Poincheval markets his pills under the name Pilule Pet — a French play on words that basically translates to "fart pill." They’re the latest in a long line of attempts to conquer what may be the most enduring of biological taboos, and they go for the jugular. As Benjamin Franklin once wrote: "Were it not for the odiously offensive smell accompanying such escapes, polite people would probably be under no more restraint in discharging such wind in company than they are in spitting or blowing their noses."

Pilule Pet promises to eradicate that unease, though I had my doubts. The website makes clear that the pills aren’t classified as drugs, and its clumsy design doesn’t exactly scream scientific credibility. Even the cheeky taglines and exaggerated photos make them seem more like prank stocking stuffers, if not snake oil. But the intrigue surrounding both the pills and their zany creator was enough for me to probe further.

After a few emails and phone calls, I finally got in touch with Poincheval, and we agreed to meet outside the train station in Alençon, about 130 miles west of Paris. It was there that I found him sitting Buddha-like in an old hatchback on a brisk Wednesday morning. I waved hello, grabbed the door, and a rush of nervous excitement ran down my body.

During the train ride from Paris, I had entertained visions of dosing with Poincheval in a chateau atop some pastoral landscape, drinking wine and farting Godiva over a fire. That never happened, because as I soon found out, it takes about a week for the Pilule Pet to take effect. But what I found instead was just as entertaining: a glimpse into the life and mind of an aging, tireless creator tucked away in a rural oasis, and unabashedly fascinated by everything around him.

La belle vie d'un bohème

As we drove from Alençon to the town of Gèsvres, where Poincheval lives (population: 532), he launched into a pretty sad account of the region’s decay. As across much of post-financial crisis France, industries here have been deserted, farms are struggling, and young people are leaving. Poincheval’s been living on a hilltop plot of land in this part of the country for 30 years now, a long period of stability for someone who grew up bouncing around France at the whim of his father’s military job. A self-described bohème, he moved to Paris after high school, where he made ends meet by playing music in the metro and picking up odd jobs in education and fashion. It was at a theater in Paris, in his early 20s, that he met Évelyne, with whom he would marry and form a nine-person musical group. (He on acoustic guitar, she on vocals.) The group, Les Poinchevaux, also lived together in a countryside commune for several years, when they weren’t playing their twangy brand of gypsy jazz at shows across France.

Things aren’t as crazy nowadays. He and Évelyne still play the occasional gig together, but he’s retired ("in administrative terms") and most of their time is spent at home — a small stone cottage nestled into a hillside along a one-lane road. I spotted it immediately, because it’s impossible to miss. Installed in the yard around it, and the lot directly across, are sinewy, sometimes creepy looking statues made of tin, plastic, and other garage floor materials, shooting out from otherwise empty green farmland. On the roof of an adjacent warehouse are installations that look like colorful, squiggly sperm.

"Yes, yes," Poincheval said as we pulled into the gravel driveway, letting out the first of many cackles. "It’s another world in there."

His first order of business was the fire, and he executed it with surprising grace, gliding around the red tile floor with logs in his arms, and relentlessly poking them into flames. I soon realized that it’s nearly impossible for the man to sit still. As he danced from one topic to the next — art, economic inequality, Charlie Hebdo — he paced deliberately in front of the fireplace, hands buried in the pockets of his bright blue overalls.

Poincheval's Inventions began with newspaper printed on toilet paper

A similar restlessness seems to have driven Poincheval’s professional life, though it’s hard to say what that is with any precision. He spent a quarter century playing and recording music with Les Poinchevaux, but he’s also worked in education and the media, maintaining his own radio show and starting a free local newspaper, L’Aggressif. For decades, he’s been creating sculptures and other installations under the name "Lutin Malin," which roughly translates as "Clever Goblin." When we met last week, he had just finished a 40-foot Santa Claus made of 16,000 plastic bottles for a local fair.

The inventions began, quite literally, as an offshoot of his newspaper. In 1999, Poincheval created a line of toilet paper with news articles printed on each sheet, for which he won a medal at the Concours Lépine, France’s annual inventors’ competition. From there, he went on to create another kind of toilet paper that folds into small Kleenex-like packets, though he ventured into non-scatological areas, as well: a Swiss Army knife-like contraption for garden tools, and an eco-friendly coffee packaged in paper juice boxes.

His creations have been met with varying levels of commercial success and media attention within France, but Poincheval says he’s never been motivated by money. His cottage is small and rustic, and his clothes are vibrant, but simple. As I spoke with him about his life, he seemed most proud not of his inventions or the awards they’ve won, but of the significant revenue they’ve brought in to local charities. A portion of his toilet paper sales, for instance, went to an organization that trains dogs to help handicapped people. To date, he’s financed training for 15 dogs.

That’s not to say he doesn’t seek recognition (he does) or that he hasn’t gone to great lengths to commercialize his products (he has). But for him, the inventions are merely an extension of his art — a way to provoke thought, debate, and the occasional laughs.

"I’m convinced that everyone likes beauty — the rich, the poor, everyone," he said between pokes at the fire. "The person who doesn’t love beauty doesn’t exist… To put it simply, everyone likes to come."