Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 20, 1995 TAG: 9507200008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Why do drunk men miss the toilet?
- Why do sober men?
She has become close and personal friends with bartenders from Santa Fe, N.M., to Burlington, Vt. She's sent perfect strangers into men's rooms nationwide with a pad and pencil - and instructions to jot down the best reading material available.
She is a graduate of Georgetown University's English department and the Hollins College creative-writing program, a Blacksburg free-lance writer and an aspiring novelist and TV-sitcom writer.
So if it strikes you as a little strange that her first published book, ``Wisdom from the Walls: The Greatest Graffiti Ever Scrawled'' (Boulevard Books, New York, $8), is a collection of bathroom humor, you're not alone.
Her mother felt the same way.
``My parents are like, `After we paid for four years of your college education and then grad school, you're writing a bathroom book?!'''
My mother was the travel agent for guilt trips. (Blueberry Hill, St. Louis, Mo.)
Don't knock it, Mom. It was in the library carrels of Georgetown University that Kristin first spotted this clever line of graffiti: Back in a minute - Godot.
Over the next few years, she combed her surroundings for more:
A Woman's Rule of Thumb - If it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it. (Dick's Last Resort, Dallas.)
Time flies like the wind; fruit flies like bananas. (The Ice House, Wilmington, N.C.)
``I was always getting out my little notebook and writing things down,'' the 27-year-old says. ``At the time I was sharing a house in D.C. with five hysterical women, and we kept a maxim sheet on our fridge where we'd write down inane, off-the-wall stuff.''
One of those roommates was National Geographic production assistant Bridget Snyder, a Duke University graduate. And late one night when both Snyder and Kammerer were buzzing on coffee and couldn't sleep, the book concept took root.
Like a weed, it wouldn't let go.
A bookstore worker at the time, Kammerer knew about the popularity of quotation books and the small-book formats of most humor collections. ``But most of the books were written by one person, like `Life's Little Instruction Book,' or by famous people.
``We thought, where are the quotes of the regular Joe Blows?''
On the bathroom walls.
If Love is Blind, why is lingerie so popular? (The Cellar Restaurant, Blacksburg.)
She searched for the most recent compilation of graffiti, and found that it had been written by Hurlo Thrumbo - in 1731. It was a collection of quotes, mostly rhyming verse, lifted from the walls of British pub loos.
And though graffiti was a hot topic among pop-culture scholars in the '70s - they referred to it as ``latrinalia'' - the academic tomes were definitely not meant for a mass audience. ``They posed things like, men write graffiti out of pregnancy envy. Or as an act of aggression or repressed homosexuality,'' Kammerer says.
After scouring the walls of johns from Boulder to Boston, co-writers Kammerer and Snyder have a theory of their own: People write graffiti to be funny.
Why turn a perfectly good frog into a prince? (The University of Virginia library, Charlottesville).
They are not advocating vandalism. But if you find yourself facing a blank piece of wall with an primal urge to say something to the world, Kammerer offers this advice: Be original.
``Ninety-five percent of what's on the wall is just junk - quotes from songs or crude anatomical references.'' Lyrics from The Doors, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd are most often immortalized, she says. And college towns tend to have the most imaginative graffiti.
The feast of love is never-ending, but think about who gets stuck with the check. (Perkins Library, Duke University.)
Kammerer contends that modern-day graffiti isn't too different from the pub musings Hurlo Thrumbo compiled in 1731. ``Yes, graffiti's a reflection of the times, but if you look at what it's really saying, it's just, `Same S---, Different Day,''' she explains, borrowing another oft-scrawled cliche.
Sex, religion, unrequited love, politics, inanity.
``Basically, human concerns haven't changed that much,'' she says. ``Look at the cave paintings in Northern Spain and France 17,000 years ago. They were man's first graffiti - pictures of hunting conditions.
``It was all just a way of saying, `I'm here.'''
While Kammerer says she doesn't endorse graffiti, she does see it as being harmless and, in some cases, therapeutic. For instance, one Connecticut psychiatric hospital encourages graffiti as a treatment for schizophrenics - to get them to open up.
``Society is being encouraged more and more to speak out, but not all people feel comfortable writing a letter to the editor," she said. "They might want to be anonymous.
``Because you do need to question authority, and writing on a wall is certainly safer than picking up a gun.''
Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. (Rest area off Interstate 84, Willington, Conn.)
While most bars view graffiti as a minor headache, Kammerer says, St. Louis' Blueberry Hill invites it, even using quotes from its bathroom in its T-shirt logos.
``In one place we went they'd put up a chalkboard in the bathroom, hoping customers would write on that instead of on the walls.''
And what did Kammerer find written on the wall beside the chalkboard?
I see you put up a chalkboard!
``They didn't take into account the two main reasons people write graffiti: One, it's writing on someone else's property - a way of thumbing your nose at authority. And two, it's permanent.
``One of the funniest things I saw was the note, `Oh, I see you've painted the walls!''' - written on the freshly painted wall of New York City's Life Cafe.
It's the last of the book's 83 entries. But, knowing that graffiti will continue as surely as `Life's a Band Then You Die,''' Kammerer and Snyder hope to compile a sequel.
Graffiti-readers are encouraged to submit items for the next book by writing to: Wisdom from the Walls, c/o Kristin Kammerer and Bridget Snyder, P.O. Box 33743, Washington, D.C. 20033-0743.
And remember these immortal words, spotted in the john of a place called Greasewood Flats in Scottsdale, Ariz.:
To do is to be - Descartes.
To be is to do - Voltaire.
Do be do be do - Frank Sinatra.
Memo: NOTE: Also ran in August 22, 1995 Welcome Students.