Leaving Cleveland 25/04/2008
Posted by dlatman in Collage, art, fun, love, travel, u.s., youth.add a comment
A love letter in mini-zine format to my once-adopted hometown, Cleveland, OH. I made this almost 5 years ago, upon leaving Cleveland to travel across country.
Title page: Leaving Cleveland
Page 2: People say you can surf Lake Eerie.
Page 3: Cleveland is toxic but I love it and I love you all. You are all the twisted seeds that grow up crooked and strong, determined and stubborn from the mercury-laden soil — you are all so lovely growing in the heat, my friends. I wish for you to continue growing on your crooked, stubborn, and wildly colorful path, and I’ll grow on mine.
Debt = Slavery ? 18/04/2008
Posted by dlatman in Graffiti, art, music, nc, shopping, u.s..add a comment
This stencil pasted onto an electrical box is located on Main Street in downtown Carrboro, NC. I am holding one corner down because it started peeling off (see below to view without my finger).
I love the smart people in my town who are making public art regarding immediate concerns, even though I don’t know who they are.
It’s the economy, stupid. An article in The Economist points to four major factors contributing to the looming US recession which is already affecting so many Americans: housing prices, credit, food & fuel prices, and unemployment.
On the first issue, housing, it is estimated that millions of Americans will lose their homes due to sub-prime mortgages. According to the BBC, one in ten houses in my former home of Cleveland, OH is now vacant. It may be useful to consider the parties responsible for this crisis: many people are pointing to Alan Greenspan’s (mis)handling of interest rates as Fed chairman, while Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, who leaves office this week, encouraged sub-prime lending.
On food and fuel prices: oil prices reached a record high this Wednesday at $115/barrel, while food prices are affecting school lunch menus in US schools. The US economic slowdown has had a ripple effect throughout the world, as political and economic leaders acknowledge food prices have reached “emergency proportions” in developing countries.
Yes, this is all quite sobering news. For some much-needed comic relief, I turn to The Majesticons’ 2003 album “The Beauty Party,” a satiric, melodic hip-hop exploration into lifestyles of the rich and fabulous: “Alan Greenspan, get your hands up! Billy Gates, get your hands up!”
birds, war, women 10/04/2008
Posted by dlatman in "middle east", Graffiti, anti-war, art, feminism, ny, u.s., women.Tags: halliburton, iraq, manuchao, rape, war, women
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Update 4/12/08: Listen to Iraqi feminist leader Yanar Mohammed describe the violence facing women in her country on yesterday’s Democracy Now! Among other issues, Mohammed estimates that 20 percent of Iraqi women have turned to some form of prostitution to support their families, due to a crumbling economy and a war that has created almost one million widows. Mohammed is in the US as part of the V to the Tenth celebration this weekend in New Orleans… wish I could be there!
This stencil was found on Thompson St., NYC, during late fall 2007. Notice that the dove is carrying the bomb in its claws and a spear in its beak. At first I thought the bird was whisking the bomb away to dispose of it safely, but now I look closer and see a different story.
I am thinking of this now as recent reports on women in Iraq illuminate facts about the treatment of “the gentler sex” during this dirty war.
First: two women testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday about how they were raped by fellow employees and US soldiers while working as military contractors with KBR/Halliburton in southern Iraq. Interestingly, former CEO Dick Cheney was responsible for drafting some of the policy that is making it difficult for these survivors to seek legal accountability. According to an article in The Nation, “employees like [survivor Jamie Leigh] Jones signed away their constitutional right to a jury trial.”
Update 5/13/08: I am pleased to report that Jamie Leigh Jones’ case actually will be going to trial. Last week a Texas judge ruled that Jones would be able to take her case to court, rather than be settled in private arbitration, as her KBR contract specified. You know what they say: don’t mess with Texas…
Second: this week an article in Newsweek explores how the surge may be negatively affecting Iraqi women. Tribal militias, or the Awakening (Sahwa in Iraqi Arabic), have seized power from insurgents; but leadership seems uneven and reactionary, in particular relating to women’s issues. Some tribal sheiks have ordered women to stop driving, forced them to wear the head scarf, and even encouraged “honor killings” for women accused of having sex outside of marriage. Read more about the disintegration of women’s rights under the US occupation in Women for Women International’s 2008 Iraq Report.
Third: I was listening to Manu Chao’s latest album, and really like the song “Rainin’ in Paradize:” “In Baghdad it’s not democracy, That’s just because it’s a US country!” The video is awesome, fun, cartoon-like and serious all at once. Watch it here.
Macy*s goes graphic in Spring ‘08 catalog 02/04/2008
Posted by dlatman in African American, Graffiti, art, beauty, u.s., youth.add a comment
Photo from Macy’s Spring 2008 catalog, The Magic of Spring, pp. 46-47
Last weekend I was waiting for a friend to try on clothes in Macy’s menswear department when, bored out of my mind, I sat down and started paging through the Spring 2008 catalogs they had strewn about the little table in the waiting area. Lo and behold, amidst the ubiquitous photo spreads of prep school types wearing polo shirts, suits and ties, and the oh-so-carefully unbuttoned button-down shirts, pages 46-47 show some homeboys casually loitering on the beach by a graffiti-painted wall, with some tagged palm trees in the background.
The text on this photo spread reads “Go Graphic,” while the appropriately scowling African American men don clothing emblazoned with graffiti-style writing and pictures (the purple t-shirt the center guy is wearing has letters written in the LA-Chicano style of 1950’s-era graffiti, while the model on the left sports jeans appliquéd in sequins to approximate a sailor-type tattoo).
Is the graphic design particularly interesting or unique? Not necessarily. Will Macy*s make bank from appropriating outsider, illegal, and/or fringe art, while most graffiti writers never hope to profit from their work? Probably. Is their marketing department marginalizing young black men in their fashion layouts? Undoubtedly.
But the real question is: Who knew LL Cool J had his own clothing line?
