"... there was a man in the unit directly across from mine — bags in the hallway, sitting on a five-gallon bucket, barefoot, writing on a notepad and eating cup noodles. As I approached, he pulled down a makeshift curtain of old plastic sheeting hung on a rope where the door would close. I was too surprised to get a good look inside, but I did see a large jar of yellow liquid and a semi-used roll of toilet paper, along with floor-to-ceiling bags and boxes that looked as if they had been there for many years. Behind the plastic it sounded as if he just continued to write. I had planned on organizing my unit that day but was so uncomfortable I just threw my things inside and left. On almost every subsequent visit of mine, he has been in there. He always pulls the plastic down, but it doesn’t cover the whole doorway, and it’s deeply uncomfortable shuffling around my own things (or using the hallway) while someone sits there five feet away. We don’t interact; sometimes I think I hear a pen scratch, but once I heard rhythmic squelching and got really grossed out jumping to an obvious conclusion...."
Observing the structure of my own thoughts — you can tell me yours — I saw:
1. A writer. It's so difficult to find a place in this world to be a writer, but there he is, sitting on a 5-gallon bucket, skritchy-scratching on a notepad.
2. It reminds me of "Bartleby, the Scrivener."
3. "Squelching" — It means squashing, crushing, putting down, thoroughly suppressing (says the OED). Henry Ward Beecher said, "The time is coming when you cannot squelch a barbarian horde in Pennsylvania without having it known throughout... the world." But it also refers to "The sound made by a liquid when subjected to sudden or intermittent pressure." "My boots began to squelch and pipe along the restaurant floors," wrote Robert Lewis Stevenson in "The Wrecker." "He squelching along all the way with his India-rubbers full of water," wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne, in "American Notebooks."
4. We would understand what the letter writer meant even if she'd used the wrong word, but she didn't. She's an excellent writer, in fact. Such a vivid scene. Perhaps he was scratchily writing about her. Oh, but she fears he is writing about her pornographically. He has no idea of her as a writer. These two cannot speak to each other. If it were a movie, they would have to meet. What movies am I thinking of? Something like "The Fisher King" or "Down and Out in Beverly Hills."
5. Do pens still scratch? Aren't they all fluidly roller-ball-y these days? But it seems fitting that the writer on the 5-gallon bucket in a storage locker would skritchy-scratch with something like the crow quill pen I remember from art school. The letter writer's art has a strong audio component. The pen scratches, the masturbation squelches.
6. Oh, but the letter writer! Help her! She has a problem. What is wrong with me that I have prioritized the man's tale of woe and not her discomfiture?
Mga Post
53 komento:
Has anything more blatantly fake ever been rendering in ink? Those Penthouse amputee porn letters come readily to mind.
Maybe it was Graham Platner, writing campaign speeches. Living in a storage unit is illegal, and the business could lose its license by allowing it. They are normally hyper vigilant about this kind of thing.
In my tony rich people community there’s a citadel storage unit place. According to the manager re one of my neighbors, his wife refused to let him hang his game trophies deer moose elk in the new house so he bought a storage unit and turned it into a man cave with leather chairs and stuff. He shows up regularly opens up the garage door, steps in and shuts it behind him…
citadel has public restrooms down the hall…
Just inform the management. Storage rooms are not to be used as apartments.
Interesting that the writer makes it all about her, and her feelings. Hello? There's a man who's poor and obviously mentally ill. He needs help. He shouldn't be living in a storage unit, he should be getting medical care and other assistance.
Game trophies and taxidermied animals smell like death. And then the bugs and bacteria arrive. I've seen (smelled) animal head horror shows in "rent a stall" antique shops. Very old fur coats and leather goods also smell like death and can decay to slimy mush if they get moist.
And I'm sure being a NYT's writer, she supports open borders and feels moral about that. Yeah, lets let any mentally ill or unemployable misfit (from anywhere in the world) come here. Come on in poor, crazy people! The waters fine. Just don't scare well-to-do ladies visiting their storage units.
It seems like the only reason to report this situation to the NYT Ethicist rather than to the building super, is that one is more interested in reading one's prose and other's commentary than in actually solving a problem. BTW, what did the Ethicist have to say about it?
"Oh, but the letter writer! Help her! She has a problem..."
And the problem is her writing, which is miserable to the nth degree. Too much detail. Cup noodles? Yellow liquid? If it's urine you're referring to, write U-R-I-N-E. We have a word for it. If orthography is a problem, try P-I-S-S. Yellow liquid. Egad, it's a bit late in history to use blue stocking circumlocutions.
The inevitable twist...he IS the manager!
Call the "Storage Wars" producer; ask if they'd like to auction it off.
How about, I don't know, informing the management of the storage facility rather than writing to the NYT?
If he's there every time she goes to the storage unit (How often does she do that? Why?) then, yeah, he's living there. (Unless, of course, she made the whole thing up, which seems likely).
Maybe just find another storage unit.
"BTW, what did the Ethicist have to say about it?"
Nothing ethically sound, that's a given.
What is he writing in there?
"And the problem is her writing, which is miserable to the nth degree. Too much detail. Cup noodles? Yellow liquid? If it's urine you're referring to, write U-R-I-N-E."
I don't think "yellow liquid" is more detailed than "urine." It is following a rule against saying what you don't know. The reader must make the final leap. The letter is an effort to be scrupulous about what she has witnessed, so it reports the evidence that she was able to gain. Likewise, she doesn't say the man was masturbating. She says that she jump to a conclusion."
The writing puts us in her position. It's writing in the first person. You want her to take up the authority of a fiction writer writing in the third person.
NYT having an "ethicist" is like Auschwitz having a "Hebrew Leisure events coordinator. "
Breezy beat me to it. Just move. Or first tell the business owner/manager what you are concerned about, and if like Aggie suggests (and NY cares about it at all) they must get rid of them; problem solved. If not, then more reason to move and take your business elsewhere.
Ethics are pretty clear; just like the man wants his privacy and closes the curtain, you want yours for your stored stuff. Most people feel uncomfortable when someone is watching them store their valuables in a place where they intend to leave them unattended for a long period of time.
My first thought was that he's a writer. Perhaps very dedicated to a craft he isn't very good at, which is why he can't pay real rent. But more likely he's mentally ill and writing his manifesto.
My second thought was that he might have been good company as she sorted through her stuff, but for his rudeness at pulling down the curtain when she approached. That's a hostile act.
My third thought was that he would do better defending his privacy if he closed the door instead of pulling down a curtain. But maybe he's not really very private. Maybe he just doesn't like her.
"BTW, what did the Ethicist have to say about it?"
That could have been my #6 paragraph: I didn't care, even after I read it. What do you think he said? That's pretty much what he said. I think.
Okay, I went back to it. She was advised to ask for a different storage unit in the facility because that would be "humane" and "most likely to preserve your peace of mind."
She's told that if the man made her "feel threatened," she could do something more, and yet she obviously does feel threatened. She's advised to squelch her own natural fear for the sake of the poor man.
Does she feel safe when she is there? Does she value what she is storing because there is the risk of losing it in a fire? Is she comfortable making that valuation for everybody else storing things there? Does she have any concern about diseases which may breeding there?
Seems no one's in the mood for rasslin' with ethical quandaries.
“semi-used roll of toilet paper” - there’s an image for the imagination.
Writing to the New York Times ethicist doesn’t meet one of the elements of being a Karen. Reporting to the manager does, but it has long been the rule that writing to the New York Times does not.
I don't think 'yellow liquid' is more detailed than 'urine.' It is following a rule against saying what you don't know."
And what about that five-gallon bucket... did the letter writer measure its capacity? And the cup noodles, did she sample the barefoot scribbler's meager lunch? She chose yellow liquid not out of compliance with a seldom observed rule, it was cheeky padding. The entire focus of the letter was a man, evidently down on his luck, living a storage unit. Anyone living needs to piss, consequently the sight of the yellow liquid confirms he's spending a substantial potion of the day in that cramped space. But why the jar? Why not a bucket? Because buckets aren't transparent. It had to be a jar to suit the narrative.
Ann Althouse said...She's advised to squelch her own natural fear for the sake of the poor man.
The Times Ethicist is often pretty unethical.
Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
Storage units have a long history on the big and small screen, including Citizen Kane, Seinfeld, Breaking Bad, and Girls.
The writing puts us in her position. It's writing in the first person. You want her to take up the authority of a fiction writer writing in the third person.
No. I want her to write like she isn't concocting a lie, which she is.
Why should she ask for a different storage unit? She's perfectly happy with hers, and she's just redecorated. That's the real plot twist: She doesn't like her neighbor.
Yellow liquid = lemonade stand in a low traffic location.
Where is the problem? A normal person would go to the manager and politely say "There is a man who looks like he is living in Unit 4. Is he?" The manager will either say the man's okay or that he'll check it out. Either way, the problem is solved. Only a NY Times reader would turn this into a major issue.
Ocean: “ The waters fine. Just don't scare well-to-do ladies visiting their storage units.”
Yes it could be worse. He could be in a Section 8 apartment across the hall from the one she pays $5K/month for. CC, JSM
"Rhythmic squelching" sound could describe a well lubricated personal hand massage.
There was a short-lived TV series called "Little Voice," created by singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, about an aspiring young musician in New York City. The character used her storage unit as a place to write songs late at night. It seemed incredibly dangerous -- but this was the sort of show that depicted NYC as a clean, uncrowded place with street musicians on every corner, so nothing really bad ever seemed to happen.
She writes a letter which will do no good (except entertain AA's readers) but doesn't complain to the storage place's management which might resolve the issue?
You all need to get better at recognizing LLM responses.
Someone typed in maybe 20 words to a prompt and didn’t read the results.
This is a very typical result from an LLM when someone tries to use it without effort or context.
There was no woman and no man sitting on a bucket.
Those were all details added by the LLM.
Complain and then get told she doesn't told that she deserves consideration for the fact that she presumptuously misgendered the tenant.
The lady who wrote "Waitress" leased an East Village apartment to write, and was killed there by an illegal Ecuadorian construction worker. Given that it was 2006, her widower sued the building and construction firm for hiring such a dangerous person. But even in 2006, the NYC courts dismissed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Shelly
CC, JSM
I know things are sort of abnormal nowadays. But since all seems the same in my neighborhood, I harbor the thought that really, it is social media that makes the world look totally out of kilter. Cameras everywhere, 99% instant communication of every weird thing, Democrats who really are insane… Makes one wonder if there is any normality anymore.
And AI that generates photos, stories, mostly fabricated and lies. Wow! How far will it go?
When MIT closed Cambridge's Metropolitan Storage Warehouse--across the street from the campus--in a misguided attempt to turn it into student housing (they hadn't done their due diligence about the structure's suitability for the conversion), there was a bit of a kerfuffle. Not that anyone was living there, necessarily, but not everyone used the units for storage: offices, practice spaces, etc. As a nice quiet private space to write? Why not?
john mosby said...
"The lady who wrote "Waitress" leased an East Village apartment to write, and was killed there by an illegal Ecuadorian construction worker."
I heard about this recently, and my browser history says I've read the article. It must have been mentioned by someone else in another reference.
I am just a woman so my experience with this sort of thing is limited, but since when is masturbating rhythmically squelchy? Seems pretty noiseless on the action to me...
“And what about that five-gallon bucket...”
In the industry it’s known as a “pail”, not a “bucket.”
"In the industry it’s known as a 'pail', not a 'bucket.'"
The industry is beyond the pale.
I am curious as to how much time and how often she goes to her own storage unit. I smelled bullshite. A writer looking for an offbeat topic
I know people who have lived in their storage units, including the storage place I used, and one guy I got to know pretty well after the fact. He met his future wife while he was living in the unit. They'd been married for 15 years and had 3 kids by the time I met him.
And for those wondering about this question:
"But why the jar? Why not a bucket? Because buckets aren't transparent."
No. The reason is that a jar of urine can be sealed securely then easily tossed in the trash and no one is the wiser. A 5 gallon bucket full of piss smells powerfully vile and would make the air in the unit putrid, and then you have to find a place to dump it, and after a few dumps that area is going to smell like a cesspool. The manager is going to see you lugging the piss bucket and dumping it, then investigate and smell it, and then throw you out immediately. Better to sit on the bucket and piss in the jar.
The NYT's "ethicist" is Kwame Anthony Appiah. Yale just saw fit to give the guy an honorary degree. It's as if Yale were trying to induce involuntary eye rolling with this year's crop of honorary degrees.
At our local library, a male librarian apparently wished to attract the romantic attention of a female librarian. So after closing, he undressed and approached her nude. She rebuffed him. The janitor found him upset and still nude in a workroom. No call to police, no charges filed, but city administration has since revised the HR rules to include instructions for how to deal with a nude employee encountered on city property in an area not normally attending without clothes. Maybe city administrator contacted NYT's ethicist for best way to handle this problem. New instructions seem complicated.
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