MOB #8
09/10/03
MOB #8, tonight at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue, was the final New York flash mob. The instructions read: "At 7:41, a performance will begin on the sidewalk....Be an enthusiastic audience...disperse at 7:46 no matter what the 'performer' does...."
The intended performer was a recorded message on a boom box. Instead, a man with a bright neon sign reading "Cafe Thou Art" in a suitcase hijacked the mob by displaying his sign and making a peace sign with his right hand. (Who carries a neon sign in a suitcase?) The crowd, playing along and not realizing the neon sign was an interloper, briefly chanted "Peace, peace, peace!", drowning out the boom box.
Fred Hoysted has pictures of the neon sign; I was behind it and couldn't get any. Fred also says that where he was standing, the boom box was audible. Where I was, it certainly wasn't, and I didn't know it even existed until afterward.
The crowd waiting for anything recognizable to happen:
The crowd watching Neon Sign Guy:
The glow from the neon sign:
After the mob, Neon Sign Guy posed for pictures (and also accepted a dollar from mobber Bryan Fitzgerald of Connecticut).
On the whole, I thought this was a fitting end to the Mob Project, and in a way even its hijacking by an unidentified performance artist worked. (No one could hear the boom box, anyway, and the impenetrable message on the neon sign lent an air of surreality to the whole thing.) Better that it be hijacked by incomprehensible art than by a corporation; nobody wants to go to an AT&T Flash Mob.
Thanks, Bill, for starting this project, coming up with mob ideas, and ending it at the right time. It was just the thing for a humid, rainy New York summer.
More coverage: Fred Hoysted, Glowlab, Cheesebikini, bjoseph, Moist and Tasty, Ginger
( MOB #2 at Macy's | MOB #3 at the Grand Hyatt | MOB #4 at Otto Tootsi Plohound | MOB #5 in Central Park | MOB #6 at Toys R Us | MOB #7 at St. Patrick's Cathedral )
10:20 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (3)
Comments
I can't believe you stole my AT&T line!
Posted by: Gabe at September 11, 2003 12:26 AM
excuse me, your comment line...-:)
Posted by: scott at September 11, 2003 11:23 AM
Thanks for the photos and great coverage. If interested, please read my own coverage of the Mob, with analysis, at:
http://bjoseph.livejournal.com
Barry
Posted by: Barry at September 11, 2003 11:49 AM
What was up with the after party at the Tank? Did anyone check out the Bush Booth?
Posted by: Rory Roemisch at September 11, 2003 01:38 PM
What was up with the after party at the Tank? Did anyone check out the Bush Booth?
Posted by: Rory Roemisch at September 11, 2003 01:38 PM
I have borrowed a picture for my weblog (yeah, it is with me), so let me know if you don't like this ...any copyrights and alike... thanks a lot
Posted by: terminus at September 11, 2003 02:27 PM
At long last, a full report on MOB 8 is up. Hope you have some time to kill...
Posted by: Ginger at September 12, 2003 05:52 AM
BALTIMORE !!!!
LET'S MOB RITE AID IN ROSEDALE !!!!
Posted by: Lynn at October 11, 2003 09:15 PM
That's some pretty sweet performance art, a hijacked flashmob.
Posted by: driverdave at November 2, 2003 03:33 AM
Is flash mob really over?
Posted by: Lynne at December 2, 2005 08:24 AM
I want to participate a flash mob.