It is these that the vendor suggests may have been dreamed up while sitting on the toilet.
August 22, 2010 4:53 AM   Subscribe

 
This wouldn't have happened if he'd given more interviews.
posted by twoleftfeet at 5:07 AM on August 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


A strange turn of turn of events for a person that reportedly didn't give a shit about publicity.
posted by Dr Dracator at 5:08 AM on August 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a toilet seat.
posted by lobstah at 5:12 AM on August 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Let the scatological literary jokes begin.
posted by Fizz at 5:18 AM on August 22, 2010


It comes "uncleaned and in its original condition", the ad for it states.

That's nasty.
posted by jquinby at 5:22 AM on August 22, 2010


I'm sorry, but -- what the fuck is wrong with people?
posted by Ouisch at 5:22 AM on August 22, 2010


D:
posted by pxe2000 at 5:28 AM on August 22, 2010


Somewhere, someplace, the Glass family collectively groans and utters the word "Shit!"
posted by Fizz at 5:28 AM on August 22, 2010


It's listed for that much. It hasn't sold for that much, and my guess is it won't. Although who knows.
posted by delmoi at 5:46 AM on August 22, 2010


What bothers me, really bothers me, is that I can't find the joke here.

I mean, you have the beginnings of a joke - a reclusive author, "Catcher in the Rye", a toilet - but I still can't find the joke.

Because I grew up in a small town with my grandma, who used to run the local joke shack. It was just a little trailer at the end of town, where the freeway came in or out. And my grandma would serve jokes to the local boys, or maybe just to people passing by, traveling the freeway through town. Folks would stop in for a joke or two, and my grandma would be happy to oblige. Sometimes a whole crew of workers would stop in from the local project, and my grandma would serve up a whole guffaw. My grandma knew how to serve a joke, but this kind of material... well, my grandma never liked the toilet humor, so I don't know what she would have done with this. I'd like to think that she would have said something really special, something that would give you a real belly laugh.

But maybe I'm just being sentimental.
posted by twoleftfeet at 5:48 AM on August 22, 2010 [12 favorites]


It comes "uncleaned and in its original condition", the ad for it states.

That's nasty.


Oh come on, how cool would it be if someone tried to clone him from an errant pube?
posted by phunniemee at 5:50 AM on August 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


What is the sound of one hand wiping?
posted by emelenjr at 5:59 AM on August 22, 2010


The Crapper in the Rye
posted by h0p3y at 6:29 AM on August 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Fanny And Zoe? /so ashamed of myself
posted by Optamystic at 6:36 AM on August 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Let the scatological literary jokes begin.

Winnie the Poo.
Shakespeare's "Richard the Turd"
Jack London's "Fecal of the Wild"
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:38 AM on August 22, 2010


Holy shit.
posted by fairmettle at 6:44 AM on August 22, 2010


If somebody at least listens, it's not too bad.

*plop*
posted by turgid dahlia at 6:54 AM on August 22, 2010


Have fun knocking it, but once you try it, you'll never want to leave your house again.
posted by blook at 7:23 AM on August 22, 2010 [3 favorites]


I hate this. Every time a celebrity dies, the estate gets parceled out in the smallest pieces, each sold separately over the course of years. As much as the advertised purpose is to allow us each to have among us pieces of history, the reality is the opposite: artifacts are sold to the highest bidder, who caches them away in warehouses with the rest of their collection, holding onto things purely for being able to do so.

So today, Salinger's potty is at auction. By the end of the week, a representative of, say, Richard Branson will be supervising its crating and shipping to a warehouse near a dock in Liverpool, just one more piece in Branson's secret long and slowly-built collection of Salingerania. Then in a couple more years, we will hear of the walls of the bathroom being up for sale, the white, aged walls Salinger stared at while thinking up and writing his final works. Maybe this time the Decaux family, perhaps aware of Richard's rarely-confessed desire to make a movie musical called Holden!, will sweep in and, after a punishing bid war, win them, breaking Branson's hopes for a complete set. And then, to twist the knife, they deprive Branson and two generations of English literature majors the opportunity to read Salinger's his first new publication in forty years in his own words by printing only a French translation.
posted by ardgedee at 7:29 AM on August 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


People seem fairly committed to the fallacy that a person's "nature" or "genius" can rub off on, say, an autograph, or a photo, or the hand you shake theirs with.

This is just a natural extension of that fallacy.
posted by LogicalDash at 7:44 AM on August 22, 2010


You can still use Rudyard Kipling's own loo (it's in the dream house he built for his family in Vermont; the house can be rented through the USA Landmark Trust) - and because we did use it many times (the experience absolutely turns your thoughts to its history), I took a photo, which now hangs in our own downstairs bathroom.

It shows a handsome porcelain pedestal whatsit, (fairly bog standard for the period, I expect), with a very sturdy wooden seat, and the pleasant typewritten sign above it, which reads: "This is Rudyard Kipling's toilet. It is 113 years old. It requires *gentle treatment..."

From the Landmark House website: Rudyard Kipling, the first English author to win the Nobel Prize for literature, moved to Vermont in 1892 and built himself a house that he considered a "jewel beyond price" and named it Naulakha. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993, Naulakha is where Kipling wrote the Jungle Books and Captains Courageous.

*you were advised to flush with a light touch.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:55 AM on August 22, 2010 [3 favorites]


Is this a euphemism for his typewriter?
posted by CarlRossi at 8:14 AM on August 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


It comes "uncleaned and in its original condition", the ad for it states.
Imagine the poor schmuck who buys it and his wife doesn't realize what's up and takes some Comet cleanser to it. Ouch!
posted by birdhaus at 8:27 AM on August 22, 2010


People seem fairly committed to the fallacy that a person's "nature" or "genius" can rub off on, say, an autograph, or a photo, or the hand you shake theirs with.

The story goes that a man once approached James Joyce and asked to shake "the hand that wrote Ulysses". Joyce cautioned him, "It's done other things too."
posted by Joe Beese at 8:39 AM on August 22, 2010 [9 favorites]


Sounds like a perfect candidate for Warehouse 13.
posted by HappyHippo at 9:15 AM on August 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


That is an original Duchamp. A steal at $1M. Duchamp's fountain is valued at ~$3.6M.
posted by Babblesort at 9:38 AM on August 22, 2010


It's just interesting in general to have items that have a history. When I first bought my house, I went down to the Toronto Archives and researched it. It would have been such fun to find out it had once housed someone who later became famous or notorious. I didn't find anything like that out, but I know the year the house was built and the names and occupations of the first people who ever lived in it. When I bought my antique piano I researched that too to find out when it had been made. (Turns out it was built in 1913 just a year after my house, and in a factory less than a mile from my house. Whenever anyone comments on my piano I tell them that, and they think it's cool.) It adds to the interest and fun of having something if you know its story. A friend of mine commented when she saw the before and after pictures of my living room renovation, "Everything in your living room has a story.")

I wouldn't buy a used toilet for any money, let alone $1 million, because, well, ugh! and that is an insane price, but I can understand the impulse that makes people want to buy such items. Having, say, a fountain pen owned by Salinger would rock. Though I would use said fountain pen. I'm not a collector. I buy things to use and enjoy them.
posted by orange swan at 9:57 AM on August 22, 2010


It's probably a phony.
posted by condour75 at 10:37 AM on August 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


he should have sold salinger's toenail clippers instead
posted by pyramid termite at 10:39 AM on August 22, 2010


I had a dream about Salinger just last night. I think it's a sign I should buy this toilet.
*starts wrapping pennies*
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 1:01 PM on August 22, 2010


Very befitting, and the MOMA would agree.
posted by donaldjans at 1:16 PM on August 22, 2010


This would go well with my copy of The Catcher in the Rye, which is most useful as toilet paper.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:17 PM on August 22, 2010


twoleftfeet made this a post.
posted by captainsohler at 4:53 PM on August 22, 2010


I wouldn't give 25 cent to piss in - oh, wait.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:28 PM on August 22, 2010


Oh, this is perfect! I've been looking for just the right display to mount Ayn Rand's bolt-on bidet.
posted by carsonb at 10:24 PM on August 22, 2010


Maybe it's for all that David Copperfield kind of crap?
posted by postagepaid at 11:03 PM on August 22, 2010


« Older American Apparel unravels   |   Scholarship in the service of poetry Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments