Let's go to the Museo Della Merda -- the Museum of Poop!

A new museum opened in Milan, Italy: the Museo Della Merda, or "Museum of Poop." It is home to "documents and information on excrement in culture, technology and history."

The museum's press release says, "Few phenomena are so rich in material and conceptual complexity as the cultural history of excrement. Plus, it’s stinky!”

Okay, I made that last bit up.

Oh, and I love this bit from the museum's video. 

"What is that stuff?"

"I have no idea, but it's FASCINATING."

Notice anything odd about this bomber?

This 1965 photo is of a Skyraider, a fighter/bomber which launched from aircraft carriers. And yes, that IS a toilet under its wing! But usually we drop bombs IN toilets...we don't drop toilets as bombs! Pilot Clint Johnson (Captain, USNR Ret.) explains:

"The toilet was a damaged toilet, which was going to be thrown overboard. One of our plane captains rescued it and the [bomb] crew made a rack, tailfins and nose fuse for it. [After being scheduled for a flight mission], our checkers maintained a position to block the view of the air boss and the Captain while the aircraft was taxiing forward. Just as it was being shot off we got a message from the bridge, 'What the hell is on that plane's right wing?' 

"[The plane takes off. The toilet bomb] was dropped in a dive... When it came off, it turned hole to the wind and almost struck the airplane...The FAC said that it whistled all the way down.”

Story and photos from MidwaySailor.com.

The Wisdom of the Ages

In 1530, the esteemed scholar Desiderius Erasmus dispensed advice:

"Some teach that boys should keep in the gas of their bellies by compressing their hindquarters. But it is not civil to become ill while you are trying to seem polite. If it is possible to leave, let him do it alone, but if not, follow the ancient proverb: Hide the fart with a cough." 

—De civilitate morum puerilium

Via Ask the Past.

Hey, want to buy some dinosaur poop? (It's botryoidal!)

As readers of The Big Book of Gross Stuff know, coprolite is fossilized poop. How did it get fossilized? It’s really old!

For example, that long dinosaur poop above is between five to 34 million years old. What laid it? Dunno. We just have the poop. But it was almost certainly a dinosaur. (I mean, that thing IS over a yard long!)

What’s weird is that people buy coprolites. And this one is actually for sale; below is its auction description.

ENORMOUS AND RARE COPROLITE

This truly spectacular specimen is possibly the longest example of dinosaur feces ever to be offered at auction. It boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring and terrifically detailed texture to the heavily botryoidal surface across the whole of its immense length. The passer of this remarkable object is unknown, but it is nonetheless a highly evocative specimen of unprecedented size, presented in four sections, each with a heavy black marble custom base, an eye-watering 40 inches in length overall.

Estimate $8,000-10,000

UPDATE: This may be a fake! (Or what one writer called a "faux-poo.") 

This headline cracked me up

Neanderthals Ate Their Veggies, Oldest Poop Shows

The "garderobe" was the first bathroom…and be sure to guard your robes!

Over at the Smithsonian, Jimmy Stamp takes a look at the history of the bathroom. As you may know, in the Middle Ages, folks kept chamber pots in their bedrooms to poop and pee in, then threw the contents out the window. This led to greater—and grosser?—things:

Garderrobe photo by Basha!

During the 11th-century castle-building boom, chamber pots were supplemented with toilets . . .  integrated into the architecture. 

These early bathrooms, known as “garderobes” were little more than continuous niches that ran vertically down to the ground, but they soon evolved into small rooms that protruded from castle walls . . . historian Dan Snow notes: “The name garderobe—which translates as guarding one's robes—is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas." 

. . . the garderrobe actually had a strong resemblance to an aspect of a castle’s defenses. And it works in the same basic way: gravity. And while the garderobe was actually a weak spot in a castle’s defenses, woe be the unassuming invader scaling a castle wall beneath one. 

Several designs emerged to solve the problem of vertical waste disposal—some spiral up towers, for example, while some were entire towers; some dropped waste into cesspools, moats, and some just dropped it onto the ground below. Not all medieval compounds were okay with merely dumping excrement onto the ground like so much hot oil.

Important historical discovery!

Since the ancient toilets stank bad, one archaeologist decided to do something about it... but he was warned:

A Fart is a Many-Splendored Thing

Hey, did you know that two Indian tribes in Brazil (the Suya and Bororo) hate farts so much, if they smell a fart, the people spit? And if someone farts in public, “the whole group must go through an elaborate ritual of hacking, spitting and coughing to expel the polluting odor from their bodies.”

That quote is from Kirsten Bell. She wrote a blog post over here about farts in different cultures. And she asks the important questions, like why do farts make some people angry, while others just laugh?

For the record, I also wonder this. (Let’s just say my wife doesn’t find gas funny.)

In North America, not all farts are created equal. Little kids, old people, and sick people get a free pass. But women are under a lot of pressure not to pass gas because it’s not ladylike.

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Were it not for the odiously offensive smell accompanying such escapes, polite people would probably be under no more restraint in discharging such wind in company than they are in spitting or blowing their noses.”

And according to the book Aroma: the Cultural History of Smell, in Morocco, “it is traditionally held that breaking wind inside a mosque will blind, or even kill, the angels therein.” This book also repeats what I wrote about in The Big Book of Gross Stuff—that some Morroccans have reportedly killed themselves after farting accidentally in public.

Finally, here are two “inspirational” quotes about the gas in our bodies:

“Though ancient and uncontrollably natural, a fart is generally considered to be repellent, discourteous, and even the smell of the devil.” —Diane Ackerman

“[I hope to be] so well known, so popular, so celebrated, so famous, that it would… permit me to break wind in society and society would think it a most natural thing.” —Honoré de Balzac

Peeing in Paris in the 1800s

No, that's not the title of a new musical film. It describes these outdoor stalls that French men could pee in back in 1875!

It would be sort of weird to use those, though.

"Good morning, Jacques.""Good morning!" *tries to go*"Hi Jacques!""Hello!" *tries to go*"Mommy, look at that man go wee-wee!""Oh, forget it." *zip*

Ain't no poop like historic poop

What a headline!

medieval poop barrels discovered in Denmark still smell

Butt Blasts from the Past!

You may know Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) from his famous story Gulliver's Travels.

Swift was a funny man, as he showed in short book titled The Benefit of Farting Explain’d.

This classic included a lovely poem about passing gas in Parliament. It's known as... 

"On A Fart, let in the House of Commons" 

Reader, I was born, and cried;
I crack'd, I smelt, and so I died.
Like Julius Caesar's was my death,
Who in the senate lost his breath.
Much alike entomb'd does lie
The noble Romulus and I:
And when I died, like Flora fair,
I left the commonwealth my heir.

See, the narrator is like Julius Caesar because he died in the Roman senate, just like our gas passer. And that last line is funny, because he "heir" is pronounced like "air" and he's leaving his foul-smelling air to the government. Heheh... ouch. 

Oh, and one more thing—Jonathan Swift wrote all this under a fake name: Don Fartinando Puff-indorst!