Where: Rimsky-Korsakoffee House
707 SE 12th Ave
Highlights: Original Decor Spotless
Problems: Scary
The first book I ever learned to read was "A Dark, Dark Tale" by Ruth Brown. It begins, "Once upon a time there was a dark, dark moor" I learned it at the age of four through stubborn and obsessive memorization, the words materializing in my brain "in the house there was a dark, dark stair..." What passion for uncovering the mysteries within that darkness formed in my malleable brain as I repeated those words to myself? What spirits lurked in that wood, that empty house? Did they bleed from the pages of this dark story into my dreams? Looking at the images from my latest toilet observation I recreate this story- asking myself the same questions...
Once Upon the Time there was a house
In the house was a dark, dark stair
In the house was a dark, dark stair
Up the stair was a dark, dark hall
Down the hall was a dark dark room
In the room was a dark dark corner
In that corner was a dark, dark tub
In the tub was....
A body!!!
This children's story never suggested a murder, unless in the natural predator and prey, cat and mouse order of things. Yet this bathroom brings to mind a number of questions. Who is this body in the bathtub? Whose feet dangle from the ceiling and did someone decapitated a
body before you came in or did the architect build the room entirely out of water? The spirit reaches her hand out toward you, as though beckoning you into the murky blue paint, to creep within the walls.In elementary school I read a story about a wax museum which came alive at night and turned two children hiding in the museum into wax. Since then mannequins have terrified me. I use the toilet like a soldier in battle, blocking out the body in front of me, the open window with the pale billowing curtains, the shackled hand of the mannequin struggling to reach my face- just one hand, the other somehow absent. I focus on the fish, floating benignly across the wall, anything to distract me from my imaginary villains, images from Japanese horror films dredged up and melted together, whispering lines from too many children's books featuring death by drowning.*
I take my pictures quickly, hearing a line of women building in the hallway. Downstairs, I admire the portraits of dead white musicians beneath the glass in the coffee tables and the painting of famous writers behind me, their eyes fixed empty and wax like from the frame. Oscar Wilde's head is grotesque, dwarfing his body. A journal on the table for guests to write their innermost thoughts is open to drawings of genitalia and palm trees. I write in a game of MASH.
Score: This bathroom disturbs me in some profound and hidden place I can't explain. The same part of me weeps when I read Pinocchio, recalls late nights at summer camp in a dark bathroom trying to conjure "bloody Mary," confuses a tree with the shadow of a phantom in the moonlight, could reread the B.F.G. a thousand times. Those who can shut off this part of them which believes in closet monsters will have no problems with this bathroom. Those who have to read a cheerful story after a vivid dream might struggle more with the staring images as they try to relax into a sense of security.The toilet lacks the cleanliness issues found in my previously reviews. So immaculate is both this bathroom and it's reputation, that I'm tempted to conclude that the inhibitions of others in truly using this toilet equal mine. I could never see someone spending quality time on this toilet, taking the time to read a magazine. The open window circulates freshness through the room, and the uncovered toilet paper roll keeps users from mistakenly flinging paper across the room which mysteriously happens in at least 8 toilets out of 10. Definitely a toilet worth seeing and enjoying, at ones own risk. I just wouldn't recommend saying "candy man" anywhere near the mirror.
Grade: B+
A Few Children's Books Which Feature Drownings *
(Feel Free to Add Any You Think Of)
Huckleberry Finn
Pinocchio
Wait Til Helen Comes
Boy's Life
(Notice that three of these involve spirits)
Holy crap, Wait Til Helen Comes is the best book in the world. My mother read it to Sally and I ritually around Halloween until I was old enough to decide that I wanted to read it constantly. I found a copy of it in a freebox last time I lived in Eugene, and it interrupted Basho's and my break-up; I was still too creeped out by it to sleep alone after reading from it! Basho thought I was ridiculous, but complied with my uneasiness alone in the dark.
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