Research Catalog

Title

What should I do if Reverend Billy is in my store? / Bill Talen.

Author

Talen, William.

Publication

New York : New Press, 2003.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xv, 151 pages : illustrations; 20 cm

Summary

"Reverend Billy is a revivalist preacher who leads the Church of Stop Shopping, an anti-consumerist communion devoted to putting the "Odd into God." Created by the actor Bill Talen, the Reverend first appeared alongside the sidewalk preachers in New York's Times Square during the Giuliani years, bringing his new post-religious theology to startled crowds. Before long he was pulpit thumping in the ninth circle of hell, otherwise known as the Disney Store on 42nd Street, where his spontaneous querilla theater led to something he describes as the "Exalted State of True Embarrassment," generally followed by the arrival of the police. The Reverend's corporate targets have since expanded to include The Gap, Starbucks, and NYU, indeed anywhere that the Church of the Stupefied Consumer holds sway."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Consumption (Economics) > Moral and ethical aspects > United States
• Consumer behavior > Moral and ethical aspects > United States

Contents

Frontispiece: Starbucks memo -- Introduction: Fun with the Unknown -- Ch. 1. The Pileated Woodpecker Screams -- Dear Bucksurveillor -- Postscript to a Scream -- The Reader Will Please Rise -- Ch. 2. The Red Chair -- Two-Minute Radio Sermon: Sponsored Grandmother -- Ch. 3. Counter Visions in the Disney Store -- The Cell Phone Opera -- Ch. 4. Not Buying -- The Reader Will Please Kneel -- Ch. 5. The Raven and the Wrecking Ball -- The Reader Will Please Rise Again -- Ch. 6. The Revolution Is My Hot Neighborhood -- Ch. 7. The Serious Circus -- The Parable of Selling Soap -- Two-Minute Radio Sermon: Which Way to Heaven?

ISBN

1565848241 (hc)

LCCN

• 2003054100
• R0-405564

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries