Now I don’t think at this late juncture even a half-blind Javanese pre-teen, wearing a Shaq jersey and sipping a can of R.C. Cola through a Spongebob shaped twisty straw, would sit through his newest bootleg DVD and afterward feel compelled to praise Hollywood for its imagination. We locals know this, we see more of the reheated narrative slop than anyone. But this “writing on walls” thing? Sheesh.

Do rational minds have such a very hard time conceiving of ways to portray irrationality? Is this obsessive convoluted scrawl the only visual metaphor we can come up with for the interior of a troubled mind? Is the act of defacing that most comforting of spaces, the one within 4 shelter-giving walls, the most poignant non-lethal transgression we can conceive?

Tell me- Is it that unstable personalities are inordinately difficult to portray or is it simply that tame minds are ill-equipped to visualize the fruits of wild ones? When such a staggering percentage of the populace, though not exactly lunatic, differs substantially enough from the imaginary mental “norm” to require therapy and counseling and annually quadrupling dosages of anti-depressants, I find it hard to believe “the other” is quite so inconceivable.

From a creative standpoint, someone involved in the perpetuation of this goofy trope has to realize that the use of an instantly recognizable visual shorthand in the portrayal of abnormality is something of a contradiction. Also, from a functional standpoint, this fictional maniac is generally a killer or stalker or rapist, or some such horrible thing, and the desired reaction to the revelation of his/her insanity ought to be: “Holy shit! That persons insane! Yikes. Creeeepy.” Seeing something as familiar and comfortable to your psyche as the ass-groove of your own couch cushions, something like say a tired old cliche, does not inspire this reaction. Does it? I have to chalk it up to a simple lack of imagination. Which is ironic, ‘cause you know who seem to be extremely imaginative? Crazy people.

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I hereby decree that if this cliche must be used then one of more of the following 3 items must be adhered to-

1. The individual who created the room covered in scrawl must be either a 13 year old (and at least 65% of the scrawl must take the form of band logos and song lyrics,) a graffiti artist (in which case the writing must be applied with something other than plain black ink / white chalk / blood,) or a set designer (who curses under his breath at the director continuously for making him create such a lame set.)

In emergencies when scripts must be turned in within 24 hours the individual may also be a disgruntled typographer, novelist, graphic designer, illuminated manuscript restorer, stenographer, or naughty grade school pupil.

The exception here is an individual who lives in a Lower East Side dive bar bathroom.

2. The handwriting must be neat and finely executed rather than angular chicken-scratch. Someone who spends hours every day writing screeds all over every surface of their room, no matter how batshit crazy, has had plenty of practice and ought to be able to lay down some readable handwriting. (A few storiated initials at the beginning of paragraphs, or some handsomely proportioned looping script would be nice.)

The exception here is if the individual doing the writing is limbless and holds his sharpie in his mouth or between stumps. The individual may also be blind, but in such a case the writing should be in neatly composed braille.

3. Police officers must canvas neighborhoods, going to apartment landlords, motel managers, and concerned parents, carrying not a suspect sketch but the image which began this post. “Have you come across any rooms that look anything like this?” they must ask. “Because if you have… that’s our man.” Clerks at the local art supply store should also be questioned.

If these guidelines are ignored filmmakers must be charged, post haste, with “aggravating assault on a deceased equine” and have their equipment impounded while they await trial… and atomic-wedgies.

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Lastly, since I fully realize my edicts over the film industry do not carry as much weight as they should, I’d like to take this opportunity to announce my new venture:

Are you too busy scouring the earth for creepy porcelain doll heads, rusty farm tools, 18th century family photos, broken mirrors, and over excitable kittens to really get your wall-scrawling crazy on? Well breathe easy set designer, because we’ve got you, and you’re murderous lunatic’s walls, covered!

Introducing Scrawlpaper®©™ the finest collection of dingy scrawl-covered wallpapers available on the market today.

Have You got a loony whose interior struggle needs to made painfully obviously clear to your brain-dead audience? Kidnapper? Religious nut? Obsessive masturbator? Repressed sister-lusting rapist? Multiple personalitied self-flagellator? Satan worshiper? Rouge Priest? Brilliant but morally bereft doctor? Cannibalistic asylum escapee? Hey, we’ve got the pre-crazied wallpaper just for you!

Scrawlpaper®©™

(Coming soon.)

!!!

Enjoyment was intended.

(All images portioned from the magnificent bounty of here. All machine elucidations, fully actual! Happy courtesy of the babelling fish.)

Xensen: Suppose you love someone romantically—a woman, let’s say. Do you parcel out your love, setting it in scales and weighing it out against little blocks, one that says “improved character,” another that says “better self-understanding”? Or do you simply love her, without inhibition? Now suppose her name is The Humanities.

Conrad H. Roth: I do love someone romantically, and it is even a woman. However, if I spent my whole life—or even a large part of my life—stroking her lovely face, I might have reason to worry I was not spending my time as well as I should be.

Myself: Now suppose multitudes of people all over the globe love her, passionately, covetously, and these multitudes spend their whole lives stroking her face as well. This stroking, however reverent and gentle, has, through the constant attentive friction of countless fingertips, an unintended effect; A quantitative effect oblivious to the romantic clink of wine glasses and undiminished by concupiscent cooing.

The affectionate caress, when administered by a mob, feels decidedly more ardent. 

Capillaries are broken, bruises formed, skin stripped, layer by layer, from her cheeks and forehead and chin. The Zygomaticus and Orbicularis oculi and Oribicularis oris are tenderized, breaking peptide bonds between amino acids and dissolving sinewy connections. Her lovely face breaks down. The fervent hands of the multitudes, with fingertips pressing into a slurry of scrap and cartilage, caress their way straight through the processes of autolysis, putrefaction, decay, and diagenesis until they are left, finally, pawing at a beautifully polished bone.

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Notes:

The image is adapted from a shot of Clown Skull by Vik Muniz, 1989.

Any resemblance to loved ones, living or institutional, is purely coincidental.

Further description: The gold false cuvette opening to reveal the erotic scene of an African woman wearing pearls and a man with a dog at his heels. The polychrome enamel figures engaged in an amorous encounter spring to life when the repeat mechanism is activated. Anonymous Swiss. Circa 1900.

Oh to be a human of any epoch! Brilliant I tells ya. Brilliant.

(Found on Antique-watch.com. Also: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)

This image cracks me up. More so in context (because it’s not a piece of Nihilist propaganda or some allegorical face smack from a Jack Chick tract.) You might notice that little scribbly “song” written up in the corner…  this is in fact a cover illustration for a piece of sheet music published in 1909. I can’t help but think of it as the equivalent of a “megadeth cover” for its time, except you just know the music inside is all jaunty and “23 skidoo” and “tennis, anyone?”