In honor of Word Water Day, we present the following, gorgeous infographic made by the friendly people over at http://www.ableskills.co.uk/ Enjoy!

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner

See the interactive version by Able Skills

Embed this on your site

<img src="http://www.ableskills.co.uk/plumbing-heroes/img/plumbing-heroes.jpg" alt="Plumbers are heroes"></br><a href="http://www.ableskills.co.uk/plumbing-heroes/">See the interactive version by plumbing instructors, Able Skills Ltd</a>

I know that for many of us on the East Coast, this has been a frightening and trying time. With all the talk about safe water, food and electricity, I am surprised by the lack of information about safe toileting.  Luckily, the friendly people at Portland PHLUSH are way ahead of us on this one and have even adapted their emergency toilet brochure for those reeling from Sandy’s aftermath.

You can view it as a JPG by clicking the images below.

For an easy-to read PDF teaching you how to make a twin-bucket emergency toilet, CLICK HERE.

While The Puru is stuck in Brooklyn, there are many of you in lower Manhattan and elsewhere who could help distribute this information. For a printable PDF that folds into a handy brochure, CLICK HERE.

For more information about emergency toilets, take a look at the resources put together by PHLUSH and the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management by CLICKING HERE.

Hope everyone is staying safe and warm. Peaceful pooping, be it in toilet or bucket.

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner

I hope you have been feeling balanced and regular as we transition into this autumn season.  It’s been over a month since we returned from the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival with the premiere of Eat $h*t: How Our Waste Can Save the World. We couldn’t have asked for a better reception.

We spread the message of bottom-up sustainability to hundreds of poopers in the audience, passed out thousands of postcards packed with important potty facts, and Scotland’s national newspaper, The Scotsman, praised us as “…the most important show on the fringe…ahead of its time.” Perhaps most importantly, there are now hundreds of people all over the world proudly sporting “I’m A Pooper!” pins.

There’s still a lot of work to do but, needless to say, we are happy poopers. And we’re not resting on our bums just yet. (See below for events happening this very week!)

Nov. 19^th is World Toilet Day in honor of the 2.6 billion people still living without safe toilets. Stay tuned for more information about a Big Squat in Times Square, a sanitation hackathon, and a one night only showing of Eat $h*t on Nov. 19^th. But that’s not all. We’ll soon be rolling out a new, easy-to-use website, a DVD of the Edinburgh production, potty songs for toddlers, and more.

In the meantime, join the poop crew Wed, Oct. 10 for GrowNYC’s 7^th Annual New Green City, FREE in Union Square from 10am-5pm. Come for the awesome workshops and locavore delicacies, stay for the infamous turd toss.

Thurs morning, Oct. 11, check out Skraptacular’s Earthfest, a district-wide event in celebration of our planet in Fort Tryon Park. The Puru will be teaching a workshop on waste consciousness you won’t soon forget…just follow your nose! (Skip to :45 in the video below to check out the last year’s event.)

Skraptacular! from Megan Paznik on Vimeo.

Peaceful pooping until then,

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner

There’s so much going on, I barely know where to begin! So let’s go in reverse order, from future to past, shall we?

Here goes…

As I write this, we’re less than 48 hours away from opening Eat $h*t: How Our Waste Can Save the World at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival.

What? Really?!

Yes. Really. The time has finally come.

You can Eat $h*t with us at 1pm from Aug. 2-27 at C venues – C nova in their delightful cabaret space. Reserve your place at the table today!

Submissions are due tonight, July 31, at midnight for the 2012 Golden Poo Awards. It’s a fun competition for short videos which, “tackle the issue(s) of sanitation and/or hygiene in a catchy, emotive, funny, sensational or ‘infectious’ way.”

Filmmaker Karina Mangu-Ward will be submitting this beautiful short about The POOP Project, featuring interviews with me and clips from Eat $h*t and a benefit performance for My Wife’s Ass, an important work about body liberation by Glenn Marla and Hana Malia.

I’m a Pooper and So Are You from Karina Mangu-Ward on Vimeo.

The Puru spent the last three days with MC FeeCee (aka Australian loo king Hamish Skermer) and the whole Pootopia crew, manning the eco-loos at Kendal Calling music festival.

Ever been to a festival/art fair/any event and been forced to use a porta potty? It’s not a pleasant experience. For anyone. Except flies.

Pootopia is the incredible alternative to the miserable status quo. Featuring friendly staff, great tunes, and clean, earth-friendly composting toilets that not only smell better but also feature a fantastic bottom breeze, Pootopia brings the user to true poo-phoria. There’s even a golden toilet with its own discoball, after-poo mints, photobooth and so much more!

I’ll hopefully get a chance to write more about Pootopia in the days to come, and even post some video. In the meantime, check out their Facebook page to learn more.

Thank you to all those who came out for our preview performances of Eat $h*t at 59E59′s East to Edinburgh festival! It was a great pleasure to perform for such packed, enthusiastic houses and we learned a TON about the show. We even garnered a great (if somewhat skeptical) review! Yay poop!

The Puru has been featured on the first episode of The Eclectic Esoteric, a new podcast by Jia H. Jung. It’s a wide-ranging conversation covering all things poop, and featuring a lot of behind the scenes details on the creation of Eat $h*t. I was really tired when we recorded it, which means less filter and more honesty for you! Plus my voice sounds really soft and sweet on the recording. Click the link above, or listen below.

Peaceful pooping until next time,

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner

Thank you so much for your support during our Indiegogo campaign to send Eat $h*t! How Our Waste Can Save the World, our new show, to the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. (If you didn’t get the chance to donate during the campaign, it’s not too late! You can still make an online donation through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas*. Tickets are now available for our run August 2-27 at C Venues Nova; reserve your space at the table today!

If you’re in New York, check out the show in previews before we jump the pond:

July 17 at 7pm and July 22 at 4pm, part of 59E59’s East to Edinburgh Festival

Get your tickets for Eat $h*t in NYC before they “go”!

It’s been an incredibly exciting, stressful, and glorious couple of weeks since the campaign ended. With the help of my collaborators and co-stars, Akilah Arthur, Rachel Chatham, Rhea Lehman and Croft Vaughn, the show has grown by leaps and bounds. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of it.

So what is it? I’m still working on the wording but…

Eat $h*t is the hilarious, touching and tuneful tale of Karl, an advertising executive who agrees to develop a rebranding campaign for Mr. Poop. In exchange, the giant turd will cure his existentially bad constipation. Down the toilet bowl, Karl duels with Miss Manners, flies Derri-Air to the third world toilet crisis, and finally achieves poophoria squatting next to Martin Luther. Karl emerges an enlightened Puru, prepared to spread the Gospel of Poop and push for change  from the bottom up.

Thank you again for your support of this project. I am humbled, truly, and so excited to get to share this powerful work with the world.

This one’s for the Poopers,
Shawn

*The POOP Project is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of The POOP Project must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

This August, the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival will get a taste of The POOP Project’s newest show, Eat $h*t, How Our Waste Can Save the World. Our fundraising campaign ends at midnight, but you can still reserve a spot at the table. Visit www.indiegogo.com/thePOOPproject and drop us a tax-deductible deuce (or more!), then choose from an assortment of high fiber gifts–including a DVD of the show!

Imagine: a world where “waste” becomes a resource; where a child doesn’t die of diarrhea every 20 seconds; where we embrace our whole bodies and the whole earth we all share. Your support will help us reach a global audience of thousands with our unique message of change from the bottom up. Give us a push now so the show can look and sound its best, and who knows? Soon the whole world could Eat $h*t!

Learn more about the show and our campaign at www.indiegogo.com/thePOOPproject. Whatever you can give, know we thank you. From our very bottoms.

Peaceful pooping,
Shawn “The Puru” Shafner and the Eat $h*t team

Looking forward to seeing you at the Visitor’s Center for tomorrow’s panel conversation, “Digesting the Design Behind Newtown Creek.”  It’s good to bring things inside, but lately I’ve also been scooping the poop on the street. Check out what some of the $h*t my fellow New Yorkers say in our newest video!

And peaceful pooping, whatever you doo.

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner

Our fundraising campaign is in full swing to bring Eat $h*t! How Our Waste Can Save the World to the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. If you haven’t yet, take a moment to check it out and help us reach an international audience with this critical message.

In other exciting news, we have been selected for the Eurohypo AG Engagement for the Community Award for excellence in engaging the community and exemplifying Eurohypo’s Passion for Solutions. This award is presented to small non-profit organizations that have a large impact on their community. Eurohypo is pleased to award The POOP Project for their unique work in raising awareness of global sanitation. (And we’re pleased to receive it!)

Lastly, please join The Puru this Tuesday, May 15 at 6:30pm for the first installment of the 2012 Spring Speaker Series at the Visitor Center at Newtown Creek. We’ll be “Digesting the Design Behind Newtown Creek” with the very experts who made it happen, acclaimed artist/architects Vito Acconci, Greg Clawson and George Trakas.

Click the image for a full-page PDF.

Until then, peaceful pooping.

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner

We’re in full swing to help audience members at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival Eat $h*t: How Our Waste Can Save the World. Check out our fundraising campaign and help us make a splash on an international stage!

Wanna sneak peak of the show? Join us this Thursday for Comickaze Comedy Hour! A hot monthly variety show featuring stand-up, storytelling, improv and an 8 min. preview of Eat $h*t. Napkins included.

Thursday, May 3, 9-10pm
Parkside Lounge (317 E. Houston)
2 cheap drinks!
Hosted by Amanda Miller, also featuring Günther and Girl Talk, TJ Del Reno, Melissa Shaw and Etan Bednarsh.

Lastly, take a look at this great new graphic all about the poop problem plaguing the world, and what’s being done to change it.

Peaceful pooping.

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner

Created by: OnlineNursingPrograms.com

The POOP Project has been making a stink for two whole years now. We continue to believe that this is a message with global potential: confronting our “waste” can help us create a world that is more hospitable to our bodies, in harmony with our planet and with everyone else sharing it.

The POOP Project has been accepted to premiere a one-man show, Eat $h*t: How Our Waste Can Save the World, at the prestigious Edinburgh International Fringe Festival this August. Croft Vaughn of WTE Theatre is producing, with three successful runs at the world’s largest arts festival under his belt, and we’re partnering with UK-based organizations that do work in international health, public toilet access, composting loos, etc. to make a big splash with this opportunity.

Now we have to pay for all this $h*t.

We’ve launched an IndieGogo campaign with a goal of reaching $15,000 by June 10.  IndieGogo is an online platform that allows people to donate to your project, and in return they get cool perks.

It’s just like a PBS fundraiser–your gifts are even tax deductible.  Click here to watch our hilarious video about the project, and for lots more information including swanky gifts like a silkscreen “I’m a Pooper” t-shirt and a DVD of the Edinburgh production!

But it’s not just about Edinburgh.  This is about gaining the momentum that can help us to spread this message far and wide.  Just imagine: one day people will Eat $h*t all over the world! So help spread the turd, er, word.  Share the campaign far and wide and help us bring sanitation center stage.

Wishing you a wonderful spring, and peaceful pooping.

Shawn “The Puru” Shafner