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.
Leonard's Hardware, in the 300 block of Adams Avenue, Scranton, PA,
plans to close its doors when current stock is sold, a victim of
changing customer needs and big-box, got-it-all retailers. When Mr.
Rink put the building up for sale, he thought he would scale back the
store. Recently, he decided to end Leonard's 138-year history.
Revenues are only 20 percent to 25 percent of what they were 10
years ago. Heating bills last winter caused the business to lose money
for the first time. "That would change anyone's mind," he said.
Leonard's sells lighting fixtures for lights that are no longer
made, parts for old-style faucets, and steam radiators. Its customers
are downtown businesses and area homeowners.
Brian Nixon is having a few keys made at the store. Electrical
contractors swore by supplies from Leonard's, he said. His mother
insisted that only Leonard's sold "the right kind of clothespins."
"These guys have been more faithful to their customers than their
customers have been to them," Mr. Nixon said.
But clothespins and glue aren't enough to hold the business
together. A flip through the day's mail reminds Mr. Rink of the
economic forces at play. He receives postcards inviting him to an
auction at another hardware store that called it quits. A solicitation
from Lowe's offers him a charge card. The cover story on the June 2003
Do-It-Yourself Retailer magazine asks whether one market can support a
Lowe's, a Home Depot and a Menards.
The store has outlived the market, Mr. Rink said, figuring that
the father-and-son team must have done something right to hold on this
long.Besides, Leonard's is not alone, Mr. Rink said. "Corner grocers,
the local druggist -- they are all gone or going," he said. "In
retailing today, either you're big, or you're out."
MediaChannel.org
