My man, Frank2Far just posted this up on Facebook. Produced by Henry Chalfant and Rita Fecher, they posted this on youtube in in early December. It is a doumentary of the Street gangs of New Yorks bad old days and the guys who survived and changed from those days.

From youtube:
Portrait of the lives of street gang presidents in the Bronx over a 20-year period. A remarkable perspective on life in the ghetto. - FLYIN’ CUT SLEEVES, completed in 1993, portrays street gang presidents in the Bronx. The project grew out of the experiences of Rita Fecher, the film’s co-producer, who taught in a South Bronx school in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, became intimately involved with the gangs, their leaders, and the leaders’ families and began to document their lives. Their world was the streets, set against a backdrop of uprooted families, cultural alienation, drugs and violence. Neighborhood teenagers responded by organizing into street groups known to the members as “families”, but labeled in the most alarming terms as violent gangs by the press. In fact, the “families” had a stabilizing effect, enabling the youths to cope with their troubled environment. The political climate at the time, movements of national liberation and such organizations as the Black Panthers and Young Lords Party influenced the young gang leaders to aspire to be more than warriors and to become, to some degree, a positive force in their communities. When Rita Fecher returned after twenty years to see what had become of her old friends, she found that they had stayed in the community of their youth, that they were deeply committed to improving conditions there and that they were engaged in helping their own children survive in the hazardous street environment. The documentation of these lives over a twenty-year period offers a remarkable perspective on life in the ghetto (spanning four generations), and the means that people devise to cope from the time that they are children to when they serve as parents and role models for a new generation.

This article was posted by handselecta 1 week, 2 days, 38 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday February 1, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/world/americas/at-war-with-sao-paulos-establishment-black-paint-in-hand.html

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/01/28/multimedia/100000001317597/scaling-skyscrapers-to-leave-their-mark.html

This article was posted by handselecta 1 week, 5 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Saturday January 28, 2012

Steven wanted to share the wealth so he had the whole book photographed and posted it as a pdf for all of you literate derelicts to enjoy. http://www.mediafire.com/?y5wavd5xjxgv2mh

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57087358@N07/6712867731/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57087358@N07/6712856163/

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Thursday January 19, 2012

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday January 11, 2012

Jesse Edwards - “Dialogue of the Streets” at Klughaus Gallery from Klughaus Gallery on Vimeo.

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Tuesday January 10, 2012

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/04/crime-scene-tattoo-leads-murder-conviction/36939/

“The tattoo shows a peanut getting gunned down by a helicopter outside a liquor store under the banner “Rivera Kills.” The detective recognized the distinctive lights on the image of the store and, the Times explains, “In gang slang, the word ‘peanut’ is used to derisively describe a rival gang member.” Garcia, whose nickname is Chopper, belongs to the gang Rivera-13. Another image shows a man (presumably Garcia) holding a Mr. Peanut-looking character in a headlock. Cops went undercover to Garcia’s jail cell after they arrested him, and shortly had a confession for the killing, which led to a conviction on first-degree murder.”

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Tuesday January 3, 2012

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Make some noise before everyone else jumps on this bandwaggon. Say you knew about the awesomness first.

This article was posted by handselecta 4 months, 1 week, 5 days, 10 hours, 12 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Thursday September 29, 2011

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday August 24, 2011

T-world 7: New York tee-ser from T-world on Vimeo.

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday August 24, 2011

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Monday July 18, 2011

THE INFAMOUS Magazine / HANDS - Apex from MTN COLORS USA on Vimeo.

This article was posted by handselecta 7 months, 6 days, 1 hour, 15 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday July 6, 2011

And he just launched a new website a few weeks ago, with his Spring semester students.   Exquisitetype.com Uses the century-old surrealist poetry and drawing technique called Exquisite Corpse, students from his Experimental Typography class in the school of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons the New School for Design and Liliane Vanbalberghe’s Typography class at Altos de Chavón in the Dominican Republic joined forces in a collaborative and cross-culutral project appropriately called Exquisite Corpse Typography. The students from Parsons designed the left side of the letter and the students from Altos de Chavón designed the right side. The letters were then scanned and joined to create these experimental letterforms. Neither participants could see the work done by their collaborators during the creative process. This is the first time ever, that students from Parsons and from Altos collaborate concurrently across oceans

Exquisite Corpse Typography from Pablo Medina on Vimeo.

This article was posted by handselecta 7 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 6 hours ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Sunday June 26, 2011

Collaboratory - Rodney Smith - Part 1 from Off The Wall TV on Vimeo.

This article was posted by handselecta 7 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, 3 hours, 47 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Thursday June 16, 2011

FREE REVOK from LRG on Vimeo.

This article was posted by handselecta 7 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 5 hours, 16 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday June 15, 2011

Fellow 12oz blogger, Bates has made many postings regarding biting, and style-theft in the past, and surely would fall on the copyright defense of the argument side I assume. Bates, I’d love to chat about this issue over a beer or two sometime. In my opinion there has to be a balance between property rights that protect innovation without inhibiting further innovation in art, science, or comedy.

The entire tradition of American tattooing is based upon the slow growth and evolution of flash designs, and yes, even theft of and imitation of original art, but given a long enough time line, these small innovations and characteristics merge into the characteristics of the whole. Sometimes you can trace these things back to a single person, but rarely. I find it is neither Ayn Rand nor Malcolm Gladwell, but a combination of the two. People must be able to enjoy the fruits of their own labor, but we are also a culmination of the people who came before us, none of us is so creative that we created our art, or tag, or piecing style in a void. In this case of the Ta Moko, should the Maori of New Zealand, be able to sue Mike Tyson by the same logic? Or maybe they should sue the tattoo artist, an American who is making his money doing tattoos that are indigenous to another culture and country? It becomes a murky landscape. The next time I go to get a tattoo am I going to have to sign a waiver longer than an itunes End-user-license agreement?

In my line of work, graphic design for sports, fashion, and the skate & streetwear industry, there is a long history of fair use, mockery and mimickry. Johanna Blakely did a great TED talk some time ago, about the benefits of such a system (albeit in a higher fashion world). Video below.

And Reason TV’s argument for fair-use and parody rights is a solid piece of info to weigh out before forming your opinion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/business/media/21tattoo.html

I don’t know if this is coherent enough to convince anybody, or if that’s my point. I guess I just want people within the graf community to allow for the possibility that we aren’t always as original as we brag. Every generation owes a debt of gratitude to the ones before it, but maybe the act of creating and recreating art is that gratitude. I think the swagger of hip hop has affected us in a bad way and keeps us from advancing and innovating, both individually and as a group.

This article was posted by handselecta 8 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 15 hours, 41 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Sunday May 22, 2011

I’m off to sleep in a tent in the woods for a few nights. Hope to see you all when I get back.

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday May 18, 2011

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Tuesday February 22, 2011

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Sunday January 23, 2011

I came back from the holiday to an extremely thick package waiting for me. In my research for the Handselecta book Espo suggested I reach out to Agua for some traditional and not not-so-traditional Philly smiley faces. The guy has got smiley faces for days and sent me several hundred of them, all different. It’s amazing what you can do with the simple things when you’ve got the knack for it, the drive to innovate and the time to practice til you’re good. Thanks to Agua and Espo. Good looks.

This article was posted by handselecta 1 Year, 4 weeks, 23 hours, 50 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday January 12, 2011

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Friday January 7, 2011

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©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Wednesday January 5, 2011

One of the highlights of the holidays for me is having a couple days to stomp around Central Jersey, while the grandparents watch the kids. Tons of changes in the almost 15 years since I’ve left, but there are a few gems, still holding strong. One of which is the Cranbury Book Worm, which has been my favorite used book store for years, next to the one my grandfather used to run, and thankfully the Strand is still running strong, when I’m back home in the city. Located just off the Turnpike (Exit 8A) The Book Worm is a large Victorian House in a stretch of a small historic Main Street with books stacked from floor to ceiling in every room.

They still buy books weekly and always have the most amazing variety of subjects. Often buying huge collections from estate sales. All wonderfully (dis)organized by subject, seperated by shelves and subjects in different rooms. I always feel the accomplishment of finding something you assume others missed when you have to go through every shelf. Once it gets too cleaned up I feel like it has been combed over before I got there and the good stuffs gone.

In the past I’ve come across some real finds. The last trip I came up on some vintage Avant Garde magazines for a $3 a piece. And they always have really reasonably priced stuff for my collection of history, art, politics, philosophy and theology collections. Having been a while since I went on a good book buying binge, I ended up with quite the haul for under a hundred bucks!! Check it out if you have the passion and end up in the area.

This article was posted by handselecta 1 Year, 1 Month, 1 week, 15 hours, 34 minutes ago.
©handselecta & 12ozProphet - Monday January 3, 2011