Molly Griffin

CL311

3/29/04

I’m all shook up! A-woo-woo.

• This image is taken from the wall of a bathroom stall inside the 2^nd floor women’s room of Skidmore’s Saisselin art building.

• The author is unknown but the location indicates a female Skidmore student enrolled in an art class. The artistic skill involved also points to an art student, and the author/artist is clearly familiar with Elvis Presley.

• This graffito is intended for anyone using the bathroom, specifically female Skidmore students and faculty.

• Along with the text, there is a portrait of Elvis’s head with a microphone and musical notes. The image and text are closely related, the text being a quote from one of Elvis’s songs. A person unfamiliar with Elvis’s music could also relate them by the close proximity and the common stylus: a square-tipped red marker.

• Linguistic skill is obviously foremost to interpreting this graffito, particularly a thorough knowledge of written English. The text is clearly legible: the handwriting is neat; the spelling and shape of the letters is consistent with standard American English; there are no abbreviations or omissions; the punctuation, syntax and grammar are correct. The use of contractions, capitalization and two different kinds of punctuation indicate that the artist was both educated and deliberate.

However, since the text is not prose, simple knowledge of English is not enough to understand it (A-woo-woo doesn’t make a whole lot of sense). Therefore, the best tool for analyzing this phrase is cultural and historical knowledge, which reveals that: a) “I’m all shook up! A-woo-woo.” is a lyric from an Elvis Presley song and b) the image is a caricature of Elvis.

To someone less familiar with American culture or the English language, experience with musical notation would be useful; the notes included in the image indicate that there is some musical quality to the text, and that the figure is singing.

However, the most important part of understanding this image is to view it in context. The surrounding graffiti all appear to have different authors, evident in the different media and handwriting. However, they are useful tools for understanding each other, as many of them refer to the same subject:

LONG LIVE THE KING!

ELVIS LIVES

The neighboring images reveal both Elvis’s name and his epithet. One could do a prosopographic search for musicians named Elvis or try onomastic research on the name itself. When viewed in context of its surroundings, there is sufficient evidence to positively identify the subject of the original graffito, including his name, epithet and picture.

• The location of the graffito—in a college bathroom stall, at about shoulder height to someone using the toilet—reveals that this graffito has little meaning beyond amusement of a clearly artistic mind. However, the deliberate handwriting, proper punctuation and artistic skill indicate that there was some degree of planning or thought involved. Considering the number and nature of related graffiti in this stall, it could also be interpreted as a tribute to Elvis.