ROGER'S DIARY OF THE END TIMES: Nawbany is losing the Toilet Race to the Japanese.

As the hippie rock band once observed, we have all been here before.

Revisiting "Pissoirs for the People" -- or, will there be public restrooms in the new luxury Reisz complex, and if so, how much will Team Gahan charge us to use them?

New Albany's new $15 million city hall, which is taking far longer to complete than expected, is a genuine sign of the end times before we even begin to consider Jeff Gahan's gold-plated fixtures.

One thing's for sure: Deaf might be okay with losing the toilet race to some confusing Asian country of which he's blissfully unaware, BUT THAT HORRID POSEUR MIKE MOORE IS ANOTHER STORY ENTIRELY.

We can only hope the shipment of superior Japanese toilet technology eludes the coronavirus cordon.

Why America Is Losing The Toilet Race

I just got back from my first trip to Japan, and I'm now in love with the country. The ramen, yakitori and sushi. The gorgeous volcanoes. The fascinating people and culture. But of all the things I fell in love with, there's one that I can't stop thinking about: the toilets.

Japanese toilets are marvels of technological innovation. They have integrated bidets, which squirt water to clean your private parts. They have dryers and heated seats. They use water efficiently, clean themselves and deodorize the air, so bathrooms actually smell good. They have white noise machines, so you can fill your stall with the sound of rain for relaxation and privacy. Some even have built-in night lights and music players. It's all customizable and controlled by electronic buttons on a panel next to your seat.

Documentary: "The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima."

During the course of a typical year, I'll watch only a handful of movies, perhaps one every other month. Generally speaking, I avoid Hollywood like the plague; American mass market movies rank right up there with mass market beer on the scale of senselessness.

Perhaps an indie film here and there, and some foreign productions.

Conversely, since Thanksgiving, my playlist has included somewhere around 25 documentaries, maybe more, many of them older and yet still vital. In my perfect world, I'd pay a subscription fee to choose among documentaries alone. Until then, there's always YouTube.

When I was a kid, we got Life magazine, and I dimly recall reading the story of Yukio Mishima's ritualistic suicide, accompanied by a black and white photo -- perhaps of the author, though it might have been the aftermath. At any rate, the memory has remained dormant until yesterday, when I stumbled across this documentary.

The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima - 1985 - BBC - Arena - documentary

Japanese culture is a topic of such depth, and my ignorance about it so vast, that any sage pronouncements from me would be superfluous. It's a compelling 55 minutes.

At Wikipedia:

Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫 Mishima Yukio?) is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威 Hiraoka Kimitake?, January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, and film director. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century; he was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was poised to win the prize in 1968 although lost the award to his fellow countryman Yasunari Kawabata, presumably because of his radical right-wing activities. His avant-garde work displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change. He is also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état attempt, known as the "Mishima Incident".