“We’re hairy, we’re smelly, we’re really really hot! You’re fake, you’re plastic, you’re really really not!” Six women in bras and panties cavorted around a couple of half-mannequins in thongs. They were at Victoria’s Secret on Michigan Avenue at lunchtime protesting the company’s excessive use of unrecycled paper, and I was in Rodan a few days later, watching all this happen on a three-by-five digital video camera screen. I’d gone out for a glass of wine and met a handful of folks from ForestEthics, a grassroots activist group based in San Francisco, D.C., and Portland that’s pushing for more-sustainable forestry practices.
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On the tiny camera screen at our table, six women and two men entered the overwhelmingly pink Victoria’s Secret store and took off their coats, exposing slips on which were written VICTORIA KILLS TREES and PLEASE RECYCLE. Two of them held up a large banner that read VICTORIA’S DIRTY SECRET: CATALOGS = CLEARCUTS and started chanting about saving forests and being hot. Though the manager on duty took action, spritzing the air around them with body spray and perfume, most of the black-clad employees stood motionless, with stunned expressions, while two participants held up homemade cardboard trees and the others chased them around with homemade cardboard chain saws, cackling and making revving noises.
“They’re ruining my business,” the manager told an officer. The cop asked the protesters to stand away from the building, then stepped back to take in the rest of the show. A small crowd of male onlookers started to gather, staring and grinning, while women on cell phones or with strollers hurried past the scene.
Last year I was part of the 12-person group that took Ed Marszewski’s Select Media Festival–a series of film screenings, gallery shows, and parties celebrating technology, art, and political dissent–to Europe. Modesty aside, I was also the reigning champ of Laptronica, in which teams performing laptop music battle each other to wow a panel of judges with their musical prowess and showmanship. This year I stayed out of it until closing night, when they asked me to be a Laptronica judge.
