{"id":91892,"date":"2015-11-12T12:13:58","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T17:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=91892"},"modified":"2015-11-12T13:00:57","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T18:00:57","slug":"kilroy-is-still-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilroy Is Still Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

In wartime, the walls of the latrine provide a rare opportunity for self-expression.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Lee Cannon<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech,\u201d as a patriotic poem by Charles Province<\/a> has it. That presumption is a point of pride among service members, who defend civilian rights and privileges they\u2019re often not afforded themselves. You don\u2019t have the right to foment a strike in the military. You don\u2019t have the right to a trial with a jury of your peers. You can\u2019t sue the military. You don\u2019t have the right to peacefully assemble. There is no such thing as freedom of speech. But self-expression is like hydraulics: plugging one hole only builds more pressure somewhere else. In my own experience as an infantryman in Iraq, the only place where the stress of combat found unfettered freedom of expression was on the walls of the latrine.<\/p>\n

You begin to notice it as soon as you hit the staging area in Kuwait. At places like Camp Buehring, a crossroads where battalions came and went on their way to different operating areas in Iraq, American troops are sheltered under the anonymity of massive logistical bureaucracies. A port-a-potty next to a chow hall could be used by any number of soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines passing through. Unlike a permanent duty station, where bathrooms are assigned to specific companies and any defacement is easily traceable, there simply wasn\u2019t any way to catch someone scrawling on the walls of a well-trafficked latrine. The situation wasn\u2019t very different once one finally got to Iraq, where the bases were just as large and sprawling, and combat outposts were constructed in the half-destroyed hovels of what had been private residences. In the former, the anonymity was conducive to getting away with latrine graffiti; in the latter, no one cared if you wrote on some walls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Superficially at least, the latrinalia resembled a YouTube comments section. There were the wild accusations of servicemen with vague vendettas: \u201cCpt. Franklin is a pussy and doesn\u2019t give a shit about you.\u201d There were sweeping political pronouncements: \u201cKill all politicians.\u201d Misattributed appeals to authority in defense of ill-defined ideologies: \u201cOnly the dead have seen the end of war. \u2014Homer.\u201d And of course, there was the passionate, ongoing discourse between the \u201cFTA,\u201d or \u201cFuck the Army,\u201d crowd, and those who rushed to the loyal defense of their beloved institution: \u201cYou\u2019re a pussy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not all latrinalia was so aggressive. Much of it was touching, as in the case of single-line announcements of hometown pride: \u201cDade County, 305.\u201d Bible verses weren\u2019t rare. Nor were sad countdowns until homecoming: \u201c40 days left! Almost home!\u201d There were a few crude sketches of penises and many, many more sketches of female anatomy\u2014caricatures of women with absurdly large breasts and genitalia, almost like amateur studies of the Venus of Willendorf<\/em>. The latrine walls were community billboards, radically free spaces of debate and dissertation beyond the reach of the normally intrusive chain of command. During the span of a bowel movement one could tap into a makeshift community of soldiers communicating with a freedom and banality that felt decadent, almost civilian.<\/p>\n

Graffiti is a category of public communication. It\u2019s advertising for the marginalized, something only considered vandalism by people in positions privileged enough to have access to legal forms of mass communication. As Jeff Ferrell explains in Crimes of Style<\/a> <\/em>(1993),<\/p>\n

\n

Graffiti writing breaks the hegemonic hold of corporate\/governmental style over the urban environment and the situations of daily life. As a form of aesthetic sabotage, it interrupts the pleasant, efficient uniformity of \u2018planned\u2019 urban space and predictable urban living. For the writers, graffiti disrupts the lived experience of mass culture, the passivity of mediated consumption.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That would seem to explain the motives of a certain segment of mostly urban and contemporary taggers. But as my experiences in the latrines suggest, it\u2019s more useful to say simply that people make graffiti wherever they don\u2019t feel comfortable\u2014embellishing the physical space to feel more psychologically at home.<\/p>\n

No one is anonymous when they\u2019re part of a community. That\u2019s why so much graffiti carries a basic ontological message: I exist. In DeLillo\u2019s Underworld<\/a> <\/em>(1997), Moonman 157 (legal name Ismael Mu\u00f1oz) becomes discerning about his graffiti, suggesting the sophisticated sense of self necessary for higher-order art: \u201cYou have to tag the trains. The trains come down the rat alleys all alike and then you hit a train and it is yours, seen everywhere in the system, and you get inside people\u2019s heads and vandalize their eyeballs.\u201d In America<\/a> <\/em>(1986), Jean Baudrillard emphasized this as a primary goal of graffiti in America, writing that graffiti \u201csimply say[s]: I am so-and-so and I exist! They are free publicity for existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In the popular imagination, graffiti is gritty and urban: it conjures the likes of DeLillo\u2019s subway cars, tattooed from top to bottom, inside and out. But of course the form predates spray paint\u2014its lineage is long, and it comprises its own folk language. In the same way that you could imagine a thread running from, say, the Wife of Bath to Nicki Minaj, it often seems that ancient graffiti is in conversation with our own. At the Hagia Sophia a few years ago, I made a game of searching the upper floor apse and Southern gallery for the oldest scratchiti I could find. I found marks in Latin, Greek, and Arabic, among other languages, but the oldest graffiti there is a Viking runic inscription from the ninth century that says simply, \u201cHalfdan carved these ruins.\u201d The Hagia Sophia itself had changed hands so often through history, with shifting casts of rulers hosting guests and being overrun by invaders, that to view the etchings on its walls is to study a sedimental cross-section of historical outsiders. Their vandalism was both a confirmation of existence and an attempt to redecorate an alien space.<\/p>\n

Ancient graffiti could be refreshingly modern in its perversity. Preserved in the ruins of Pompeii are such effervescent inscriptions as<\/p>\n

\n

Restitua, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men\u2019s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the elegant brevity of EGO VITA PINCERNA: \u201cI screwed the barmaid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The odd modernity of ancient graffiti derives not from its ability to shock, but because it\u2019s so incredibly sophomoric. Like the inside of latrines in Iraq, none of these statements are entirely scandalous. They\u2019re crude, but they\u2019re also banal. Graffiti, the kind that doesn\u2019t aspire to the level of art, works within a specific register. The transgressions are safe because they\u2019re easily anticipated, situated as they are within a long tradition of dick jokes and scatological humor. If graffiti were music, it would have all the eye-rolling, cornball subtlety of a children\u2019s sing-along.<\/p>\n

The doodles, etchings, and paintings left by soldiers during wartime are a distinct subgenre of graffiti. The most well known example is \u201cKilroy was here,\u201d a cute doodle of a long-nosed rapscallion peeking over a wall. Kilroy was ubiquitous on the Western Front during World War II, but his origins are a source of exegetical contention: he most likely sprang from a conflation of slang derived from the name of the American shipyard inspector James J. Kilroy and a British cartoon series featuring a character called Mr. Chad. The Australians had their own variant on Kilroy, \u201cFoo was here,\u201d which may date back to World War I. Other Kilroys included Clem, Private Snoops, The Jeep,\u201dand Overby. The Kilroys\u2019 adorable charm strikes a single, plangent note in the wide oeuvre of war graffiti\u2014it\u2019s more typically scatological, as the Iraq latrines show, but it can be stridently sincere, too. The wonderful Vietnam Graffiti: Messages from a Forgotten Troopship<\/a><\/em> (2004) recounts the scribbles, obscenities, and touching poetry that U.S. troops scrawled on the underside of canvas bunks en route to Vietnam. On one bunk, under a few lines of Morse code, was this:<\/p>\n

\n

You\u2019re the one who
must decide who\u2019s
to live and who\u2019s to die.
You\u2019re the one who gives his
body as a weapon of the
war\u2014and without you all
this killing can\u2019t go on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

People use graffiti to say that they exist; to communicate through space and time; to participate in the folk art of the eye-roll; and, most important, to redecorate foreign surroundings with the baubles of familiarity. That familiarity comes in many forms, penises and poems among them. It\u2019s the same impulse that led astronauts to play golf when they landed on the moon\u2014just a touch of something ordinary to make the alien more hospitable. Tracing \u201cNEIL WAS HERE\u201d onto the dusty bottom of the Sea of Tranquility would have also sufficed.<\/p>\n

Scott Beauchamp is a writer who lives in Portland, Maine. His writing has appeared in\u00a0<\/em>The Atlantic,\u00a0<\/em>Bookforum,\u00a0<\/em>Al Jazeera, and\u00a0<\/em>The Baffler, among other places.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In wartime, the walls of the latrine provide a rare opportunity for self-expression. \u201cIt is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech,\u201d as a patriotic poem by Charles Province has it. That presumption is a point of pride among service members, who defend civilian rights and privileges they\u2019re often not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[20184,20182,20183,1889,6386,2744,20189,20188,20186,20187,16166,20185,6557,18454,4244,14861,176],"class_list":["post-91892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-camp-buehring","tag-charles-province","tag-combat","tag-don-delillo","tag-graffiti","tag-iraq","tag-jean-baudrillard","tag-jeff-ferrell","tag-kilroy","tag-kilroy-was-here","tag-latrinalia","tag-latrines","tag-pompeii","tag-scatology","tag-soldiers","tag-vandalism","tag-vietnam"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nKilroy Is Still Here: Soldiers, Graffiti, and Latrinalia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scott Beauchamp explores the link between wartime and graffiti.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kilroy Is Still Here by Scott Beauchamp\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 12, 2015 \u2013 In wartime, the walls of the latrine provide a rare opportunity for self-expression.\u201cIt is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech,\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-12T17:13:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-12T18:00:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2324\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1556\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scott Beauchamp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scott Beauchamp\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Scott Beauchamp\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d98e8550129a9c4a155a874341a22bef\"},\"headline\":\"Kilroy Is Still Here\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-12T17:13:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-12T18:00:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/\"},\"wordCount\":1522,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Camp Buehring\",\"Charles Province\",\"combat\",\"Don DeLillo\",\"graffiti\",\"Iraq\",\"Jean Baudrillard\",\"Jeff Ferrell\",\"Kilroy\",\"Kilroy Was Here\",\"latrinalia\",\"latrines\",\"Pompeii\",\"scatology\",\"soldiers\",\"vandalism\",\"Vietnam\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/\",\"name\":\"Kilroy Is Still Here: Soldiers, Graffiti, and Latrinalia\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-12T17:13:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-12T18:00:57+00:00\",\"description\":\"Scott Beauchamp explores the link between wartime and graffiti.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Kilroy Is Still Here\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d98e8550129a9c4a155a874341a22bef\",\"name\":\"Scott Beauchamp\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d2510a1e682a8efd666018ca4154285ad48372c4496ca635b7f8b160e3333baf?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d2510a1e682a8efd666018ca4154285ad48372c4496ca635b7f8b160e3333baf?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Scott Beauchamp\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sbeauchamp\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Kilroy Is Still Here: Soldiers, Graffiti, and Latrinalia","description":"Scott Beauchamp explores the link between wartime and graffiti.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Kilroy Is Still Here by Scott Beauchamp","og_description":"November 12, 2015 \u2013 In wartime, the walls of the latrine provide a rare opportunity for self-expression.\u201cIt is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech,\u201d","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2015-11-12T17:13:58+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-11-12T18:00:57+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2324,"height":1556,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Scott Beauchamp","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scott Beauchamp","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/"},"author":{"name":"Scott Beauchamp","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d98e8550129a9c4a155a874341a22bef"},"headline":"Kilroy Is Still Here","datePublished":"2015-11-12T17:13:58+00:00","dateModified":"2015-11-12T18:00:57+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/"},"wordCount":1522,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg","keywords":["Camp Buehring","Charles Province","combat","Don DeLillo","graffiti","Iraq","Jean Baudrillard","Jeff Ferrell","Kilroy","Kilroy Was Here","latrinalia","latrines","Pompeii","scatology","soldiers","vandalism","Vietnam"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/","name":"Kilroy Is Still Here: Soldiers, Graffiti, and Latrinalia","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg","datePublished":"2015-11-12T17:13:58+00:00","dateModified":"2015-11-12T18:00:57+00:00","description":"Scott Beauchamp explores the link between wartime and graffiti.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kilroy.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/12\/kilroy-is-still-here\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kilroy Is Still Here"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d98e8550129a9c4a155a874341a22bef","name":"Scott Beauchamp","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d2510a1e682a8efd666018ca4154285ad48372c4496ca635b7f8b160e3333baf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d2510a1e682a8efd666018ca4154285ad48372c4496ca635b7f8b160e3333baf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Scott Beauchamp"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sbeauchamp\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91892"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91909,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91892\/revisions\/91909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}