I wasn't sure at first if public bathrooms could make a good column topic, but the more thought I gave it, the more it seemed a natural choice. I guess it has to do with my upbringing. While other fathers and sons were out playing ball, my dad and I were planning our book: The World's Best and Worst Public Bathrooms. Still unpublished, it is destined to grace coffee tables around the world-a glossy bestseller that will make waves in the highest literary circles. Dad's top picks for best-list are the men's rooms in Berlin's elegant Adlon Hotel and the flagship Ralph Lauren store on Madison Avenue. Neither one of these places was in our budget. No, no, we went in solely to scout out the toilets.
Public bathrooms deserve more of our attention-and not just the ritzy ones. Too often ignored in intellectual discourse, they are the liminal space in our daily lives through which we all must pass; a no-man's and every-man's land, rife with social significance and open to many uses
and interpretations.
Most people perceive the loo simply as a function of necessity. But in its most standard use, the W.C. unifies society, meanwhile proving that everyone's shit does, indeed, stink. (It seems some people still need to be reminded). In addition, bathrooms are a terrain of socialization and enforcement of social norms-a place where bad guys in business suits make big deals when the golf course isn't available, where women can put on makeup while cursing men or each other, where friends check up on friends who have misjudged their limits at a party, and where the school loser receives his official anointment: the swirlee.
On the other side of our discourse, there are those who go outside the system, using public toilet stalls as an arena for graffiti. I would argue that the term "graffiti" does not do justice to stall-scribblings, which are, in reality, an important form of social commentary. The bathroom stall serves society as an accessible public venue for creative acts. It's the canvas, if you will, for ephemeral artistic interventions; contained, ritualized transgressions of social norms and expressions of the individual soul within and against the cold, regulated public realm.
2008 Woodie Awards
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