preparedness month

Found out that September is National Preparedness Month and thought I'd have some fun with that at Powell's. With the recent rash of books on how to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse, the alien invasion, the robot uprising, along with a whole section of books for surviving in the wild, I figured it was a good time to take being prepared to the next level.

Here's the top panel I put together...



I was able to reuse an image I'd created for my First Contact display a while back...



There on the left side is my version of the letter-to-the-editor that Billy Pilgrim wrote in Slaughterhouse Five--one of the number of alien-related books I was displaying along with First Contact. Here's a blog post on that display which shows the original use of the letter. And here's an earlier blog post about the display in which I explain how to create an alien out of a cat and George W. Bush.

Then I found some blueprints and played around a bit with them to simulate some sort of plans for hiding and evacuation during the zombie / robot / vampire / alien apocalypse. Made quick work of it because part of that area of the display was going to be blocked by books. Here's a picture of the final display--including the annoying shine from the window glass and excluding the book that someone removed at the request of a customer that day. The customer bought the book, which is good, but I always have mixed feelings when I see those empty book holders. Yay - the display is effective... boo - now I have to go get another copy to put in the window. I've had a lot of that with this display, actually, and I've heard there are a lot of people asking questions about the books. I wonder what it is that people are getting more prepared for... survival in the wilderness or the undead.