Shopping Store Theatre

tpc002

Shopping Store Theatre was a hazy creation by an ex-artist where people could shop for groceries while watching movies of themselves. On Saturday nights people shopped under the gaze of a huge screen at the back of the store. Wayne, the ex-artist, followed customers around the store with a film crew while a producer picked the go-to camera and told stories. At each subject flip a cheer went out as relatives recognized their loved one blown up to King-Kong size above all the aisles. Last Saturday night, the producer, who is replaced from week to week, caught a man picking his nose near the grapes. She had three cameras surround the man as he moved on to the oranges, but he had become self-conscious and no longer interesting.

A young couple in the first aisle (bread and cheese) began chanting a chant that quickly caught on: “Pick it Pick it Pick it,” echoed across the isles. People outside, who were watching on the outdoor big screen, picked up on the chant and were drawn inside hoping to ask for and receive a glimpse of a grocery-store spelunk. The store began using the chant as its slogan and soon posted a banner stretched across the store front reading, “At the Shopping Store Theatre, YOU pick it!” They paid the digging-for-grapes-man, as he was soon known, a million dollars to pose with his finger up his nose for a picture they put on T-shirts, posters, ads, TV…. When he was asked what his mother thought of his immortal pose, the digging-for-grapes-man quietly replied, “She’s dead - but she’s been in touch. She told me, ‘looks like you almost got one.’”