FRANK Zappa is the Messiah. "All this speculation/About my destination/Is killing me" - Acoustic Junction. Good planets are hard to find; prevent nuclear war. "Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves" - Nietzsche, 1889. You can find these snippets of literature, kernels of strange wisdom, and obscure song lyrics in Alderman Library. You won't find it in the books, however. You'll find it on the walls.
Graffiti shouldn't be covered up by buckets of ugly brown paint to make the walls look more "presentable," as has evidently been done in the past. Graffiti should be preserved so that future generations of students can retain their sanity while studying by taking breaks to read messages from the students who have come before them.
Sure, there's a lot of unimaginative graffiti, like "Greg was here" and "Gretchen & John 4 Eva." These uninspired scribblings are probably the most typical form of graffiti. Then come the affiliations, usually with sports teams and fraternities: stuff like "NY Knicks rule" with the "rule" inevitably crossed out and replaced with "suck" by someone else.
Since the graffiti is found in study carrels, after all, there are a good deal of anti-exam comments: things like "Who invented exams, anyway?" and a sarcastic "I [heart] exams." And, finally, "Why study? What you don't know can't hurt you."
Then there's the really good stuff: Jack Kerouac and Jimmy Buffett quotes, philosphical musings and random thoughts. This is what graffiti is all about, and this is why I love Alderman Library, even though it can feel like a labyrinth, so creepy sometimes that a friend of mine is convinced that evil trolls dwell in the stacks. The reason I keep coming back isn't for the peace and quiet or the collection of rare books, but for the unparalleled collection of graffiti.
The pure entertainment value of reading the volumes of literature on the ugly concrete walls of the study carrels has gotten me through many a study session. In the mist of studying for midterms, the long, painful hours spent staring at too-thick books are made slightly more bearable by stopping every once and a while to read the scrawls on the walls.
Distressingly, the graffiti seems to be endangered. The concrete-block carrel walls are coated by what looks like several layers of paint, presumably put there over the years to cover up the scribblings of past carrel dwellers - or, quite possibly, those of evil trolls. Recently I even discovered a carrel whose graffiti-laden walls had been covered with ugly wallpaper.
Instead of congratulating the maintenance staff of Alderman on a job well done by keeping the cubicles presentable, however, I instead feel compelled to scold them. The graffiti should not be painted over. Something is lost when that happens.
Graffiti is its own form of literature. The writers of one generation can pass on their values, ideas and opinions to the next through well-placed carvings or ink on wood and stone.
I have been known to stare at the imprint a pen has made in some of the wood siding, the actual ink covered over by paint, hoping to decipher whatever the message was lest it be lost forever. While trying to keep focused on Thucydides and Locke, I find myself stopping to search the walls for heretofore undiscovered graffiti, to give my poor overworked brain a rest. I know I am not alone in this.
I'm not proposing that the maintenance workers of Alderman Library remove the layers of paint in some sort of unprecedented graffiti restoration project. Even in my staunchly pro-graffiti stance, I am aware that that would be going over the edge.
I only suggest that no more cover-up operations be done. Like the effect that bulldozing a field of wildflowers to make way for a new Wal-Mart would have, the paint overlaying the layers of long-lost graffiti is covering unappreciated beauty with something dull and drab.
If the graffiti of today and the future were preserved, think of how future generations would benefit: the knowledge we could pass on to them! The quotes from the literature of our era! The outdated slang!
While I don't propose that everyone "don't just sit there, mar these walls" as one graffiti artist suggested, people should contribute a thought to the walls when inspiration strikes. Writing "I have absolutely nothing to say," as one Alderman-dweller did, sort of defeats the purpose. If you do have something to contribute, go for it.
Future generations await our words. So, save the graffiti. And beware of the trolls.
(Laura Sahramaa's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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