The Ministry of Reshelving Corrects Bookstore Mistakes
by xinit • 8/17/2005 • humor, politics • 4 Comments
Avant Game comes up with an intriguing idea to fill some time, have a laugh, and make a statement of sorts; all without breaking any laws.
This week, we launched the Ministry of Reshelving project. My partners in crime as founding members of the ministry: George, Kiyash, and Monica.
This weekend we relocated 19 copies of George Orwell’s 1984 in four different bookstores in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Berkeley. It was high stealth adventure.
You are invited to join our efforts.
Basically, you take all the copies you can find of the George Orwell book 1984, insert book marks that point to the relocation project’s web site, and move the books from the highly incorrect “Fiction” shelves to the much more appropriate “Current Events” section.
One anonymous comment on the Avant Game site states a belief that this is just going to make a bookstore clerk’s life a miserable existence, to which one such miserable clerk responds “People who work in bookstores, in my experience, tend to be interested in books and enjoy literary-based humor.The political issues this small playful intervention is attempting to draw attention to are more important than the few minutes it will take a bookstore employee to move the books back. If they choose. We have noticed that some employees are NOT reshelving the books. So perhaps the bookstore employees are in solidarity with the Ministry of Reshelving after all!”
Excellent.
(As seen on Boing Boing)
This project is completely stupid. If you feel so strongly about these books leave them where they are classified. If they are supposed to be in the Lit section and you move them somewhere else, the people that work in the store won’t be able to find them, so people who are looking for the book won’t get it.
that’s censorship. you’re deciding what other people should or shouldn’t read, and you’re creating more work for people because you think you’re being clever.
John K: if you actually took the time to visit the site and read the instructions you would see that it would be no problem for a person working in a bookstore to figure out where the books were relocated to. I’m working on the assumption that people who work in bookstores are gifted with the ability to read, and as such would be able to understand the cards with the huge font that state where the books have been moved to and why. The cards even state the URL of the project in case anyone wants to complain directly to the people who started it.
Oh, and look up “censorship” – it doesn’t mean what you think it does.
I invite any supporter of this reshelving idea to come work in a bookstore. I want it to be your only source of income. I as your manager will judge your performance on how well YOU maintain the organization of the store. I as your manager dont care that people are purposely making your life harder. Obviously THEY as the customer dont care about your life either.
If you dont want to work in the bookstore, we can do it at any job you wish. But imagine people purposefully affecting your work environment without your consent just to make THEIR political view known. Sounds fun right?
I’m working on the assumption that you are NOT gifted enough to even care about anyone other than yourself. And that is what the problem is.
Blah blah blah…
I didn’t come up with the idea, jacklover@hotmail.com, and calling me names doesn’t help sell your point.