Houston, Texas

"Winds of Change"
George Bush Intercontinental Airport

It's very difficult to capture in bronze a country-club blazer slung jauntily over the shoulder and into the "Winds of Change". As I learned from this piece, located in Terminal C. Photographs were immediately taken on my phone and sent to a number of friends and family whom I thought would particularly appreciate this particular execution.

Quick lunch at Hanlon's Barbecue. (Q: what should one expect from a BBQ joint situated next to a Starbucks kiosk in Terminal C of George Bush Intercontinental Airport? If you can't figure out the A:, you will probably be happier if I don't tell you.) I skim news about the Sundance Film Festival (it's opening day) as I walk to gate E20 and my connection to New Orleans.

Sitting on the plane, I begin reading Lawrence Block's The Sins of the Fathers, the first of his crime novels about Matthew Scudder, a non-P.I. who "does favors" for people in exchange for "gifts." I love the opening which, in describing the man seeking Scudder's assistance, makes us aware of the fact that we know nothing about Scudder; the first sentence tells us that the man was "about my height", and that he was searching the narrator's face for "secret messages". Us, too! It's not revolutionary, but it's good.

The plane was late getting in, and our escape is further delayed by "paperwork". A stewardess updates us at one point that there remained one document to fill out because there'd been a medical emergency "before any of us boarded", as if we might otherwise suspect one of the crew of poisoning the complimentary orange juice.

We back away from the gate, and the safety video comes on. It shows adult customer hands strapping a mask on the face of a child customer while reminding you to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting "other customers." We're stopped and I look out the window; it seems we've backed onto the lawn. The grass waves frenetically beneath the invisible jets.

The captain says that the weather in New Orleans is about what it is here in Houston. I hadn't been outside since New York, but I can see that it's starting to rain.

Take-off.

In the way that one will, I wonder at the regularity of the landscape; the lines that graph what seems like chaos on the ground become evident so soon after take-off. Even the forests are uniform, squared off at the edges like a tins of brownies. But there's a break in the grid: we pass over a little oasis of wild trees atop elegant low hills that roll like the Appalachian Mountains I'd crossed in the morning.

Then I realize that it's a golf course. But a beautiful one.

Grand Street

Where the precision spray is coming from

The Japanese bathroom can be a disorienting place for a Western visitor; behind the door marked "otoko" (male) or "onna" (female), one will variously find a remote control-operated edifice fit for the shuttle or a porcelain-glorified hole in the ground. This series of photographs, taken at the ANA Hotel Kyoto, captures a modest example of the former in action.

Fig. 1: While the toilet in the first picture looks fairly ordinary, the eye of anyone who has visited Japan will quickly pick out the small control panel stage-right (see Fig. 2: enlargement below). While such panels may control seat temperature, or even play a discretion-enhancing song, what they nearly always offer is one or more strategically targeted streams of water, some for feminine needs and some for more universally applicable cleaning tasks (the pink and green buttons, respectively). This is a document of the second hygenic purpose.

Why bother to document? Because cursory examination of the Japanese space-age toilet will not reveal where the precision spray is coming from—there’s no obvious spout in the bowl—, and that’s kind of creepy. Or if not creepy, at least the sort of thing one ought to know.


Please note that because the same advanced sensors on the toilet that prevent both accidental misfires and viewing also make it difficult to trigger the ass-washer without actually, er, using it, the series was painstakingly constructed from the best of several attempts with my camera in 3-fps motor advance mode. Composition may have suffered.











Fig. 3: Spray nozzle at full extension; as you can see, it is deployed from the back of the bowl just a few inches beneath the seat. (You may wish to note that some polite person has placed a towel on the floor to protect it from the spray.*)

The trick is to sit on the seat, press the button, and leap up after the nozzle has had a chance to deploy but before it begins to spray. One must then be quick in order to turn, focus, and snap the picture, because the sensor notices the absence of an ass and withdraws the nozzle very quickly.

* That polite person is me.



Fig. 4: Spray at initiation phase. Note the "shotgun" pattern: the spray is clearly meant only for accuracy at close range.

The water itself was just on the warm side of room temperature.
















Fig. 5: Spray at zenith phase. I was surprised at how powerful the stream was—it nearly reached the opposite wall a few feet away.














Fig. 6: Nozzle post-spray; flush phase. If you look closely, you will note that some water still runs and drops down into the bowl; I speculate that this is to ensure cleanliness in the event of particulate debris.












Turtle-like, the nozzle at this point quietly withdraws.

I'll leave the cultural implications (and I'm not saying there are any) to you, imaginary reader.