RE/SEARCH Guide to Bodily Fluids
Paul Spinrad
The latest volume from the publishing house that brought us Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others and Bob Flanagan: Super-Masochist—an autobiography of the world's longest-lived Cystic Fibrosis patient who publically tortures himself as performance art—is, as one might expect, a far cry from dowdy.
Howdy doody! And howdy "ca-ca, number two, shit, crap, log, stool, B.M., poop, ordure, pedung night soil, dreck, sir-reverence, zibethum occindentalis (when prescribed as a medication), dingleberries (when adhering to anal hairs)..." And might I add to the list, the proverbial [Forrest] Gump-dumplings.
Lists of synonyms are just one highlight in this annal of offal, based largely on a highly-unscientific survey of 106 poor folks who probably thought they were going to be taking the Pepsi challenge or some such marketing quiz. No such luck.
Questions such as "Do you ever sneeze gobs of mucus onto your hand? What do you do with them if you don't have a hanky handy?" and "What is your favorite food to throw up (if such a preference has ever occurred to you)?" provide the basis for the bulk of Spinrad's text, which also includes such historical essays as "Joseph Pujol, the Fartiste" and an omnibus section on minor excreta: "Smegma, Toe Cheese, Belly button Lint, Dandruff."
(My stars, this was so easy to write! The facts themselves substitute for most of the gags I usually have to come up with myself. Golly, its as if the piece has taken possession of me. Its, like, channeling itself through my fingers.)
