Cultural Fingerprints

Story Behind the Choking Sign: Basketball, Food, and Design with Pitu Sanchez

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 18:40:51 -0400

How did this famed moment in New York basketball culture become embedded in a restaurant safety sign? In the second episode of Cultural Fingerprints, designer and art director Pitu Sanchez shares how he intersected his love for basketball, food, design, and New York in this legendary passion project: creating a restaurant safety sign that repurposes NBA star Reggie Miller’s iconic trash-talk “choke” gesture, famously directed at renowned filmmaker and New York Knicks superfan Spike Lee as he sat courtside, as a visual demonstration of a choking emergency. We dive into Pitu’s design philosophy as shaped by his upbringing in the diverse borough of Queens, his door-to-door giveaway efforts to make this sign the go-to choking poster for sports bars in New York, and the community of food and basketball lovers the work has brought together.

Pitu Sanchez: pitu.nyc

For more information: rheakapur.info and culturalfingerprints.com

Story Behind the Choking Sign: Fish Cheeks with Lia Kantrowitz and Jessica Saesue

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:45:03 -0400

A choking safety sign as art? In this episode, illustrator Lia Kantrowitz and creative director Jessica Saesue discuss their work on the custom choking sign for Fish Cheeks, a contemporary, seafood-focused Thai restaurant in New York. Their creative relationship began at VICE nearly a decade ago and now extends to teaming up on branding projects for not only Fish Cheeks, but also 55 Hospitality’s other culinary ventures! Lia and Jessica share how they interpreted the flexible regulatory language describing choking safety signage to decide on the layout and artistic style of the Fish Cheeks custom sign. They also discuss the connections and boundaries between designer, illustrator, and creative director roles within hospitality, educational institutions, and the real world. This conversation confirms that there is so much more to these signs than meets the eye; they actually hold the stories of the New Yorkers who create them. Lia Kantrowitz: liakantro.com Jessica Saesue: jessicasaesue.com For more information: rheakapur.info and culturalfingerprints.com

Welcome to Cultural Fingerprints!

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 23:37:09 -0500

Welcome to the podcast for Cultural Fingerprints, a home for the intersections of language, culture, technology, and place. I'm your host, Rhea Kapur: a researcher, artist, urban archivist, and technologist. More at www.rheakapur.info and www.culturalfingerprints.com, or find me @culturalfingerprints on Instagram and TikTok!