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prisoner Angelo

Prisoners' Inventions Paperback – Illustrated, April 1, 2005

by Temporary Services (Author), WhiteWalls Inc. (Author), Angelo (Author)

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Imagine that your house spans six by nine feet, your mattress is just two inches thick, you are known to your neighbors by an identification number, and items most consider crucial to everyday existence are outlawed. How do inmates in prisons like this throughout the United States make such lives bearable?
In 2001, the artists' collective Temporary Services asked an incarcerated artist named Angelo to share with them the ways in which inmates adapt to their confinement. Angelo responded with over one hundred pages of meticulously detailed ink drawings and text. The resulting compilation, Prisoners' Inventions, is a unique guide to prison life, covering subjects ranging from how to cook a grilled cheese sandwich in a locker to how to chill a soda using a toilet. Many of the documented items—such as cigarette lighters, condoms, even alarm clocks—are considered contraband, and Angelo includes anecdotes describing their creation and use.
Already featured in Playboy, Harper's, Le Monde, and on This American Life, Prisoners' Inventions provides powerful testimony to life "on the inside" as it is endured by over two million individuals in the United States alone.

Print length

119 pages
Language

English
Publisher

WhiteWalls, Inc.
Publication date

April 1, 2005
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0945323026
ISBN-13

978-0945323020
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Temporary Services is an artists’ group that rgularly collaborates with others to create works often involving participatory situations.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ WhiteWalls, Inc.; Illustrated edition (April 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 119 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0945323026
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0945323020
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,295,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Chris H.

Creativity

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 28, 2021

Verified Purchase

Filled with creative solutions to everyday problems in jail. Not sure how long they'd last though - inspections and all.

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Rural ID.nurseTop Contributor: Pets

Gives a good feel for the prison culture

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 17, 2019

Verified Purchase

Fascinating reading. The author, who is a prisoner but doesn't indicate what for, writes and includes nice drawings of various ingenious things he and other prisoners have made from scrap and contraband, made with much imagination. Not only does it stimulate one's imagination about how things could be made, but also gives an interesting look at what life is like for prisoners. For anyone who has never been incarcerated, this is one fascinating read. The author clearly has artistic talent and writes well, although he does use a lot of run on sentences. He slips in some times where I ended up laughing.

One person found this helpful

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G. Love

Excellent and Insightful Text

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 25, 2008

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If you have any interest in multiple intelligences, ingenuity, prison culture, or even just crafts I can't recommend this book enough. If you work in any type of detention facility this should be required reading!

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STEVEN F. SCHARFF

Facinating insight to improvising "on the inside"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 12, 2007

When all you have isn't much, and much of what you could use is contraband, you learn to make do. "Angelo", the author/illustrator of this work, is a prisoner who has explained and illustrated various ways that prisoners make do with what little they can get ahold of in ways that would make MacGyver proud. Making chess pieces, drinking cups and dice out of paper mache (toilet paper and sugar); a cigarette lighter out of tape, wire and two D-Cells; cooking using toilet paper as fuel; turning an old hot sauce bottle into a showerhead; converting empty butane lighters and lip balm tubes into salt and pepper shakers; recycling glue from pastry boxes, various ways of using immersion heaters, or building your own out of paper clips, rubber bands, metal tabs from a notebook binder and a toothbrush, etc. A fascinating look at how people can improvise in some of the most dire of circumstances.

3 people found this helpful

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C. Jagalla

Inspiring

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 27, 2009

This book is an inspiring testament to the human spirit. It's especially interesting for anyone with an engineering mind or a knack for making things. We are all inventors at heart!

One person found this helpful

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J. Jorgensen

Not Just For Inmates!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 18, 2005

Totally entertaining - everyone's getting this for Christmas from me this year. Yes, the drawings are nifty, but the text about prison life which necessitates such inventions was more fascinating, to me anyway. Although weapons and drugs are not covered, it's still worth every penny.

6 people found this helpful

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Ruth Cessna

Totally awesome book, fascinating!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 5, 2008

This is a great book for anyone interested in off things. I pick it up occasionally and am always fascinated.

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朱里九

ありあわせで物作り。

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on May 28, 2010

Verified Purchase

ブリコラージュというコトバを聞いたことはありませんか？
コラージュに似ていますが、あり合わせの材料で創るという創作形態だそうで、２Dでも３Dでも構わないらしいです。
文化財修復とか、庭園修復とかの市民講座を聴きに行ったときに、ある修復家だったか建築家だったがか、ブリコラージュの話をしながら本書を引き合いに出して「こんな面白い本はない」とおっしゃったので、早速注文して読みました。

タイトルから容易に推察できると思いますが、刑務所に収監されている人が創りだしたモノを集めた本書は、ときには独創的で、ときには危険きわまりなく、時には馬鹿馬鹿しいけど、笑えるモノもあれば理解に苦しむモノもあります。
映画「ショーシャンクの空に」をほうふつさせる、物資は限られているけれども、時間だけは湯水のごとく与えられた人間にできること、作品（？）のリストです。

かくいう私、京都で暮らしていますが、京都は本来「始末の文化」というのがあって、モノをとことん使い尽くすというか、1つのモノが形を変え、最後の最後まで使いされる、けちではないのだけれども、まあ、けちくさいと言われても仕方のない習慣があります。また、うちのおかんなどは京都人ではありませんが、突然の来客にひるむことなく冷蔵庫の隅っこからなにやら取り出してちゃちゃっと食事を作ったりしますが、それってすごいなと感心することがあります。

本書には使い尽くす文化と、モノの可能性を極限まで追求しようという知的活動が凝縮されています。
それはモノの可能性であり、ヒトの可能性でもあると思います。
これはエコにもつながるかも知れません。

英語ですが、あまり語学学習にはなりません。また、怪しい図入りなので英語が読めなくても楽しめるとは思います。

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