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
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