Grafitti, Graffitti (for Graffiti)

A friend, having read my blog post from yesterday, sent me the following story about the one occasion he recalls being tempted to participate in graffiti, which he generally detests:

There it was, scrawled above the urinal in the bookstore men's room: seven digits, followed by the directive, "Call me."

In the idle moment at hand, I reflected that the advertiser might have risen above the level of the mundane by having signed his work, "—Ishmael."

A fishing expedition called up 27 cases of grafitti and 14 of graffitti in OhioLINK, along with 660 and 391 apiece in WorldCat.

(Barry Moser illustration of Herman Melville's text. Click to enlarge.)

Carol Reid