The Omniscient Omtubsman: Justin Douglas Soiled the Tub

Justin Douglas is a jerk. I once heard an anecdote that he invited his whole cross country team over to dinner while he was still in high school for a nice dinner and tricked the whole team into eating dog food. Why would he do such a thing? Because Justin Douglas is the type of guy that looks like he'd be very nice and mild-mannered but actually, underneath his polite exterior, is just a jerk who revels in screwing with people.

Thus, when Justin Douglas first proposed making "Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil" the theme for last week I wasn't really all that surprised. It just supported my working thesis that Justin Douglas is a jerk. For those who aren't in the Tub's inner circle, our internal communications take the form of long email chains among the contributors. The email chain that notified the other contributors that Knut Hamsun's opus would be our topic came with the subject "next week's theme: knut hamsun's nobel prize winning novel "The Growth of the Soil" from Justin Douglas, with no text in the body of the email. What followed was a chain of 27 emails expressing various levels of disgust, confusion and shockingly, some support. But the common theme was disbelief. Would a tubtributor really pick such an arcane topic that many of the Tub's contributors had never even heard of the subject of their writing? Yes, as confirmed by Justin Douglas in two subsequent emails:

Email #15: "OK. So I was originally just sending out this theme announcement with the full intention of cheesing everybody off and then emailing the group a half hour later and saying "just kidding, the theme is really X" where X would be some theme that everybody would be happy with.

BUT i think that this could be hilarious."

and then

Email #27: "the new theme is:

Knut Hamsun's Nobel Prize-Winning Novel "Growth of the Soil"

You'll note that the new theme is hyphenated, properly capitalized, and has the word "the" removed from the title of the book (it is supposed to be "growth of the soil" not "THE growth of the soil").

wuv
woo"

If you count yourself as someone who did not particularly appreciate last week's theme and the machinations of Mr. Douglas, then there are two ways to view what transpired through last week's theme selection process. The first was that it was a horrible abuse of the theme selection process. One renegade tubtributor intending to "chees[e] everybody off" was able to hijack the blog for the week, perhaps in part due to the collective action problems of a partially disaggregated silent majority. That's bad.

On the other hand, if our processes are designed to fiercely protect minority-viewpoints then Mr. Douglas's social experiment is nothing less than an enthusiastic affirmation of that principle. What interest could be more persecuted than admiration for the languid prose of a dead racialist? Does last week's theme mean that D.C. will now feel empowered to choose "Textiles of the early Ming Dynasty" when his selection week rolls around, now being secure that his as-of-yet secret love for East Asian fabrics will not be dismissed by a tyrannical majority?

Man, I hope not. Justin, our blog has enough readership issues as is, thank you, so we don't need you inspiring other people with weird tastes to come crawling out of the woodwork. This is a plea to members of the tub: pick topics that people living in the early 21st century are likely to at least recognize and possibly think are interesting. While we made a valiant effort last week, things should not and cannot go on like this. As the public's representative to the Tubbing community, I urge you to think of the readers.

The Omtubsman discovers another side of the Tub

Moving forward, I plan to address what I believe has been a gaping hole in the first two Omtubsman columns: my failure to acknowledge a large number of our weekly columns. This omission has extended to Reasonable Doubt, YouTub, Shiny Happy Caitlar and Emily's Trivia Quiz . While there are several reasons why I have not done so, I must shamefully admit that the most significant reason is because I have heretofore had a shocking lack of journalistic chutzpah. I had pre-existing personal relationships with many of the tubtributors dating back to a time when the internet consisted mainly of a series of tubes and AOL chatrooms, and therefore I felt more comfortable critiquing their columns. For example, when I tell KELLYq that her column this week was the worst piece of garbage I'd ever seen on the internet, I know that she won't take that too personally because I probably told her over a decade ago that her life would be an utter failure and that she would die friendless and alone. Comparatively, the criticism seems mild (for the record, I thought your convo with Howie was hilarious and I actually think your funeral will be very well-attended, KELLYq. That was merely an illustration). But I had no similar relationship with D.C., Emily and Caitlar. I was acquainted with Phylan, but not sufficiently so to really feel comfortable slamming him. Therefore, I felt awkward about telling Caitlar that her column this week was the worst piece of garbage I'd ever seen on the internet (in actuality, I only read the beginning of your column this week because I didn't want you to spoil what happened on some of the shows of the list. So, consider this notice of my intent scrutinize your column with an eagle eye next week.)

But the rest of you are on the hook this week. D.C. should be accustomed to being randomly forced to answer to vaguely authoritative figures, seeing as he just finished 1L year. First off, congrats. Your life will only get easier for the next two years, that is, unless you want to do something crazy like clerk for a Supreme Court Justice, in which case your life will be ridiculously difficult from here on out. Second, though, we're happy to have you back but we also expect some more commitment to the blog. The last two weeks have been difficult due to technical difficulties ( i.e. D.C. forgot what day it was two weeks ago and last week Typepad ate his entry). However, I think we all appreciated your law school zoo post, which clearly took a little more time. I think that I speak for the community when I say we would appreciate that extra effort, especially now that your schedule has eased up.

Emily, I think that you had a really good idea this week but because you probably were racing off to the beach it wasn't all it could have been. I echo Lauren's statement that your reference to Joe Dirt was the best dirt-related film reference par excellence. But, in the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit I've seen Joe Dirt three separate times. (I know my credibility just bottomed out. The first time I watched I thought it was the longest 90 minutes ever put on film, but shockingly enough I would say that it does tend to age well, not unlike a fine wine.) But how in your rap reference did you miss referring to derrty Nelly? He's self-proclaimed derrtiest rapper around. It was an embarrassing omission on your part.

But, you did substantially redeem yourself with the yogurt question. There are ideal two types of trivia questions, and yours is a great example of the latter ideal type. The former type, however, is the type of question that makes you feel smart. An example would be "What political scandal almost took down Warren Harding's administration in the early 1920s?" Now most reasonably educated people would be able to answer "The Teapot Dome scandal" and therefore feel somewhat satisfied that they correctly identified an early-20th scandal concerning a relatively obscure U.S. President. Yet, of course, this masks the fact that almost few people could tell you much about the substance of that scandal, and what, if anything, was done to prevent similar scandals from recurring. It also overlooks the fact that it's not like in answering that question most people are going through a whole list of early 20th century political scandals dismissing them only to arrive at the correct answer ( e.g. Was it the Horse & Barley scandal? No, that was Coolidge, you idiot!), and the only reason you remember it is because it had a funny name. All of a sudden, you're not feeling as smart anymore, are you?

No, your yogurt question was another type altogether. This is the second ideal type of question wherein the question itself is very interesting and you want to learn the answer not to show how smart you already are, but to show smart you are in the future. With your question, I had no idea as I was reading through the possible answers which one was correct. For example, had the answer been "b" (yogurt that won't spoil for months without refrigeration) I would have had no reason to doubt it, and I probably would have passed on that information at some point in a conversation that went something like this:

Vague Acquaintance X: Some of the advances they are making in food science these days are truly amazing.
Omtubsman: Yeah, I know. Did you here they invented a type of yogurt that won't spoil for months without refrigeration.
Vague Acquaintance X: Really? Wow. (Feigning a level of vague interest).
Omtubsman: It's true. (Appreciating the feigned interest, believing it to be real).

But, instead, the conversation will apparently go like this:

Vague Acquaintance X: Some of the advances they are making to combat AIDS are truly amazing.
Omtubsman: Yeah, I know. Did you here they invented a type of yogurt that can't help prevent the transmission of HIV?
Vague Acquaintance X: Really? Wow. (Probably actually somewhat interested, but not to the degree expressed).
Omtubsman: It's true.(Thinking he's really knocked VAX's socks off. Feeling self-satisfied).

So, Emily, nice job making me look somewhat less like a chump somewhere in the future.

Column of the Week

If Phylan's still reading by now, he probably already knows that he's receiving the column of the week this week because I mentioned above that I was going to write about YouTub and hadn't until now. But in case he got bored earlier and skipped down to here: Congralutations, Phylan, you earned the column of the week. Although I think you've posted funnier videos on YouTub in the past, you're receiving this award because you showed a keen awareness of the Tub's needs this week. For those of us we did not necessarily agree with the theme selection for the week, our blood boiled hotter and hotter as the week went on as we had to continually read about the contributions of Knut Hamsun to the world of literature. By Thursday morning we were on there verge of committing numerous felonies against Justin Douglas, when your adorable videos of Eisbar Knut quelled the rage in our hearts.

You also get credit for correctly mocking two Germanic groups that are the official targets of Tubrage: Germans and Norwegians. For the record, we like Danes and Swedes, but loathe Germans, Norwegians and Finns. We feel neutral toward Icelanders.

Finally, your music video about Knut is a great find and your analysis of its questionably fun-loving nature is spot-on.

Post Script:

Hopefully, Justin Douglas will not take offense at this column. Actually, I thought he wrote the best column that directly related to the theme. 

The Omniscient Omtubsman runs Wednesday afternoons on the Bathtub.

Comments

[Buddy Love]

Just rememberz another point: For those who aren't in the Tub's inner circle, the theme has a lot to do with readership.

Last week's theme was the sucksorz. And I barely read anything.

(How was that, q?)

[Inactive account]

I agree with Mr. Love; someone who doesn't have the guts to put his picture on the Tub shouldn't be choosing such bizarre themes.

[Lauren]

I'm intrigued to hear the layman perspexxtive, B-Love/Gorgz. As editor, I loved last week's theme because it made everyone be creative and as a result, we saw a variety of offshoots of the theme: dirt, polar bears, TV finales, etc.

What I am curious to know is if it is that variety that you did not appreciate, or if it's more that you found the theme itself to be so prohibitively unfavorable that it precluded your interest in reading at all?

[Inactive account]

Actually, I didn't dislike the theme as much as Mr. Love did. It was kind of interesting, but I hope a situation like this doesn't happen too often. I was also pissed off about the Swedish/Norwegian confusion.

[Inactive account]

Also: Was this a publicity stunt for this blog?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070530/ap_on_re_as/odd_gold_tub_stolen_1

[Buddy Love]

Last week's theme blew because few had any personal experience related to it. As such, the article topics became SUPER tangential.

I'm more interested in experiences or opinions based on a central idea. Not just random thoughts that are put down just because someone has nothing to say on a topic.

[The Mayor]

I would argue, Buddy Love, that last week's theme would've sucked a whole lot more if all of us bloggers DID have personal experience related to Growth of the Soil.

[somejerk]

I agree with Mr. Love and Ms. Mayor- random, boring inside-jokey whatnot does not make for good reading. I know most of the readers of this blog are its bloggers, but come on- a totally inward focus makes it read like something less appropriate for a 'blog' and more appropriate for 'a series of emails among friends'. Moving on- while this post is always well written and potentially funny, it's pretty boring in that it is a blog about a blog; this seems a small step a way from 'thebathtub: fanfiction'.

[justin]

First of all, I apologize for getting some poo in the tub. My intent with last week's theme was to pick a theme that was intrinsically absurd and permitted a great deal of flexibility.

I thought that the contrast between our normally nebulous and general themes and a very specific and obscure theme would be funny in itself. I still think it is, but I recognize that my sense of humor is kind of weird.

For what it's worth, tubtributors could (and did) write about everything from polar bears to patagonia to bullshitting essays. I appreciate the effort that everybody put into making proverbial lemonade out of metaphorical lemons (especially Tori, who I think may have actually read the book real fast before friday rolled around).

Anyway, I wasn't trying to make it into a week of navel-gazing, and I'm sorry if it turned out that way and consequently chapped some asses.

Rest assured, this discussion has made me seriously reconsider my plan to pick "solipsism" as the theme next time it's my turn.

[Tori]

Remember that time I sent out an e-mail that said, "Change the theme, Justin"?
And remember how ZERO PEOPLE agreed with me?
And remember how, after that, I actually wrote about the f'n book and everyone else talked about a POLAR BEAR?

[Tori]

For the record, I absolutely did not read the book. I'd planned on writing about how I'm really good at speaking authoritatively about books I haven't read, but then Lauren sort of stole that, so instead I wrote a post wherein I spoke authoritatively about a book I hadn't read.

[Inactive account]

The Omtubsman is exceeding all of my expectations. Well done.

[HotSauce]

for what it's worth...
i enjoyed the theme choice last week, i thought it brought out the creative juices of all the writers. while i dont think such a theme should be the norm, it is interesting that a specific theme had the widest array of topics. huzzah to justin

[Phylan]

Woooootles

Also, your concern is appreciated but unnecessary - I often allow casual acquaintances to slam me.

[EmGusk]

and i liked what you had to say about my post! yay bacteria

[Tori]

Seriously Em, that was a really good fact. I actually eat a lot of yogurt, so I'm totally going to go have lots of casual sex now, knowing my chance of acquiring HIV is slightly lower than it would otherwise be. Maybe I'll share some needles too. Oh man, my life is about to get so good.

[Howie Boyd]

Dear Teletubbies - as the person responsible for bringing you last week's topic, I guess I am sorry. Mr. Douglas might have telegraphed your collective feelings to me with his facial expression on the day I gave him his "xmas present" - a copy of Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil. At least he read it and never started whining to me. I maintain he's a very good human being, dispite his clanky ways