DgtizeD

On the bathroom wall at Meshuggah’s (a local coffeehouse),

Roses are red,
and ready for plucking,
your 16,
and ready for …
highschool

Above a urinal at a gas station in Georgia —

WWJD

and scrawled next to it in pencil —

not write on bathroom walls…

And so I transfer the meme’s to the internet. It’s interesting to note how different locations deal with graffiti. Some places view it as a problem, and remove it as soon as possible, some places are obviously in disrepair and the grafitti breeds prolifically. Sometimes bathrooms are otherwise quite nice, but either provide specific places to write, or simply appear to cultivate the writing that is there. I’ve seen places go as far as to put up chalk boards in the bathroom, which I think is actually one of the best approaches I have ever seen (unfortunately that is nearly the only redeeming quality of that location).

The Writings on the Stall is apparently an entire site devoted to sharing these poems, commentaries, truth’s, lies, and trash that line the walls of so many stalls. How inventive the human mind is while excreting waste. Or are they one and the same?

Sadly, they are not quite as amusing when transcribed on a web page, a medium entirely outside of their natural habitat. Something about reading the phrases in neat 12 point Times New Roman removes an essential part of what makes the grafitti so engaging. We need some sort of digital blackboard that allows the same level of imprecise scrawl, contrasted by arbitrarily impeccable calligraphy, but smudged at the far edge by a hastily (or is it lazily) written note for the future.