Off The Wall Taking a pen to a “private” public space Graffiti, subculture’s mark on society where society doesn’t want it, has more acquiescent cousins, one of which is “latrinalia”, or the writing scrawled on bathroom walls. Unlike more traditional building- and traincar-side graffiti, latrinalia does not consist of only graphics and tag names. Notorious for candor, it also comprises anarchic postings, rude jokes and body-process references. It doesn’t seem like much for discussion under the umbrella of sociolinguistics, but latrinalia remains a mainstay of public communication to a captive audience. As well, the liberty of adding to someone’s message, be it a comment or a running message board, is rampant. Aside from scrawling on bathroom walls, there are few public exchanges of ideas left in society. Coined in a 1966 paper by folklorist Alan Dundes, “latrinalia” is a glimpse at the freedom of human expression in one of humanity’s most uneasy settings. Stefene Russell at Pif Magazine wrote in a 1999 article that, “We have a dear love of the spic and span, at least until we get to the bathroom, pause to make sure that no one is around, and then scrabble around in our coat pocket or our shoulder bag for a pen to write something nasty on the wall.” Dundes himself pointed out that, “one of the few places where dirt can be displayed and discussed in American culture is the bathroom, private and public.” Conversations do often occur between several contestants on the bathroom wall, and they are responded to with vitriol and ad hominem attacks. Most popular seems to be the submission of a statement or opinion, against which people use their pen as an editor, revising the comment as they see fit. In her article, Russell shared the following story during one of her data compilations: “Someone had written [on the bathroom wall], ‘Billy Idol bites the big one,’ and then a few days later, another person crossed out ‘Billy Idol,’ and wrote ‘Everyone.’ And then a few days after that, someone had written, under this big mess of words, ‘some of the time,’ so that it finally said, ‘Everyone bites the big one some of the time.’ I thought that was so true.” Studying latrinalia walks a fine line between valid anthropology and self-serving pseudointellectualism. Trying to balance on the line probably takes more energy than it is worth. Russell argued that, “Actually, sociologists claim all graffiti (on bathroom tiles or subway cars) is an affirmation of one’s uniqueness and independence. [This] also explains why Americans love to write on bathroom walls. Not only do we dig a bit of immortality, even if it’s something gross carved into the wall of an outhouse in the middle of nowhere, but we worship the figure of the bandit, the anti-hero. What secret delight it is to write something utterly vulgar on the wall, our hearts pounding, just waiting for the assistant manager of the gas station or restaurant to come in, or even some condemning codger who will chastise us for being juvenile, destructive, or both.” Currently a graduate student at University of California (Davis), Heather Kohler Flynn researched latrinalia in 1994 and remarked in a recent e-mail that, “girls bathroom walls tended to be more advice-oriented, such as, ‘I’m pregnant, what should I do?’ and several other girls would respond. Boys bathroom walls tended to be more ego-oriented such as, ‘I have a 10 inch penis’.” Upon resuming her research spring of this year she noted that, “Messages…have a socio-historical significance. Several messages were war and race related.” J. Everett R.