Tub Turtle

His bathtub had a turtle inside it. The turtle was no particular color.

The turtle sat in tepid water. Pale baby squid drifted around the turtle, chirping softly. The turtle sat.

The door opened.

In stepped the man. He carried a tape recorder in one hand.

"I've finally got it figured out," he said to the turtle. "The musical idea that will finally get me recognized as a master artist."

He pressed a button on his tape recorder. HE sat on the bathroom floor. He pressed another button, and he started banging against the side of the toilet with the brick, producing a hollow echoing sound. Then, he reached in to the bowl and sloshed the water with his hand.

He stopped the tape.

"I'm going to loop that recording in slow motion, and have it repeat over and over again, growing gradually slower each time, for 73 minutes. It'll be heralded as a revolution of music and artistic achievement."

The turtle said, "What? That's dumb. You're just screwing around in your bathroom. You can't just take random crap and call it art. It's meaningless. People listen to music to seek out certain patterns of organized sound. They're looking for something they can connect to in some meaningful way. Not just random looping noises of a brick hitting a toilet. Nonsense is not art. Randomness, absurdity, deconstruction of artistic conventions...it will never have any value."

The man blinked dolefully. "So where does that leave you and I, my turtle friend?"

"What?"

"If randomness and absurdity has no value...if order is all that gives meaning...then you and I are worthless. We're characters in a fictional world. I'm a man talking to a turtle while sitting on a bathroom floor. You're a colorless turtle in a tub full of chirping squid. If my toilet-clanging is worthless, then you and I are equally so."

The turtle said, "I don't think we are." The squid were now swimming a circle, their chirps soft and soothing.

"The meaning of life isn't important. Any more than the meaning of this brick is important. What's important is that it's there and we can experience it. My toilet art...reminds us that the random absurdity of our lives is beautiful in its lack of predictable structure. Almost as beautiful as a brick repeatedly crashing in to a toilet."

Several months later, a modern classical album was released entitled "Poo Poo Music." The album consisted of a 73 minute looped recording. It sold 3 copies and was illegally downloaded an additional 145 times, making it a smash hit by experimental music standards.

The edge of the cd glimmered like transluscent, chirping squid--even now, completing a slow, reliable, predictable and structured orbit.