Enigmatic Memes: Bathroom Grafitti I Have Known – E. John Love: a Writer.
Bathroom wall graffiti gives a glimpse of the way people think: it is drect, anonymous and comes with little sense of responsibility, similar to how most people's backyards tell us how the homeowner truly lives.
Bathroom wall scribbles hardly qualify as art or creative writing, but I can think of some that is more creative than others.
Back in 1985, when I was a first-year student at the Emily Carr College of Art, the men's room in the Foundation Department had some enigmatic and interesting graffiti. Above one of the urinals, written in tiny letters in the grout between the tiles, were three words, a little zen riddle which puzzled me in the back of my mind. Weeks later, for some reason I can't recall, me and a few classmates were standing in the hallway at lunch hour, discussing bathroom grafitti. Shaun Hayes-Holgate only had to say the words "Toast or Pockets?" and we all knew what he meant, and exactly where we all, er, stood.
Gossip also went 'round about a long exchange between a student and one of our instructors, which apparently became fairly heated, to the point of using very blunt expletives. The instructor in question was known for writing copious notes on sheets of paper on his classroom walls using a brush pen, which gave his writing a distinctive calligraphic style. Apparently, the instructor's brush pen was equally effective on drywall and may have given him away. So much for an author's anonymity.
Perhaps devolution is real, or perhaps I expect too much from post-secondary education.
Great website – find everthing here really informative and well written!!
Previous Previous post: On Research: How did it ever get done before the Internet?