Everybody poops

I watch a lot of Syfy channel ghost hunting programs - they're like Big Macs for my brain - sate my hunger for weird shit and leave me hungry to research more. They are also hilarious. In an attempt to entice viewers with spooky sightings they approach obviously fabricated or imagined stories with a faux-journalistic earnestness that belittles any genuine unexplained phenomena. I have a pretty vivid imagination - I can scare myself shitless looking into an empty room, or out of a pitch black window - telling me that a bit of dust is a ghostly orb just makes me laugh.

The most interesting thing for me about the old houses, asylums and ghost towns they explore is that, unlike a beautifully curated Museum, you are actually in the space occupied by humans like you, who, not long ago, did normal things until one day everyone was gone. You can actually FEEL the history of the place. Intoxicating? Yes. Arousing? I'm not going to confirm of deny that.

Poop joke. http://www.gifbay.com/gif/babypowder_fart-11945/

While on a school visit to Ostia Antica many moons ago my hilariously inappropriate father took a photo of himself having an imaginary poop on one of the ancient communal lavs. Hilarious, yes. I despair of a time that I will ever not find poop jokes hilarious. But there is an additional, more human element. Its hard to imagine the Romans (those people from I, Claudius who talk funny, have orgies and whatnot) as real people. They are only ever presented to us in scripted scenes for our entertainment or through the flat words of translated literature written by wealthy men. My dad's comedy turn flattened the pages of the history books and (I'm not proud of this trite little description) brought the Romans to life. Urgh. That felt so cheesy, and its so overused it doesn't really convey the actual feeling of sitting on a slate toilet seat making fart noises where, centuries ago, another human who looked and moved and sounded like my dad did exactly the same.

The beauty of the Museum or the tv interpretation is that they create a narrative to draw us into the world of the artifact, event or place and give us some context. And it really works - watching the kids at London Transport Museum engage with the talking cockney horses drawing a tram you can see they are loving a bit of historical narrative. But, watching the grown-ups sit inside a real steam-pulled locomotive as it ploughs through London's Underground tunnels as it did exactly 150 years previous is an entirely different sensation. The narrative of history is flattened, and all at once you are sat next to the annoying know-it-all with BO trying to talk to you while you desperately try and catch the eye of the surprisingly attractive woman in the seat opposite. And you know thats EXACTLY what happened every day in this exact same coach amongst people living under Queen Victoria and wearing different clothes, but basically BEING the same as us.

Now, take that flattening of the historical narrative and reapply it to a freaking ghost town, where these people who pooped and picked black bogies out of their noses (you think London is a bit dirty now, try traveling on a steam train through the underground, or working in a coal mine) and fantasized about the girl behind the counter in the local shop and swore and (mostly) got drunk had a sudden thing change everything forever. Its a very humbling sensation.

Thats why I love ghost towns, and why I cannot wait to start visiting some of the gold rush towns around California, like Bodie. And why I love reading and looking at the pictures that urban explorers post of cities like Kolmanskop in Namibia, Hashima in Japan and Pripyat. Images of Kowloon Walled City (before it was demolished) are spooky in the normal sense (is that Slender Man peering through the tattered blinds??) but are also incredible historical, anthropological, geographical, meteorical and political statements desperate to be explored.

Its for all these reasons that I beg that owners of old properties that offer tours stop making up spooky stories about their cash cows just to create a buzz (I'm looking at you, Winchester Mystery House. I love that place, but when you find out that much of the spooky stuff was made up mere weeks after the death of the old lady to attract nosy locals who have been shelling out a few dollars a time to take a tour of the fascinating building ever since, it sort of leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Have I just been played? Focus on the incredible 1906 earthquake damage, or why the old porch is now deep in the heart of the house, or why the steps are all 2 inches tall, or the fascinatingly dark dining room, which was quite normal at the time. And it sounds like this place has taken a similar tourist-y turn. Very entrepreneurial, but at some point you have to start thinking about other people and not just your own coffers. Preservation, not exploitation).


Alcatraz has got this down pretty well - its history is surprisingly recent, meaning that they were able to have actual inmates narrate the audio guide, but that aside they managed to give an incredible picture of the actual life on the Island. Kids playing in the streets, no-one locking their doors, regular visits to the mainland.

Alcatraz cell with toilet.

Tell the real story of the building and the people that lived there. Let us learn from our mistakes (I've yet to come across a ghost town that wasn't created by some catastrophic human act - Picher, Oklahoma, Okuma, Fukushima and Oradour-sur-Glane, France -  or failure to realize the natural catastrophe waiting to occur - Pompeii, Italy, Plymouth, Montserrat or Deception Island, Antarctica). And, why not  do so with a little humor. Everyone loves a good poop joke - as Willy Shakespeare demonstrates, humor and tragedy are excellent bedfellows.