Today was the "buy nothing day". I was supposed to join my anarchist, anti-globalization, socially aware, activist friends in their happening, street event, costume parade. Marching the busy shopping streets of Tel Aviv, showing anti-consumerism signs and free thought slogans to ignorant shoppers who allegedly go from one store to another, helplessly looking for more acquisitions hoping it would make their self image bigger and better. I was even supposed to promote my two projects, the Pettek party and the Alternative Elections System, handing out flyers, as if the whole parade is just a colorful platform for my content.
However, the sound of the rain was somehow a relieve, an easy excuse to stay a bit longer in bed. What would be much harder to explain is the fact that during their march (if happened) I found myself out, in spite of the rain, touring the market area near my house and finally paying good money for the notorious game Monopoly!! where you are supposed to make as much money as you can by buying more and more property... oh, if only these committed nice activists knew, they would probably be so disgusted and offended to even tell me how pathetic I am, etc..
even more strange was the realization that this wasn't enough for me, and I continued on to a book shop, desperately trying to resist the temptation of buying some books..
I still have to think about the symbolism of my acts today, considering the fact that the monopoly was for an art work I'm working on and the books I wanted to purchase were books I wanted to show to my students.