"Bag Day" - protest Barnes & Noble Nov. 23 (fwd)
Rochester
"Silly Robert, hollow points are for meddlers..."
"Wit is the only wall Robert Fernandez
Between us and the dark." rfer...@chuma.cas.usf.edu
- Mark Van Doren http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~rfernand
AIM: Gamaliel8
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 13:58:57 -0800
From: Chuck0 <ch...@tao.ca>
To: ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom List <ala...@ala1.ala.org>
Subject: "Bag Day" - protest Barnes & Noble Nov. 23
I'm going to do this at the store in Georgetown.
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"BAG DAY" WILL PROTEST BARNES & NOBLE ON NOVEMBER 23
AUSTIN, TX - A nationwide coalition that includes recording
artists Negativland, the estate of Terry Southern, Alt-X/Black
Ice, the AK Press, the Church of the SubGenius, and others is
declaring November 23 to be "Bag Day," and asking that at noon on
that day, people all over the U.S. protest the homogenizing and
destructive effects of corporate chains, by browsing in Barnes &
Noble bookstores with paper bags on their heads, according to an
email communication from RTMARK.
Last week independent booksellers reacted with dismay when Barnes
& Noble Inc., the nation's largest bookseller, announced that it
will acquire Ingram Book Group . Ingram Book Group supplies the
bulk of books to thousands of small booksellers. And a lawsuit,
filed in March by the American Booksellers Association along with
two dozen independently-owned bookstores, contends that Barnes &
Noble has "engaged in a pattern and practice of soliciting,
inducing, and receiving secret, discriminatory, and illegal terms
from publishers and distributors."
The idea for this national protest was conceived and launched by
the Austin-based activist group Friends United in Creative
Knowledge of the Faceless Attitudes of Corporate Entities.
According to an open letter on the group's website, The genesis of
the idea came from an incident in Austin where a man wearing a
paper bag with holes cut for his eyes walked into a Barnes & Noble
Superstore. He approached the front counter and politely asked the
clerk for assistance in finding a particular book. The clerk
immediately called for a manager to the front. An assistant
manager appeared and asked the man why he was wearing a paper bag
on his head. the man said: "I am tired of the corporate attitude
which views me merely as a faceless consumer. And I am wearing
this paper bag as a symbol of my protest against this sort of
mind-set."
Friends reports that when the assistant manager then told him to
either remove the bag or leave the store, the man elected to leave
the store.
The bag is also meant to be evocative of the Old West bandit's
stereotypical facial covering, according to RTMARK. November 23 is
Billy the Kid's putative birthday, and bag-wearers will be known
as "billies" to commemorate this figure who primarily attacked
corporate entities that had stepped out of line.
For more information, send email to fri...@fringeware.com
Sources/resources:
FRIENDS UNITED IN CREATIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FACELESS ATTITUDES OF
CORPORATE ENTITIES --
http://www.fringeware.com/friends/
RTMARK press page -- http://rtmark.com/faq.html
American Booksellers Association
BOOKWEB -- http://www.ambook.org/
"Barnes & Noble to buy Nation's Largest Book Wholesaler"
Arts Wire CURRENT --
http://www.artswire.org/current/1998/cur111098.html
November 10, 1998
"ABA, Independent Booksellers Sue Barnes & Noble, Borders"
Arts Wire CURRENT --
http://www.artswire.org/current/1998/cur032498.html
March 24, 1998