A Note on Farting

In a recent e-mail, someone noted that a student stated that there is a different between a real fart and a fake fart with such differences "proven scientifically". I giggled at the statement and then realized that perhaps such proven-ness should be called into question. So, here I write a note on farting.

What is the difference between a real fart and a fake fart, if such a difference actually exists? And if such a difference "actually" exists in what domain or "frame" does it exist?

There is clearly no difference in sound as I can produce a fake fart that sounds real with my arm pits or with my hands to my mouth OR I can just be silent...and say it was a "SBD" (Silent But Deadly)...I can also point to examples where a "real" fart is laughed off as being "fake" because it just sounds so "real" that a human could not have produced such perfection. One could close one's eyes and realize that it is rather difficult to tell the difference between real and fake, also perhaps illuminating how "realness" and "fakeness" play out differently with different abilities.

Ah, but you are saying, the smell Adam, its the smell that illustrates the difference between "real" and "fake" so to be educative we must take that on. But, alas I can sit next to a smelly person that "fake" farts but because of the context of being next to a smelly person the movement of arms to pits or hands to mouth send out a odorous smell miming or producing a fart-like smell. One in such a situation is left pondering was that "real" or "fake" and one probably realizes that he/she/ze just doesn't know.

So the distinction of "real" and "fake" makes no difference. One could combine the "sound" and the "smell" factors to say make a "fake" fart with one's arms to pits and spray "fake" fart smell from a bottle bought at a joke store and produce a sound/smell that creates the same consequences as a said "real" fart, once again making no difference in effect.

But, as a scientist friend pointed out...a fart is determined by the escape of gas from the...well you know where...so what differentiates a real fart from a fake fart is that escape of gas. This scientific distinction made me realize then that the issue of farting and its authenticity is dependent on the frame by which one thinks about the "fart". One can as a scientist study a fart and say that there is a distinction between "real" and "fake" based on the evidence that has been collected, verified, and used to create the intelligibility of the fart as something that emerges out of a particular oriface of the body. Or, one could look at the issue from a different frame where the fart can be explored historically - how did the fart as something that provokes "disgust" or "laughter" emerge? Why has something that is seemingly natural been imbued with such significance? It is perhaps here that the distinction between "fake" and "real" become unimportant or problematic because the consequences of the "fart" (real or fake) do not produce different reactions, but depending on the space/time of the fart produce laughter or disgust or both simultaneously.

We see then that issues of "real" and "fake" even with the fart are perhaps rather complicated as such issues are dependent on which frame one looks at the issues through. Science may need to make such distinctions between "real" and "fake" while other frame may see such distinctions as problematic because such distinctions allow for different, perhaps hierarchies to emerge.

I leave this note then with a clip from Zizek and his engagement with the Ideology of Toilets which seems fitting with the present topic.

Writing on Walls: Facebook and Childhood Fantasy

I have always loved writing on people's walls on facebook…well not always, but you know what I mean. I think it is funny...but as I thought about it I couldn't but think about how Facebook was inevitably allowing me to do what I had been banned from doing as a child. I was able to write on the wall. Now there are advanced technologies for younger generations where there is a special paint that parent's can buy or special markers that parents can but allowing for their children to write on walls, but when I was growing up there was no such thing. Writing on walls was not allowed because it took hard work or another paint job to remove.

But now, in this world where the "real" and the "cyber" become less distinct, I can't but wonder if that wall that I write on and read is where childhood fantasies come alive, where I can finally write on the walls anything I want to...Is Facebook and its wall all about reliving the things we were stopped from doing as children? I thought so, but then I thought perhaps not
I can write on walls now but it is still sanitized. I am still disciplined from what I write for the wall owner can delete what I say along with the Facebook police deleting what I write because it was "reported". I also don't want to write anything too incriminating because someone else might see it and shit might just hit the fan. Yet, while I can write on walls, I cannot or am not supposed to write on my own wall. It is still uncool to write on one's own wall...perhaps because it is bad to deface one's own property not someone else's since well, you would have to clean up the mess if it was your own wall?

Yet, as Facebook has “evolved” or some might say “devolved” this has changed for we can now comment on our own wall…BUT, that comment is not literally on our own wall, it is on the cyber-wall constructed by an other on our “pages” wall. We comment on their wall posting on our wall…making the walls rather precarious for whose wall is whose and when? We still are not supposed to “write” on our own walls. We can write “what’s on our mind” but we cannot “write on our own wall” which one sees if one looks at one’s own profile and then an “others”. I can write on your wall…but I can only write what’s on my mind…not on my wall…

Perhaps after all this…we are still unable to fulfill our childhood fantasies…as we can only ever write on someone else’s wall, never fully capable of transgressing the taboo of writing on the walls of one’s own…our fantasies still barred from surfacing to “reality”?