The cute poop taboo

[imomus]

"An elephant makes a big poop, a mouse makes a tiny poop. A one-hump camel makes a one-hump poop, and a two-hump camel makes a two-hump poop. Only kidding!"

So begins Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi. It's the first (and best-selling) title in a series of books published in America by Kane/Miller (motto: "open-minded books opening young minds to the world") which also includes The Holes In Your Nose (about nostrils), The Gas We Pass (about farting) and Contemplating Your Bellybutton.

They're all by Japanese author-illustrators, and they're somewhat in the spirit of my 1991 album Hippopotamomus, a record you could file under "children's avant garde" or "cute taboo", inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's scatophilic 1973 song "L'Hippopodame" and Christian Enzensberger's 1968 book "Smut: An Anatomy of Dirt". Kane/Miller asks us to file the book under: "The Body, Potty, Self Esteem/Identity, Non-Fiction, Concepts", but we could as easily file it under "works inspired by the polymorphous perversity of babies and animals". (The Gainsbourg album was made when Charlotte was a baby, and features Serge on the cover surrounded by monkeys.)

Amazon's page about the book shows a division in attitudes to it as deep as the one that greeted my hippo record. Most readers seem delighted, and tell us their children love it. But publishing trade press people and librarians are appalled. "Okay, so everyone does it--does everyone have to talk about it?" complains Publishers Weekly. "Call it what you will, by euphemism or by expletive, poop by any name seems an unsuitable picture book subject." Denise L. Moll of the Lone Pine Elementary School, West Bloomfield, Michigan wonders, in the School Library Journal, "does anyone really need an entire book on the subject? ...The text is merely a series of rather dull pictures of back ends of people on toilets and animals, with captions identifying them and occasionally posing questions such as "What does a whale's poop look like?" (No answer is provided.)"

It isn't just spinster librarians who feel this way about poop. Check this thread on I Love Music for music fans begging Final Fantasy to change the title of their album He Poos Clouds. "Owen," pleads one, "please name your record something else, for your (and your label's) sake. Because while a lot of people here will tell you that they will listen to your record in spite of it, note that they have not promised to buy it. "He Poos Clouds" is a title that is going to cost you some money." Let's boycott that poop reference!

Taro Gomi himself describes the book's genesis in an appropriately down-to-earth way in an interview with Japan Foundation Newsletter:

JF: "Was it your intention to approach a “tainted” subject in writing this book?"

Gomi: "Yes, but more than that, I love poop. Because it’s fun, don’t you think? Actually, that book came about as a result of a direct experience I had one winter morning at the zoo. I went to the zoo to interview the animal doctor for another project, and I got there before it opened, so most of the cages weren’t cleaned yet. There was a lot of poop around. It was a cold winter morning, and steam was coming out from each pile as the morning sunshine streamed down on it. It was such a vivid scene. I was so impressed that on my way back home, I made up my mind to draw a book about poop. However, when I brought a draft of Minna Unchi to the publisher, the editors had an argument about whether or not to publish it. But there was one woman who loved the book and convinced the others to do it. When the book was published, I received an incredible response from children who said, “I look at poop, too.” I think they were so surprised and happy that some strange man drew a book about poop–something their parents had scolded them not to talk about. But they had also seen this weird thing coming from their bodies. Or, if there was a baby at home, they’d seen poop in its diapers. It was a funny, curious, and interesting thing for them. One boy who loved the book sent me cards entitled “Today’s Poop” almost every day for six months. There were many kids like that."

According to Freud, parents battle their own children during toilet training, and the degree of their success or failure during the "sadistic-anal stage" can fix the child's personality for life as someone either reckless, messy and generous (anal expulsive) or tidy, mean and passive aggressive (anal retentive). I can't claim to have brought up a child, but I did live with a rabbit for the best part of last year, and poop was an important part of our relationship. We didn't see eye-to-eye on the subject. In a conflict Christian Enzensberger would understand, Baker fought me angrily whenever I approached with a broom; what for me was "dirt" was for him "food" (rabbits eat their own pellets). Neither of us prevailed, and the conflict will resume when I return to Berlin at the end of May. But I did learn one thing from our messy war: poop is an important subject, which makes "Everyone Poops" an important book.

Comments

[enchochada.livejournal.com]

Ah! I was just about to mention The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of his Business (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856021017/qid=1146126478/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-8299434-3298246), but it looks like you beat me to it!

[nato-dakke.livejournal.com]

what a watered down translation! it's the story of the little mole who wanted to know who crapped on his head.
as an aside, I saw an NHK documentary a while back about how the koreans were much more comfortable with pooping than the japanese, but that books like everyone poops were a good sign for the future of japan.
Also included was some impressive statistic that in order to cover the characteristic noise of voiding ones bowels, the average japanese person flushed the toilet 3 or 4 times whenever they used a public restroom. don't remember it perfectly though.

[enchochada.livejournal.com]

to cover the characteristic noise of voiding ones bowels, the average japanese person flushed the toilet 3 or 4 times whenever they used a public restroom

I had a friend who always put a wadge of toilet paper in the pan to disguise the tell-tale 'splash'. It reminds me of a brand of sanitary towels in the Uk that were marketed on their unique 'rustle-free' wrapping. I was always confused as to why a woman would be embarassed that another woman knew she was using such a product, particularly in the relative privacy of either one's own, or a public ladies' bathroom.

[nickink.livejournal.com]

Also included was some impressive statistic that in order to cover the characteristic noise of voiding ones bowels, the average japanese person flushed the toilet 3 or 4 times whenever they used a public restroom. don't remember it perfectly though.

I'm sure I remember a Click Opera piece on this a year or two ago? It made an impression on me as I hadn't until then realised that bidets could cut both ways, as it were. Any chance of a link to that piec?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Japanize your ass! (http://imomus.livejournal.com/97784.html)

[panarchist.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this article by Zizek from a while back about the differences between German/French/American toilet designs as a manifestation of German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism?:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n17/print/zize01_.html

"...as a supplement to Lévi-Strauss, one is tempted to propose that shit can also serve as a matière-à-penser: the three basic types of toilet form an excremental correlative-counterpoint to the Lévi-Straussian triangle of cooking (the raw, the cooked and the rotten). In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected. No wonder that in the famous discussion of European toilets at the beginning of her half-forgotten Fear of Flying, Erica Jong mockingly claims that 'German toilets are really the key to the horrors of the Third Reich. People who can build toilets like this are capable of anything.' ...

[nato-dakke.livejournal.com]

my ass is de facto japanized, as a washlet came with the place I'm in, but I've found that I rarely ever use it. It seems like a waste to leave the heating element on all the time when I only sit down on the toilet once every day or two (I poop at work pretty often, thus alleviating the need to do so at home). Consequently, it has sprayed, rather than a pleasant stream of room temperature water, icy needles squarely at my anus for the duration of the long cold winter.

[sexycamelia.livejournal.com]

Hi Emma! Thanks for this link I've just ordered this book. Hope thst it will justify my hopes;)