Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 1982)
The writing is on the wall All of us have read it; some of us, with trembling hands and ears cocked for intruders, have even authored it But what, exactly, is graffiti? If you’re a student of the 1944 edition of the Oxford English dictionary, you probably believe it is "a drawing or writ ing scratched on a wall or other surfaces, as at Pompeii and Rome ' But with the Oregon Daily Emerald s expense account being what it is, the discussion will be limited to the Universi ty Graffiti has been around at least as long as the first caveman decorated his domicile with crude drawings of beasts of prey While the art form has survived thousands of years, it may soon be a thing of the past It was one year ago, almost to the day. that Newsweek magazine informed a stunned nation about Graffiti Gobbler, an Australian product designed to all but wipe out the graffiti movement By its own admission, Graffiti Gobbler is "the first effective, no mix, inexpensive formula that quickly and easily removes graffiti without harming the original ap pearance of the surface ” Time magazine says the concoction " could shut down the nation's longest running underground art show " It es timated $40 of Graffiti Gobbler can undo what previously required $1,000 worth of sandblasting With the introduction of this elixir, and r, th nr rhomir ale al ready in use at the University that make writing on the walls difficult, 1982 may be the last great year for graffiti While that develop ment would undoubtauiy oe met wun glee by janitors the world over, graffiti can, at best, be more than the ana tomically detailed work of men wearing raincoats Rather, it has historically been the testing ground for pithy proverbs that measure and evaluate a society To wit To Do is To Be — Nietzsche; To Be is To Do - Kant; Do Be Do Be Do — Sinatra. Filtering that theory down onto a lesser plane, the graffiti at a particular learning institution reflects the character of its pupils. Take Harvard men's room graffiti for example: "She offered her honor He hon ored her offer And all night long It was honor and offer " Then there is the wisdom that filters out of the University "I have seen the future of rock n roll and it is Rick Springfield," reads a res troom wall in the library Or, "God loves Dick Enright, and I love God,” reads an EMU wall Not one, but two nuggets of deep and everlasting truisms were mined from one graffiti-pocked desk in Fenton Hall "Chick is God" reminded one "Par tridge Family Lives" intoned another It is often hard for the person writing graffiti to keep his or her educational bent from filtering into their work "Just for the sake of demographics, where is everyone from7" asked a probable sociology student "E=MC squared Great job Albert, but show your work," scolds a scientifically-inclined mind A current University fad is to write in the grout between restroom wall tiles An informal rule is the slogan must rhyme with great or grout For example ‘To be is to do: Nietzsche To do is to be: Kant Do be do be do: Sinatra’ "Grouty to the max. Grout balls of fire, the Groutful Dead. Grout Scott. That's totally grouty! Jump and grout and work it all out. Potatoes Au (jrouien, inti UlUUI vvdii UI Vjinna, r ai grout and Inside grout Of course, as tradition commands, the bulk of graffiti and the University is heavily peppered with words that make George Carlin's list of "Seven words you can't say on TV " After those seven words, the five most common used in graffiti here seem to be: blow, suck, your, mother, and horny. More refined graffiti is being used to help students understand the deeper meanings behind discrete mathematics A musing on a Honors College wall was apparently profound enough to Profes sor Micheal Dyer that he fed it to his Math 232 students "God is love Love is blind Ray Charles is blind (therefore) Ray Charles is God." it read Dusting off several mathematical theo rems, Dyer spent five minuttes proving, almost beyond the shadow of a doubt and to the relief of many students, that Ray Charles is not God Understandably, at least one segment of the University doesn't find graffiti very amusing They are the people that must clean it off or paint it over "That's a hard question to answer," says Custodial Supervisor John Evans, when asked how much graffiti costs the taxpayer "I’d say here at the University, inside and out, you're talking about $40,000 or $50,000 a year And that's just the physical plant — that's not counting the student union, the dormitories or the health service " Evans says the library and the archi tecture school seem to draw the most graftiti Allen Hall, where the journalism school is headquartered, is surprisingly among the cleanest ot all buildings Despite the availability of Graffiti Gob bler, Evans says there is as much graffiti on campus as there was a year ago The question of why graffiti continues to thrive at a so-called institution of higher learning was probably best an swered by Gusmano Cesaretti. author of Street Writers Maybe someday these kids won t have to write any more They'll be too busy becoming doctors, or scientists, or professional artists "But for now. graffiti is their way of saying I am. we are* Story by Sean Meyers Graphic by Betsy Charlton i ii - —"gg—i u f ■y-W-W’.W. 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