I’ve had sewage on my mind since watching the Cohen Brothers True Grit. Early in the movie, Matty Ross’s search for Rooster Cogburn leads her to an outhouse. When she knocks on the door, we hear Jeff Bridges’ Rooster growl from inside: “The jakes is occupied.” She knocks again, and he says again, with even more gravel, “I said the jakes is occupied.”

“The jakes” is a term I remember from my Shakespeare. And here it is, in a Hollywood movie. It is just the beginning of the linguistic weirdness of True Grit. (The lingo they use. And where’d the contractions go?) For me, it is love at first shite.