It’s Not Just a Bathroom, It’s a Blank Slate
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
Is there any kind of human creative, ah…output that doesn’t have its own website these days? Jonathan Horak’s anthropological archive, The Writings on the Stall, has collected 359-and-counting user-submitted pieces of transcribed bathroom-stall graffiti. Like bathroom-writing in general, the pieces are tripe-y (and repetitive), but that may be the point. One of my favorites:
“Writing 322, via Rick
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stratton Student Center
Cambridge, Massachusetts USA 02139
Men’s restroom, ground floorAmerica lost its viginity in Viet Nam.
… and got the clap too.
hey, I got the clap in Viet Nam.
You should watch who you go out with.
SO SHOULD AMERICA!Circa 1972. Each line in a different hand. Took several weeks to complete.”
Seriously, I’m just wondering what other kinds of vernacular word- or picture-objects people out there are collecting. Funny answering-maching messages? Someone has to be. Right?
This is an ingenius compilation! Stall graffiti is an ubiquitious world phenomenon. Print a coffee table book of international Stall-graffiti! I need a coffee table book and a reason to photograph public toilets.
I once saw a conversation that took place over 15 years on a stall at this old bar on Ft Myeres beach, Fl. Crazy!