Bathtub Art

Take a trip on over to the Bathtub Art Museum and take a look at some of the works by their artists. Of course, if you have a bathtub, you have to have a radio in the bathtub, right?

A lot going on in this tub! One end has feet and a head, the other a piano. In the tub is a baby and a monster type creature. Also a radio playing Sunny 102.71– all the hits, and shampoo with actual pine branches and needles. I would hope Barbara Kruger knows what this is all about!Pet Eye Remover on Paper. 9 x 11.5 in. 2003.

Family Ties

 

If a mother's job tends towards nuturing the children, a father's job tends toward getting the little ones ready for the day they leave the nest. Part of that job is ensuring they have heard all of the cautionary tales. The radio in the bathtub tale is on the must-hear list. In this family, the father, an FBI agent, does his part to reduce the likelihood of accidental death by radio in the bathtub.

Always wear a tie clip to an autopsy: that was exactly the kind of thing my father would say, succinct and often gruesome, a truth you did not doubt but hoped never to test. He had an abundant supply of vivid cautionary tales about why we should not dangle our arms out the car window, or play in sand piles, or keep a radio by the bathtub. One of his great hobbies was the perusal of garage sales; it was his belief that the best bargains were often to be had after a grisly and premature death. He once bought an outboard motor that, we were told, had bisected its former owner, careless and young; when we took it out on the water, it thus did double-duty as a plaything and an admonition against play. Every tragedy leads to a discount.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/opinion/19conlon.html?ex=1276833600&en=3a5316699d91a447&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

illustration: http://web3.hku.hk/~souvenir/daao/web/accessories.htm

Don’t Forget to Not Bring Your Radio

Here’s another staple item from an electrical contractor site. A radio in the bathrooom is never too far away from the throughts of the electrical minded. But at least here they make the distinction between radios that are plugged in and radios that are not (or don’t need to be).

As far as electricity is concerned, the bathroom is possibly the most dangerous room in the house. Water is a very efficient conductor of electrical current which makes the combination of water and electricity potentially lethal.

There are special requirements for electrical installations in bathrooms, so it is essential to check whether your bathroom meets them. The consequences of an electric shock are potentially far more severe in a room containing a bath or shower as wet skin reduces the body’s resistance.Socket-outlets

• No socket-outlets, other than specially-designed outlets such as those for shavers, are permitted in bathrooms.

• Shaver units are not splash-proof, so although they are allowed in bathrooms, they must be positioned well away from the bath or shower. Avoid splashing them.

• Portable appliances such as hairdryers and plugged in radios must never be brought into a bathroom, even if they are plugged in outside the room. (Fixed hairdryers, with the hot air delivered through a flexible plastic pipe are permitted.)

http://www.niceic.org.uk/consumers/bathrooms.html (link now defunct)

illustration: http://www.dakotaelectric.com/safe_web/bath.jpg

A Tub Full of Laughs

Radio in the bathtub is a phrase that is often used to provoke amusement, in everything from low-camp movies to everyday conversation.

But is the thought of electrocution of a human being really funny? Why would we laugh?

There seems to be at least two reasons for dark humor:

• To commiserate with others on an undesirable situation (misery loves company)
• To put as much distance between us and the undesirable situation (it can’t happen to me)

Perhaps it’s the second possibility above that makes people find a radio in the bathtub to be amusing.

It could never happen to me: I have GFI on the outlets in my bathroom. I don’t have a radio (hairdryer / Roomba) in my bathroom. I don’t touch anything outside the tub when I’m taking a bath. My spouse loves me and would never do such a thing. I’m always careful. My plumbing and wiring are in good repair. I’m just not that stupid.

By laughing we declare that it can’t happen to us. The possibility is so miniscule we laugh at it … and it seems that much smaller, that much further away.

But what’s scary about the idea is that it is possible. It really could happen to us.

Every time we sit down for a warm soothing bath, tilt our head back, close our eyes, and relax: 

a split-second lapse in judgement, a pipe leaking on that hidden faulty wiring the last owner installed, a trusted partner with other arrangements in mind, a never-met cousin and a long-lost uncle who left the entire inheritance to you…

We’re always just a split-second away from the end. In a flash, it’s all over…

OK, relax. It is possible it could happen to you, it’s just not likely.

Have fun, but don’t laugh too hard.

And make sure the GFI works and there are no extensions cords too handy, OK?

illustration: http://www.warholprints.com/portfolio/Electric.chair.html

Sponge Bath

More fun in the tub, and yet another reminder that with modern technology, having a radio in the bathtub doesn’t necessarily mean tears!

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/sponge_bob_shower_radio.html

Electric Bath

In devising their name, an Australian band draws on the mystique of combining electricity and water in the bathtub. No radios needed as an intermediary in this case. Rejuvenation, indeed!

In a future post we’ll take another side trip and look at real electric baths in more detail and examine how they were used and what safety precautions were taken.

From the Lane Of Delights in Mel-Ben, The Electric Bath are an electro cybadelic buzz. Trance, experimental, noise and power bursts of cybarok, are mixed with primal energy deep from the heart of the underground. 

The Electric Bath, how did you come up with the name?
The Electric Bath was a medical devise used in ancient Melbourne (1890’s). It was used to recharge patients. We discovered pictures of it (pic left) in some Sacred Relic files. Some believe this is proof of robots existing in prehistoric times, as the bath would of killed mortals.

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cybafaer/web/cyb905/wr%20eb%20home.htm
 

False Answer

What better way to reinforce the existence of a phrase in the culture than to use it as a wrong answer on a multiple choice question? It draws upon the latent memories of the possibility of such  events, lending credence to the answer, while adding to the reader's memory yet another story involving a radio in the bathtub.

And what better website to do it than a psychology website?

3. The first reports that one can cause muscle movements by electrically stimulating the cerebral cortex came in the

• 1870's in research on dogs.
• 1920's in an experiment by John Watson on "little Albert".
• 1940's, when a biopsychologist accidentally dropped a radio in the bathtub while his wife was taking a bath.
• 1950's, when neurosurgeons used electrical current to treat cases of severe epilepsy.

http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/mcq/kalat1b.html

website: http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/ec/

illustration: http://plus.maths.org/issue19/features/butterworth/

A Figure of Speech

When a phrase becomes embedded in the culture it is often used as a figure of speech.

Radio in the Bathtub is often used to represent danger and sheer lunacy.

SECAUCUS — Honestly, sometimes you wonder how they’ve lived so long without accidentally walking into an airplane propeller, or sticking their tongues against a metal pole in midwinter and not figuring out any way to get loose before they freeze to death.

You know the type. Every minute of every day is a wonderful surprise to them. What’s the big orange thing in the sky? Why is my chest moving? What’s my name again?

We all have them in our lives. My newest one is named Les Kinsolving.

He is a syndicated writer and radio guy from Baltimore, and he invoked my name at the White House press briefing today, and promptly pulled the radio into the bathtub with him while trying to change the station.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7873141/

illustration: http://website.lineone.net/~figure_of_speech/Gallery.html

see also: http://www.figureofspeech.org.uk/