Oddities: What a Pisser!

Building a better mousetrap?

I first found this picture at Ilkka Talvi’s schmaltzuberalles.blogspot.com.

It also can be found at many other web sites. I found no copyright information but nevertheless under the guise of “fair use,” I am posting it here.

Talavi maintains a very good blog with excellent and varied content. It does have one very unfortunate design flaw: one very long scrolling page showing all posts on one single page. This makes linking to a specific post impossible.

Nit-picking aside Mr. Talvi, as a Finnish ex-patriot, writes with a fresh perspective on a variety of topics. His July 13th post included this picture of what I believe to be a tenor horn – not a Wagner tuba – converted into a urinal in a public bathroom. (!)

In my twisted imagination I see this as a very unique opportunity to connect to symphony patrons. Imagine adding fixtures like these to a concert hall bathroom! Any brass instrument would be fair game of course, and with a little creativity, the larger woodwinds and strings could also play a role.

The conversation at intermission might go like this:

HUSBAND:

“Oh my dear, you should see the cute little tenor horn urinal in the Men’s bathroom. It’s amazing!”

WIFE:

“That’s nothing compared to the contrabassoon in the Women’s bathroom!”

Or better yet…

Bathroom facilities like these could be installed in failed orchestra management offices (!) where frustrated administrators (maybe like those in … Columbus, Ohio?) could figuratively and literally take a crap on their musicians.