Alright guys it’s rant time!

About a block from where I currently live in Hand-Gun Heights, Victoria, BC, Canada, there is a Book store called Camas Collective Books & Infoshop which lists itself as being an anarchist bookshop. Now, is it just me or is the contempt of an anarchist bookshop one of the most ridiculous things ever conceived? Think about it, how on Earth can you found a bookshop based on anarchy?

Here is the definition of anarchy as found in the dictionary:

an·ar·chy
–noun
1. a state of society without government or law.
2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control: The death of the king was followed by a year of anarchy.
3. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
4. confusion; chaos; disorder: Intellectual and moral anarchy followed his loss of faith.

So, is this book shop open at all times of the day? No! Does it try to govern me with opening hours? Yes! Does the shop expect payment for its books? Yes! Perhaps I should go in, pick up a book, and tell them I want to trade it for some beans. I don’t like to be bound by the conventions of paying for items with pieces of paper with the Queen’s face printed on them (they still do in Canada). I have half a mind to go into the store, and see if they have a copy of Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman, and……. you guessed it: steal it!

A couple of weeks ago, my wife came home and told me that she saw a poster saying that they were doing a play of V for Vendetta. I was actually quite impressed, a play of V for Vendetta could be cool; however, I looked it up on the Internet, and it seems it was just a showing of the movie. Now, I know the laws, and if they want to show V for Vendetta, then they have to pay money to Warner Brothers for the right to do so, or they would get shut down by the Police. Again, lining the pocket’s of WB doesn’t particularly seem to promote anarchy does it? I happened to be walking back from town just before the showing they were doing of the movie, and I noticed that there were many middle-class white kids queued up around the block waiting to get into the store. Yes! That most Anarchic of things, the queue! Everyone lined up in an orderly fashion to be permitted access to a venue!

The same people that run this store run the coffee shop next door called Café Fantastico. I have been into this coffee shop a couple of times, and every time I have come out thinking how incredibly pretentious it was. They don’t have normal furniture, everything is reclaimed from dumpsters, or old car seats, they even have a barber’s chair! They won’t sell you cofee beans if they don’t think that you will use them quickly enough before they start to go acidic. I was once in there getting a coffee to take on the bus and heard a customer ask where the Honey was to put in his coffee. The server proceeded to give this customer the directions to the nearest Starbucks. If I were that customer I would have held the server’s head under the milk steamer for a good few minutes!

For this and more I present the owners of Café Fantastico and Camas with the douche-bag of the week award. Well done!

Damn, I managed to get a comic reference in there as well, hell, even Alan Moore! Success! I rule at Life!

P.S. I just drank most of a bottle of wine, and I’m not supposed to drink on my medication.

[Update] I meant to post this originally, but I just noticed I didn’t. The store was clearly showing V for Vendetta to promote the ideals of anarchy. Alan Moore’s original story did have a lot of anarchistic ideals in it, but the Wachowski’s changed the message to suit their own needs. At the end of the movie version, everyone dons a V mask (where they got them no one says!) and moves on the houses of Parliament. This isn’t anarchy. This ending promotes order over disorder, and really the unified vision that the people have seems more to promote communism than anarchy. Camas sucks, and is run by ignorant tools, end of story.
[/Update]

Related posts:

1. I’m not afraid to admit it: I read comics!
2. Wanted - An Unwanted Disappointment
3. Dwight L MacPherson Needs Your Help
4. Ennis and Wagner to bring Dredd to Dynamite. Recipe for awesomeness, or recipe for disaster?
5. No comics, but I bought a condo