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the FREE STORE

November 19, 2001

"There should be art of the windows and walls. The front should be particularly beautiful, to attract new customers. Making the store beautiful is the first order of business, keepin it beautiful is the second. The store can be called HEAVEN. HEAVEN is where you get whatever ou want. You don't spit on the floor in HEAVEN. Pain stars on the ceiling, suspend fluffy clouds from the walls. Construct planets in the aisles. There should always be a supply of sandles, robes, wings and harps for those who wish to play clerk. Use Mylar on the walls. When you look at Mylar walls you look into your soul and smile. Cover the front with phosphorescent paint. It absorbs light and will glow at night. When people ask how the store is run, tell them "by the rays of the sun." In a FREE STORE there are no problems, there are only things to do. It is a free forum of theater in which the forces of art battle the forces of garbage. Who wins is unimportant, for the FREE STORE is a school and the student is repeatedly forces by the vacuum to choose sides. Which side are you on? Are you a garbage collector or are you an artist? The choice is always yours in a FREE STORE.

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"The FREE STORE is expanding in a variety of ways. We are currently redesigning the Astor Place Subway Station, constructing a park, and establishing a number of rent-free communes. In addition, Craft Training Programs (the Liberty House concept) are being set up in the building next door. In time we plan to liberate the whole Lower East Side and turn it into a FREE CITY. It will be the living movel of the future. If the FREE STORE fails, we will carry the vision in our heads and try it again. We will never try what has succeeded in the past for in point of fact nothing has."

pp 149-150. revolutionforthehellofit, by FREE (aka Abbie Hoffman)

Posted November 19, 2001 11:01 PM