We had the septic tank pumped this morning.
It reminded me of thoughts about family and language:
. . . Did John grow up with the same childish misunderstanding I had of our mother’s word “bee-em,” unaware that it was an abbreviation for bowel movement? We heard the word long before we could spell.
In his French mountain village, John Berger refuses to abstract: “A week ago I cleared out and buried the year’s shit. The shit of my family and of friends who visit us. . . .”
“Kitsch is the absolute denial of shit,” according to Milan Kundera.
Steven Epperson, graduated from Temple and then a curator for the Church Museum of Art and History, worked on an exhibit on the Salt Lake Temple. He and his colleagues wanted to display the blueprints used to construct the building. Church authorities granted permission only on the condition that all toilets and plumbing be whited out.
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About Scott Abbott
I received my Ph.D. in German Literature from Princeton University in 1979. Then I taught at Vanderbilt University, BYU, and Utah Valley State College. At Utah Valley University, I directed the Program in Integrated Studies for its initial 13 years and was also Chair of the Department of Humanities and Philosophy for three years. My publications include a book on Freemasonry and the German Novel, two co-authored books with Zarko Radakovic (REPETITIONS and VAMPIRES & A REASONABLE DICTIONARY, published in Serbo-Croatian in Belgrade and in English with Punctum Books), a book with Sam Rushforth (WILD RIDES AND WILDFLOWERS, Torrey House Press), a "fraternal meditation" called IMMORTAL FOR QUITE SOME TIME (University of Utah Press), and translations of three books by Austrian author Peter Handke, of an exhibition catalogue called "The German Army and Genocide," and, with Dan Fairbanks, of Gregor Mendel's important paper on hybridity in peas. More famously, my children are in the process of creating good lives for themselves: as a model and dance/yoga studio manager, as a teacher of Chinese language, as an ecologist and science writer, as a jazz musician, as a parole officer, as a contractor, as a seasonal worker (Alaska and Park City, Utah), and as parents. I share my life with UVU historian Lyn Bennett, with whom I have written a cultural history of barbed wire -- THE PERFECT FENCE (Texas A&M University Press). Some publications at http://works.bepress.com/scott_abbott/
THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY 
now, that’s environmental humanities at its best…when it comes to fecal matter we wanna shush sh u sh u sh sh it butt….of course we cannot…..
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i mentioned to the pumper that the shit had a nice aroma of hops and that our consumption of beer had obviously contributed to the healthy biomass.
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