From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Subject: Re: Bad Places to have Good Ideas
Originator: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:49:18 GMT
Organization: Dobonia


In article <1992Jul28.212451.13446@midway.uchicago.edu>, elle@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) writes:
|v148rb5b@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (COLLIN MCCULLEY) writes:
|>>I couldn't get out yet, I was still all soapy, and there were a few
|>>parts which I hadn't done yet. I rushed through the shower as fast as
|>>I could, then jumped out and dried myself quickly. I was able to get
|>>to a pen and my notebook in time to write down all the ideas I had had
|>>while in the shower, but it was a close thing. 
|>
|>Have you considered purchasing for yourself a waterproof tape
|>recorder, or at least one that's moisture resistant so you can leave
|>it on the bathroom countertop?  ...  When I get a musical idea while
|>tooling away at the keyboard, as often as not I forget it by the next
|>time if it isn't recorded.  Its the same with my writing ideas,
|>although until now I haven't thought about the solution.
|
|Okay, this gives me the opening to ask something I've been wondering
|for years:  *is* there such a thing as a "waterproof tape recorder" for
|use in such situations, with minimal risk of electrocution?  (I'd prefer
|one useable _in_ the shower, rather than next to it.)  
|
|I'd planned to buy one years ago as a graduation gift for my SO, a
|songwriter, but audio shops assured me that there was no such beast --
|and if there were, it would be really expensive and not in their
|inventories.  True?  False?
|
|I'd like to follow up on this, as my SO and I could _both_ use one.
|(Note that I'm crossposting between misc.writing and rec.music.makers.)

Well, given that I once saw Ironing Board Sam play a synthesiser
underwater at the New Orleans Jazz Fest by the simple expedient of
wrapping it up in a heavy-duty plastic bag, I'm sure you could
convert any small battery-powered recorder for shower usage.

The microphone presents a problem, because you don't want to muffle it,
but there's a couple of possibilities there--I once saw a speaker at
Boston University pop a condom over a PA mike without unduly
muffling the sound, as a demonstration of how "sensitive" condoms really
are.  I'm also pretty sure that if your recorder has a built-in electret 
mike, like the little dictation recorders do, that any thin plastic 
stretched tight over the grille would work fine.  In fact, you might be
able to get the entire recorder into a latex balloon, with a little
ingenuity.  Try one of those gift shops that put teddy bears and Easter
baskets and such into balloons if you can't manage to stretch it
open far enough yourself.

But, alas, the chief problems I foresee are the noise of the shower
and the acoustics of the shower enclosure.  To filter out white
noise takes some pretty sophisticated processing, I believe.  

Why don't you write your ideas in grease pencil on the walls of the
shower itself?  Should scrub off later with a good cleanser, but be
impervious to the shower water.  Certainly a dive shop could supply
you with the proper underwater writing implement.
-- 
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
        Hellenic poet of the same name.  |