BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Roy Blount Jr., Paula Poundstone and Amy Dickinson. And here again is your host at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you Bill. Thank you everybody. You are awesome.
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SAGAL: It is time right now for the WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air.
Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
SARAH LOW: I am. My name's Sarah Low. I am originally from Boston, Mass., but I've been living in L.A. for six months.
SAGAL: How is that going?
LOW: It's going.
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SAGAL: It does that. Did you miss the winter back in Boston?
LOW: I didn't miss it in the sense that I, you know, had emotional attachments to it. But I did miss it like literally.
SAGAL: Yeah, well that's important. We've invited you here to play game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Sarah's topic?
KURTIS: If these walls could talk.
SAGAL: Walls, they're not just big blocky things keeping you from getting into the other room. This week we read a story about walls doing more than just keeping your neighbor from seeing you in your "Star Wars" boxers. Guess the true story of a wall on the news and you will win the voice of the immortal Carl Kasell on your voicemail. Are you ready to do this?
LOW: I am.
SAGAL: First let's hear from Paula Poundstone.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Walla Walla Privacy Walls are popping up on planes, trains and restaurants. The company, appropriately located where else but Walla Walla, Wash. manufactures thin, soft foam walls that users seeking private in public places post around themselves. CEO Adison Myca was inspired to create the product by her previous work experience. When I worked for other people, I was always in a cubicle. And yeah, that is the inspiration for Walla Walla Privacy Walls. Cubicles gave me a sense of security.
After my last job, I spent a lot of time on my computer at Starbucks, and I just felt like every skinny double whip latte drinker in there was just in my business. So I thought, I could sell what is essentially a portable cubicle.
Flight attendant Steven Blosure finds them odd. Part of the joy of travel is being with others, like people you don't know. It doesn't mean you have to talk and talk to everyone you meet, but to assemble a foam cocoon around yourself is ridiculous. The FAA won't ban them because they're soft, so they don't present a safety hazard. But when I'm doing my service rounds, sometimes I can't see the passenger. I just toss the nuts in like I'm feeding a hidden animal.
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SAGAL: Portable privacy walls.
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SAGAL: Your next story of a wall stepping outside its comfort zone comes from Roy Blount Jr.
ROY BLOUNT JR.: The St. Pauli red light and entertainment district in Homburg, Germany is where the Beatles made their first big splash. Today, St. Pauli's night life venues attract 20 million visitors a year who drink, stagger outside and make little splashes on St. Pauli's walls. This may seem appropriate in a district named for a girl named for a brand of beer, but some people live in St. Pauli and they are fed up with the vilt pinklers (ph) which is German for a wild sprinklers. Pee up against the
St. Pauli wall now and ah, you're in a pickle - you're in a pickle because the St. Pauli pees back movement has painted the neighborhood walls with a highly water repellent paint. Ordinarily used to coat ship holes, this paint doesn't just resist urine, it splashes it right back at you.
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BLOUNT: Fair enough for people, but how about the neighborhood dog?
AMY DICKINSON: Oh no. No.
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SAGAL: Walls in St. Pauli in Hamburg that don't just take it but they can give it back. Your last story that shows walls can still surprise us comes from Amy Dickinson.
DICKINSON: Nobody is disputing that the Great Wall of China is really, really great. But what if you had a hankering to experience the majesty of the Great Wall but couldn't get there? Could a good wall be great enough? Zhang Wei is an entrepreneurial farmer in a small Chinese province a thousand miles away from the Great Wall. One day five years ago, gazing out across his pastureland, he noticed his own stone wall and he had an idea. He said through an interpreter, it's like I was seeing it for the first time and I thought this is a pretty good wall. No, you cannot see it from space or even from my neighbors' house, my wall would not be a good fortification against attacking Mongolians, but it stops my goats from getting out. Zhang started marketing his Good Wall. Last year it was the third most visited tourist spot in China. And while the original Great Wall is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Hemispheres Magazine named the Good Wall in the top 1,000 of perfectly OK global tourist attractions.
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SAGAL: So one of these walls actually exists. Is it from Paula Poundstone, the individual privacy walls you can now get and set up around yourself to keep people out of your business? From Roy Blount Jr., walls in Homburg, Germany that fight back against drunken late-night revelers by basically splashing back on them? Or from Amy Dickinson, the not great, but good wall of China?
LOW: I'm going to go with my gut and my gut is telling me I'm going to go with Roy's story, number two.
SAGAL: You're going to go with the Roy story...
LOW: Yeah.
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SAGAL: ...About the walls specially painted in Homburg, so if anybody tries to relieve themselves against it, they get a surprise. All right, well, we spoke to somebody familiar with the actual wall.
AJIT NIRANJAN: Anyone who does decide to pee freely in the streets will essentially be splashed back with their own urine.
SAGAL: That was Ajit Niranjan, a journalist for The Guardian talking about the revenge wall in Saint Pauli district of Homburg. Congratulations, Sarah. You got it right.
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SAGAL: You earned a point for Roy and you've won our prize. Carl Kasell will record the greeting on your voicemail. Well done.
LOW: Thank you.
SAGAL: Thank you. Thanks for calling up and playing.
LOW: No problem. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.