Graffiti

From MonkeyFilter Wiki

oroueltv Review of Graffiti in the Male Toilets, Edinburgh Airport, 27 January 2006

1. “No More Proofs” – Anonymous

Brief, poignant lament for the lack of homosexual love in the writer’s lonely existence. “There are no more poofs,” anonymous says, as if to challenge the reader to find him a date for Saturday night. But is the work ultimately successful? Do we not feel that the writer is simply not going to the right bars? Has he tried internet dating? The text is challenging, but perhaps insufficient: we wait for the day when another anonymous graffitist will respond with a shaft of hope to illuminate this gloomy world-view: perhaps “be here on Friday at 9pm if you like to suck hard cocks”.

2. “City 1 United 3” - Anonymous

In this example of neo-industrialist poetry, the author mimics a road sign providing navigational advice on the metaphysical highway. The city, claims the writer, is but one mile hence – but the city, even with its multicultural populace and profusion of high-quality sushi bars, is not the gleaming social utopia we really seek. For true unity lies beyond – perhaps through – the city’s socio-economic institutions. The writer suggests – somewhat in a post-Marxist schema – that only when we have progressed from a rural, agrarian society and past the urban-industrial phase will we find true happiness: the “united” world is still 3 miles away. Yet a note of hope remains, for are we not at least upon the right path? Is not the way (or “dao”) itself fundamental? Are there no service stations or roadside diners between us and the two destinations presented?

3. “English cunts get out” – “Willie”

A radical re-imagining of Britain’s social history is presented in this fragment, where the poet “Willie” suggests a new, gynocentric narrative of the Scotland-England rivalry, to challenge traditional phallocentric theories. Even the author’s pseudonym is a cunning criticism of this male-dominated history of history, the infamous “pen is penis” phallocy.

The author suggests, with a succinct if crude syllogism, that English women have more freedom than their Caledonian cousins: the “cunts” (to employ Willie’s metonymy) “get out” more. One wonders if this disparity in social freedom really is the source of the age-old animosity between the two great nations – could not even Mary Queen of Scots’ imprisonment in the Tower of London be seen as a locking away of the Scottish female animus?

Could this revolutionary criticism be extended – to encompass the history of the pudenda in Wales, or the Isle of Mann’s titties? One hopes so.

4. “Barry Connor is a twat” - Anonymous

Well, the author hits the nail on the head here. Barry Connor – Christ, what a fucking wanker. I mean, how does he sleep, the fuck? I don’t know.