[On Mon, 23 Nov 1998, P Nathan wrote:] Dear Friends... Today was the big day, and our plans worked well. Please allow me to paraphrase some of the remarks from various witnesses -- we can craft this into a follow-up press release to the public from Friends United. Austin has 4 B&N superstores, currently. We've actually had some B&N staff running G2 missions on both sides of the fence: some who posed as concerned customers seeking details of our F.U.C.K.F.A.C.E. plans and others who kept us updated with a feed from their corporate bosses. About a half dozen of the core staff from FringeWare went to the north store (Arboretum) -- where one of our informants works, far from the expected target at the central store (The Drag). Arboretum staff seemed to be expecting us, but we kept quiet and let the ironic tension of our protest work its magic. I overheard several B&N customers asking the Arboretum store's staff about why people were wearing bags in their store; since we didn't explain our action, the B&N had to do their best to paraphrase our press release about the protest. Generally, the retail staff seemed amused, but one manager appeared to be a bit irate. Down at the central B&N store on the UT/Austin "Drag" area, about 30 "billies" assembled. Apparently some of the corporate types had read our flyers (we only printed 100, only for distribution in Austin) and in reaction, B&N had faxed copies of those flyers to each of their many superstores worldwide. They also issued a formal policy to bar any billies from entering their stores, which the B&N staff ignored. The B&N exec who manages the western district of the US (hundreds of stores) was personally onhand to observe the protest, and did not seem amused to find nearly every other customer browsing inside his store to be wearing a bag over their head. News journalists from throughout the US have kept the phone at FringeWare ringing off the wall subsequent to the protest, to inquire about today's events. So far, we've heard no reports from other cities which had planned B&N protests, but then again we just moved our servers to a new physical location and have been off the Net most of Monday for that to be finalized. Please let us know whatever you've heard! :) thanx - paco.