All Around Campus . . . Graffiti

From the Spring 1972 Breakaway Yearbook

 

by Kathy Tewhill

Walking into the library one day with the expressed purpose of finding a book on Seventeenth Century Romanian poets, my eyes were suddenly accosted by walls and walls of graffiti.

 

Hoping to forget this strange sight, I carefully arranged my books on the nearest table. Oh no! More graffiti! Well, this certainly needs investigating, I thought to myself. In my most Sherlock Holmes manner, I nonchalantly strolled through the library, copying the more interesting bits of graffiti and then analyzing them.

 

Now psychologically speaking, I'm no psychologist. However, anyone with a Psyc 101 background can interpret some graffiti. Take, for example, the love poems. They probably aren't literary enough to give Elizabeth Barrett Browning any competition, but that's beside the point. Anyway, these love poems are all quite brief: "Nancy & George" or "Linda & Fred."

 

One was a bit more original: "Gary & Greg." Like I said before, I'm no psychologist, but I know a pervert when I see one.

 

Proceeding to another table, I was momentarily stunned by a hastily scrawled message. "Sororities are rent-a-friend organizations." The poor child that scribbled this was probably a sorority-reject from a poor socio-economic strata whose suicidal tendencies were taken out by acts of misplaced aggression and hostility aimed at those sources alienating her from integrating the Freudian concepts of id and super-ego into her total personality. (For that poignant analysis, I relied heavily on Soc. 101).

 

Now for the fun part. Throughout the course of my investigation, I was vaguely aware of all the four-letter words, as the more genteel press would say, that appeared as graffiti. Since it's quite difficult to pinpoint and analyze those who write this type of thing, I decided to consult the Masters and Johnson studies. But the librarian would not let me check this book out, so I guess I'll have to speculate as to who writes pornography and why.

 

Illustrating this point, I chose the rather brief: "Virginity is not incurable" example. this is not the clear-cut case of someone's frustrated sexual life I first thought it to be. The writer may very well be a male-chauvinist pig who adheres totally to the playboy philosophy. Or perhaps this is the pathetic struggle of some desperate should trying to free himself form an Oedipus cycle by concentrating on other forms of sexual diversion while paying down his somewhat abnormal tendencies that began in early childhood when his father beat his mother, and were sustained throughout adolescence by a deep fear of his father's manhood.

 

Then too it could be the drooling of someone who was just bored. And there are always those who mix sex and politics.

 

As my library tough drew to an end, I was in the possession of several choice pieces f graffiti. If only I could catch someone in the actual process of writing graffiti, I thought to myself.

 

Ah-ha! Across the room I spotted my victim. A long-haired hippie freak was frantically scribbling something on the table. Sneaking up behind him, i casually dropped my book on his head. "Oh, pardon me," I said. "I dropped my book. What are you writing. Are you scribbling graffiti instead of taking out your frustrations on a more viable object? Or are you doing it because you're hung up on the hypocrisy of society and are deliberately committing an act o vandalism in response to all the phoniness?"

 

My victim just stared at me. for a moment, I thought he might not answer. "No—I was just seeing if my pen worked," he muttered.

 

GRAFFITI FROM UNO'S LIBRARY

"1987—Haley's comet will strike the earth. 1.8 billion will die."

 

"Graduate from UNO—and then you can go to college."

 

"UNO—an Urban Trashcan."

 

"God is Alive!"

 

"Ban the Catapult!"

 

"Stella & Stanley. James & Roger."

 

"You can't shake hands with a closed fist."

 

"Get high . . . Climb a Mountain!"