell’? None. The origin goes back several centuries to Lancashire, England. It either derives from eck!, an expression of surprise, or from the Lancashire imprecation go to ecky, meaning ‘go to hell.’” (From A Browser’s Dictionary of Interjections, by Mark Dunn)

  PRUDE

  Meaning: One who is excessively concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous

  Origin: “Prude owes everything to proud, once upon a time the same word. It was clipped from Old French prudefemme, meaning a good and honorable woman, but ‘prude’ has long since declined into something critical and narrow.” (From The Secret Lives of Words, by Paul West)

  WIZARD

  Meaning: A man skilled in the occult; a magician

  Origin: “‘Wizard’ is formed from the adjective wise and the suffix -ard. The word originally meant a ‘wise man, philosopher.’ The suffix -ard, however, almost always has a pejorative or disparaging sense, as in the words ‘coward’ and ‘drunkard.’ ‘Wizard’ was therefore often used contemptuously to mean ‘a so-called wise man,’ and from this use it came to mean ‘sorcerer’ and ‘male witch.’” (From Word Mysteries & Histories, by the American Heritage dictionaries)

  ACNE

  Meaning: A common skin condition characterized by pimples on the face, chest, and back

  Origin: “It is ironic that ‘acne,’ which represents a low point in many teenagers’ lives, comes from acme, ‘the highest point.’ The

  Greeks used akme, which literally meant ‘point,’ for referring to spots on the face, but when it came to be rendered into Latin it was mistranslated as acne, and the error has stuck.” (From Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto)

  STYMIE

  Meaning: To hinder or thwartr />
  Origin: “Originally a golf term, dating from at least 1834, denoting a golf ball lying on the putting green blocking another player’s ball from the hole. The root of ‘stymie’ is thought to be the old Scots word stymie, meaning ‘person who sees poorly.’ The logic here may be that a ‘stymie’ ball blocked the other ball from clearly ‘seeing’ the hole. What is certain is that by around 1902 ‘stymie’ had come into general use in the ‘obstruct’ or ‘frustrate’ sense, and government agencies have been ‘stymieing’ their citizens ever since.” (From The Word Detective, by Evan Morris)

  MOSEY

  Meaning: To stroll; walk as if not in a hurry

  Origin: “This American slang word may stem from a name given to Jewish street vendors in the 1820s eastern USA who used to walk slowly under the weight of their loads. A general pejorative name applied to all Jews at one time was Moses.” (From Batty, Bloomers and Boycott, by Rosie Boycott)

  HUBBUB

  Meaning: A confused sound of many voices; uproar; tumult

  Origin: “It has often been remarked that the early Celtic inhabitants of Britain contributed very little to the stock of English words. This is no surprise, given the difficult relations between the Germanic and Celtic peoples of England and Ireland. It seems likely that a certain English contempt resides in the adoption of the word ‘hubbub’ from a Celtic source, which is probably related to ub ub ubub, a Scots Gaelic interjection expressing contempt, or to abu, an ancient Irish war cry. In any case, ‘hubbub’ was first recorded (1555) in the phrase ‘Irish hubbub’ and meant ‘the confused shouting of a crowd.’ ‘Hubbub’ was again used by the New England colonists as a term for a rambunctious game played by Native Americans.” (From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition)

  One of the most widely recognized scents in the world: baby powder.