Image courtesy of Adbusters, Nov/Dec 2007 print edition.

Just in time for the holidays, Reverend Billy has a new movie out, What Would Jesus Buy? He and his Church of Stop Shopping travel the country exorcising cash registers and spreading the anti-consumer gospel. Other antics ensue. The AP describes how offensive Reverend Billy seems to Christians but nonetheless manages to connect with them over the idea that the buying and gift-giving parts of Christmas have totally overwhelmed the spiritual/religious/family/community experience. Gotta love those things that appeal to both the far right and the far left.

It's playing at Cinema Village in New York, and you can click here for additional theaters around the country. It's up on Netflix, so if all else fails, put it in the "saved" section of your queue. Report back, I haven't seen it yet. (Previews available on YouTube, and, ironically, the Apple website.)

The Buy Nothing Day was almost Do Nothing Day. My sister and I slept absurdly late, made pumpkin pancakes, and ventured out into the cold to see what movies the library had. The close library was closed; we followed their suggestion and took the train to a library a little farther away that I had never been to before. After our walk back, we sat around and talked, cooked some dinner, and talked some more. My neighbor came over late to join us for pumpkin muffins; we never watched the dvds.

I've heard rumors of other people celebrating via Wal-Mart conga lines with empty shopping carts, performing as mall zombies, and playing anti-consumerist songs over the radio -- but nothing's been confirmed yet.

Friday, the biggest retail day of the year, I will be celebrating Buy Nothing Day with my sister.  Since we're both pretty shopaphobic, especially in NYC, this shouldn't be too hard.  We are planning to cook, go for a walk, rollerskate in the park, see some art, perhaps visit a friend who has to work...

Can you buy nothing for a day?  What does this mean? How far does it go?  We won't be able to grow our own food and cook it with homemade implements over a fire.  We'll probably take public transportation at some point.  If we see a show, we'll have to buy the ideas that the powers that be - the gallery system, urban tastemakers, corporate sponsors - have declared are art.   Let me know where you draw the lines, and report back on what you end up doing.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Image courtesy of adbusters.  You can learn about all kinds of actions and ideas they're promoting here.

These new habits are refusing to get incorporated into my life!  I went to the used bookstore to buy a present for a friend.  Right above the shelf where I located his book, I found a book I've been wanting to read for a while.  I ran through the list in my head: it's used...I'm not broke this month...it's a reasonable price...it's right in front of me...I bought both books, refused the plastic bag, and left the store.  As I walked back to the subway I stopped and almost said DUH! right out loud.  I've had such success with the library this year and the thought did not even occur to me as I was running through my list!  There's a branch two blocks from my office; I've been reserving books online and going to pick them up when they email me.  Like Netflix for books, almost.  I'm not so good on the returning: I've probably paid $10 in library fines since January, but surely I would have spent at least two or three hundred dollars by now if I'd bought every one new.  Maybe next time the library will come to mind first.

As we head into the holiday season, Public Radio International is presenting a series on American consumption, which includes some of the radio pieces I've linked to on Fix.  I discovered it this morning while listening to a piece on food miles by Marketplace - I will look forward to checking out the rest.  (I think Marketplace's cheerful, ambivalent tone can be a nice antidote sometimes to the doom and gloom of NPR and the BBC.)

The food miles piece reminded me of the resolution - which occurs week after week - to renew my commitment to the food part of this experiment.  And then I realize I haven't been to the grocery store in days or even a week and I won't be available to go to the grocery store and back to my apartment when a grocery store is actually open for two or three more days.  And I ponder the options: snagging an apple and pretzels at the end of the work day, making oatmeal/pb&j for dinner when I get home at 11, or grabbing a slice or tacos on the walk back from the subway.  Often the quick cheap warm food wins out, for obvious reasons.  Occasionally, I'll go out with friends to eat real food.  I got tired of being the weird one who wasn't eating out.  (And hungry.)

The food thing hasn't totally gone down the drain: I've made some good forays into home cooking, but when I get off track I've tended to stay off for a while.  Lately I haven't been able to find the time on a weekend to make a big batch of something to eat all week, which seems the best strategy I've discovered so far.   When I can make two things and freeze parts of both, I feel very industrious and rich!  I've also found that cooking for one can really suck.  My favorite meals at my place have been those shared with friends and neighbors: I subjected a few to my pad thai kick, and I shared many BLT's over the summer. 

So, I'll state my desire to return to meal planning and cooking here, with the idea that I'll become a little more accountable.  Stay tuned for a little more food research and reporting.  Hopefully after Thanksgiving?

My friend asked me to vote for her video on Current, an "ecospot" about the power of the individual to effect environmental change.  View and vote here.  While the videos are fun to watch and generally cute, I pause at the thought that these suggestions will bring about the scope of changes scientists say we need right now so that people my age can have kids in good conscience.  More convincing is the message of the op-ed someone else forwarded me this week.   In it, Thomas L. Friedman makes the argument - many times rehearsed at this point - that the only way to achieve change on any kind of scale is to vote it into existence.  As we survey the candidates, can we divide this issue out from all the other pressing concerns: Iraq, Darfour, health care - not to mention electability?  Not to be a Debbie Downer here, but it seems inevitable that a milquetoast compromise is the best we can hope for, and even then its implementation is in no way guaranteed.  Someone cheer me up here!