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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!
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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.
Scranton Times Tribune: The days of selling pistachios to
local taverns and stocking candy cases are ending for the landmark
South Scranton business. Crystal Candy and Nut will close Monday, the
victim of the changing retail landscape.
The building at 1102 Pittston Ave. is the Meskey family homestead.
Living above the store, Darlene, Wally and Gary made Crystal Candy
& Nut their playground.
As a child, Darlene would rush outside with Windex and a rag to wash
the windows of delivery trucks. She remembers her grandmother counting
out 15 peanuts for each bar-bound bag of salty nuts. Her father would
load up his truck and make rounds.
Darlene's grandfather, J.T. Meskey, opened a five-and-dime on the first
floor of the building in the early 1920s. Later, the Meskeys began
roasting nuts on the stove in the kitchen and selling them.
J.T.'s son, Walter Meskey Sr., was a truck driver, delivering cars
throughout the East. Along the way, he stopped at stores, taverns and
filling stations and offered wall-mounted cards stapled with Crystal
Nut bags of nuts. Those stops became customers, and Walter began to
deliver nuts and candy rather than cars. Crystal Candy became a
wholesale business.
In the late 1980s, the candy business soured. Got-it-all big box
discounters flourished and corner markets gave way to supermarkets.
Neighborhood bars, once found on nearly every block of every Main
Avenue and Main Street, closed. One by one, Charles Chips, Reisman
Pretzel and Groff's went belly up or sold their brands.
The building is sold, but Mrs. Markowski said the name is not. She said
Crystal Candy & Nut may re-emerge in some other form. Nostalgia
candy so popular at Crystal has found a niche on the World Wide Web,
she noted. Penny candy like Mary Janes, Candy Buttons, Squirrel Nut
Zippers and Lik-L-Nip Wax Bottles that helped build Crystal may revive
it.
"Never say never," she said. "There's nothing more fun than selling candy."
MediaChannel.org
