This summer in Berkeley — like any summer in Berkeley — a slew of campus buildings will undergo renovation, retrofitting and construction. With fewer students on campus, these three months are an opportune time for Capital Projects, UC Berkeley’s construction management team, to complete many tasks that would otherwise impede Read More…
I like to imagine that the graffiti I see around campus is the product of an underground, grassroots movement — one that is striving to accomplish a mysterious yet vital goal. Each time I see a piece of bathroom wall graffiti, it evokes this picture in my mind of how Read More…
Months ago, on a bathroom wall in the Valley Life Sciences Building, I found faded red letters that posed the question, “Why do we allow our selves to live in a world of poisons that are not quite fatal?” For all the question’s profundity, restroom users were generally hesitant to Read More…
As 4/20 fast approaches, stoners everywhere are gathering together their beloved bongs, trusty lighters and favorite strains for an afternoon that will be unforgettable. Or, if smoking a particularly potent plant, forgettable. Set against the backdrop of recent ballot measure approvals in Washington and Colorado, this Saturday is the perfect Read More…
If writing on a wall is artistic expression, then desecrating a sign is protest. Take the two bathroom signs next to the Free Speech Movement Cafe: The woman’s head has been replaced by the symbol for anarchy and the man’s head is blued-out completely. Or take the men’s restroom sign Read More…
Trouble in your love life? Need some anonymous guidance to navigate the turbulent tide? Simply write out your problem in a bathroom stall of your choosing and by the next day you’ll have plenty of responses — some helpful, some judgmental. And, while Berkeley is home to many up-and-coming Dr. Read More…
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” asks a fifth-floor Moffitt graffitist in the women’s restroom. Beneath it is a series of responses from various individuals that, taken together, forms a hypothetical bucket list of tasks that will probably never be completed. Fears naturally work to our instinctual advantage Read More…
There is a very particular type of disappointment that comes each time I realize a piece of bathroom wall graffiti is unoriginal and uncredited. The words hang in the air, without lovely little beginning or ending quotation marks, without a final, resounding authorial citation. If the quote in question is Read More…
Up until about a week ago, the first-floor women’s restroom of Evans Hall was a graffiti goldmine. The bathroom contained so much quality material that all of my prior blog posts had used it for inspiration in some way or another. To my disappointment, I discovered recently that the walls Read More…
Sharpied onto a bathroom wall in Evans is a cityscape not unlike Berkeley. Far above it, what appears to be a rock climber scales the stall. A rope from above fastens him to the very top and a rope from below anchors him to the city. Just inches from reaching Read More…
