COLUMN: If These Walls Could Speak?

From Lee Bailey's "The Immaculate Perception?," Fall '95 And where can these visionary surfaces be found? Where else but the bathroom. One can truthfully assert that the collection of works inscribed on the grout between America's tiles as well as her dulled green partitions add up to a veritable encyclopedia of modern culture. Ranging from political statements, both popular and otherwise, to explicitly sexual musings, graffiti in our restrooms is far more telling than any William Bennett book or network movie-of-the-week. A survey of the University's own facilities easily leads one to such a conclusion. I myself undertook this task. Though it was quite enthralling, ruffling through a paper tablet while entering stalls in the mens' room did draw some unsavory glances. Nevertheless, I humbly present to the reader my findings. Perhaps most unique were the writings dealing with the University, its students and, inevitably, its administration. I begin with a rather general observation found on the wall of the Rosengarten mens' room. The writer informs us, "Even Ivy Leaguers like to write on walls." Indeed, they most certainly do. But what do Ivy Leaguers write about their schools? Perhaps the most recent, significant change here at Penn has been the widely-lauded commencement of Dr. Judith Rodin's presidential administration. One student, while using the facilities near Hill dining, had this to say: "Judith Rodin kicks ass." While it is doubtless that Dr. Rodin appreciates such (gr)assroots support, she does have her detractors. An especially disheartening message was left by a vandal in the Furness restroom. Responding to a previous passage mentioning "JAPS," the student writes, "Now which JAPS would those be -- the women who run our campus or the businessmen that run our country?" Thus another significant fact about bathroom scrawlings emerges -- they reflect emotion, both good and bad, but not always tact or sensitivity (or proper grammar, for that matter). Another popular subject among the idle and indisposed is wider sociological, political and philosophical thought. At the Annenberg School, one young man asked THE question, "What's the purpose of life?" Using an arrow to indicate reaction, another student's writing read, "Football, of course." How pensive. Socrates would have surely felt belittled. More metaphysical speculation was offered above a Campus Crusade for Christ announcement at Fine Arts. The dissenter wrote, "Christ is Bored." But on to politics. Back at Rosengarten, an apparently ardent right-winger left the following little mantra among the bathroom muck: "Democrat platform = blood, sweat, and tears, abortion, dope and queers = Mussolini." It's tragic that his proclamation was anonymous, for surely the Wall Street Journal would have acquired him as its political analyst. And finally, we are told, "You are not what you own," by an anti-materialist in Hill House. Lastly, there is sex -- perhaps the subject which most pervasively dominates the septic stalls. The ubiquitous prevalence of all things carnal as a topic of graffiti is undoubtedly the most concrete proof that people really do speak their minds (among other anatomies) when writing on walls. Of course, I could quite easily share with the reader a pastiche of lurid phrases and exotic offers, yet that would be rather gauche. Instead, I offer a mere sample which struck me as especially different. It is this fabulous concatenation of semantic intellect and desire: "Looking for throbbing, teutonic stud." One ought to be content with the knowledge that even if some Penn students are in sexually dire straits, they can still express themselves with rhetorical aplomb. In retrospect one can indeed say that lavatory literature and toilet talk really do reflect what is on America's collective mind. Recorded thought may be xenophobic, liberal, conservative, sexual, profound, ridiculous, or prosaic, but it is always the true feelings of their anonymous authors. From now on, Americans have no excuse -- the writing is on the wall. Lee Bailey is a freshman from Houston, Texas. The Immaculate Perception? appears alternate Wednesdays.