Contact Michael via e-mail.
What is a Whirl-Mart?
The action is comprised of a group of anti-shoppers ranging in size from 1 to 50 members. The ritual consists of activists/actors arriving at a Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us or another chain superstore at 12-noon on the first Saturday or Sunday of the month and proceeding to push empty shopping carts slowly and silently through the aisles. Eventually, all of the participants locate one another and form a single-file chain of anti-shoppers which weaves, wanders, and whirls throughout the store for about an hour. It is a collective reclamation of space that is otherwise only used for buying and selling. It is a symbolic display of the will to resist the capitalist ideology.
'Whirl-Mart' is an experiment that can be approached from several different angles. As a work of art, it examines and blurs the boundaries that have been established between performance art, protest, living sculpture, and direct action. As an action of resistance, it utilizes the power of silence in occupying private consumer-dominated space with a symbolic spectacle. As a ceremony, it is a counter-ritual to shopping that transforms the super-store and its wall-to-wall array of products into a surreal and colorful cathedral. And what the heck-- it's just darned fun!
Search the NEPA Whirl-Mart Site
Get your Networking on
Regional (NEPA)
Rally of One Peace can begin with YOU NEPA BLOG Blog by & about Northeastern Pennsylvania: issues, events, discussion, photos WatermelonPunch.com NEPA Whirl-Mart's web host xradiograph what Michael does when he's not "fightin' the man" SurfScranton.com 1,000+ regional links
National & Worldwide
Whirl-Mart Ritual Resistance International Whirl-Mart HQ World Changing Models, Tools, and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future Critical Mass Critical Mass is not an organization, it's an unorganized
coincidence. It's a movement ... of bicycles, in the streets. Rev Billy's Church of Stop Shopping Lots of great scripts from/for performance interventions
with a heavy focus on Starbucks. Commerce
Jamming Commerce Jamming source page. AdBusters A global network of those who want to advance the new social
activist movement of the information age. Commercial Alert wants to keep commercial culture within
its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and
democracy. No Media Kings Jim Munroe's guide to doin' it for yourself Booksense.com Internet book search that sends your order to your nearest
independent bookstore. Starbucks Delocator Search that helps you locate locally owned alternatives to Starbucks
Media
The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media
outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth Project of the Independent Media Institute, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to strengthening and supporting independent and
alternative journalism. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the first to identify
threats to our basic rights online and to advocate on behalf of free expression
in the digital age. Declan
McCullagh's Politech Politech is the moderated mailing list of politics and technology.
Topics include privacy, free speech, the role of government and corporations,
antitrust, and more. MediaChannel.org The global network for democratic media.
PLUS the News Dissector's Weblog. CorpWatch.org counters corporate-led globalization through education,
network-building and activism.
KMart Forever!
A community gathering place for employees,
retirees, friends, family and supporters of Kmart: " The last time I went shopping with my 92-year old mother was at the KMart
store in Ramona CA. She is gone now. I had to push her around in her wheelchair
through every aisle of the store. She loved nothing better than her recreational
shopping. There is nothing special to tell about it except that the store reminds
me of her when I drive by. Thanks and good luck."
From Reuters:
Subscribers can post uplifting or just plain unusual messages -- although they
are filtered for profanity or mean-spiritedness, Kmart spokesman Dave Karraker
said.
Not everybody
likes KMart so much, and it's being boycotted by creationists
and gunowners.
In other news, William
Rosenberg, the food franchising pioneer who founded the Dunkin'
Donuts chain and saw it spread from coast to coast and into 37 countries,
has died. He was 86.
Who cares about ŠOPYRIGHT, anyway??? Ed
Felton, for one. Check out Freedom
to Tinker for ways in which the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) is
going to ruin your life, or at least your Big
Mouth Billy Bass.
Bypass the system
According to CDBaby founder and musician Derek Sivers,
the inspiration to launch stemmed from dissatisfaction with options for
independent artists who have music ready to release, but who don't
operate on the scale required by conventional label and distributor
business models.
CDBaby pockets a flat $4-per-unit fee from each CD sold, and remits the
rest to artists in the form of weekly checks. With an average list
price of $12 to $20, artists earn $8 to $16 per CD, though there's no
limit on how high or low CD prices can be.
Check out the entire Grammy.org article. Thanks to Xeni.Jardin.
Viral Marketing Doesn't Work: Tell Everyone You Know
The folks at NTK
have some funky t-shirts available, one with my new favorite anti-ad
slogan (in yellow on black, with the biohazard symbol, too!). Their
tag-line is "In-jokes for Outcasts".... I guess that's me!
MediaChannel.org
