Friday Videos Give You Improv Props

Thanks to Anonymous, one of my faves, a video that shows how absolutely cool it is to make NYC commuters stop and take notice of anything, let alone applaud. Seriously. We don’t notice crap.

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Friday Videos

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  1. Joanne says:

    And the award for most determined to finish an assignment goes to the chick who got poked by the idiot who is obviously from Montana—- or someplace else where women don’t push your face in for touching them without asking.

    Great video, great concept, great way to start the weekend.
    Thanks!

  2. Victoria Dahl says:

    That. Was. Awesome.

    First, I would NEVER have been able to do that without at least laughing and probably getting a charlie horse.

    Second, they’re lucky they didn’t push some unstable conspiracy theorist over the edge.

    (Oh, and sorry for f-ing up the comments in the other thread, Sarah. Got it: Embed bad. Linkie good.)

  3. elizabeth says:

    they also do an annual no pants on the tube journey.


  4. Kalen Hughes says:

    I’m so bummed that I can’t see whatever this is until I get home. The no pants thing sounds a lot like something the Cocophony Society would do here in San Francisco.

    The first time I ever saw them I was on a cross town bus, and a clown got on. Then another one. Every stop there was a clown or two or four. Eventually the bus driver refused to stop anymore she was so freaked out, LOL! I’ve had some great times out with them and with similar groups over the years: Urban Iditarod (people dressed as dogs pulling shopping cards from bar to bar to bar), Urban Golf, Office Chair Races, Santarcon (a couple hundred people dressed as Santa, reindeer and elves running riot through the city . . . from bar to bar to bar).

  5. Elyssa says:

    Love the video. Love. It.

  6. Cor says:

    Gah! Apparently my computer won’t load the video – unless I go to Youtube. *headdesk*

    Could I get the link to the video on Youtube itself, pretty please?

  7. ev says:

    The No Pants thing is in Feb too. It doesn’t get much colder than that here. Although why people stare when so many guys run around with their pants down below their butts and their shorts hanging out all the time, I have no clue.

    Grand Central is a blast. don’t ever stand in the middle and whisper. Everyone can hear you.

    I love the girl with the banana in front of the guy on the mover.

  8. MaryKate says:

    Awesome. I live in DC and I’ll bet we wouldn’t even stop. Especially if they did it in a Metro station. We’d all just end up screaming “Stand the right!!!!”

  9. SonomaLass says:

    Wow, this is awesome.  For full effect, though, I’m going to have to watch it on my daughter’s computer—the way mine handles video, it’s kind of hard to tell who is freezing for the project, because the action is very stop-start.

    ” I can’t move my cart.  There’s hundreds of people frozen everywhere.  This is wild.  They are not moving.  I can’t move my cart.  I need some help.  Never mind, they’re moving.”  OMG, that guy is hilarious!!!!!  All the reactions are great.

    Cor, the direct YouTube URL is here.

  10. Timba says:

    …idiot who is obviously from Montana—- or someplace else where women don’t push your face in for touching them without asking.

    Hey, we TOTALLY punch jerks in the face out here! 😀

    And, this video is by far the most awesome thing I have seen all day.

  11. Joanna says:

    WOW. I love the non-participants who suddenly look like extras in a horror film! This vid was only slightly marred by the distant sound of a thousand blogs whirring into action.

  12. Bonnie says:

    Fabulous video!

    And we don’t notice crap here in Chicago, either.  It’s kind of scary, really.

  13. Joanne says:

    Hey, we TOTALLY punch jerks in the face out here! 😀

    I knew the second I hit submit that I had picked the wrong State… and thinking about it now, probably the wrong hemisphere!

  14. Alice says:

    Didn’t they also do one of the mirror twins? They had twins across each other on the bus and would mirror each other’s movements.



  15. sara says:

    The only thing I want to know is, how did they record sound in Grand Central? It echoes so much in there you should be able to get a clear recording of anyone, unless those spectators are wearing lavaliere mikes. I call shenanigans.

  16. sara says:

    Shouldn’t, I mean. God. Bourbon, meet the Smart Bitches’ comment threads.

  17. eaeaea says:

    We had the same thing in Sydney, Australia. Some group on FACEBOOK staged this worldwide a couple of weeks ago. It was done here in a busy shopping precint.
    Similar responses were seen in the gawking crowd – staring, poking, etc. It even made the news.

  18. ev says:

    They had directional microphones on the cameras which is the only way the sound would get picked up.

    Hi Bourbon!!

  19. Gennita Low says:

    This was freakish.  I would have sneezed or blinked.  Or suddenly develop an itch in the back.

  20. Suze says:

    See now, whenever politicians start arguing about spending money on public art installations, this is the kind of thing I always want to see funded.  Something like this happening every month for X years versus some ugly sculpture that the birds will crap on forever.  Even some more traditional performance art would be okay, Poet in the Park or whatever, but this guerilla improv stuff is FABULOUS!  You don’t give people a chance to plan to attend and then jam out, it just comes upon you suddenly.

    I would LOVELOVELOVE to be able to see the giant marionettes one day.

    http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=qBXr15K2uSc

  21. sistergolden says:

    Yep, that’s cool. It’s a bit of a growing fad called a “flash mob”. People who want to participate will get a text with a location and time and show up. There’s a pre-arranged cue to start and another to stop.  Here’s a cool grocery store one. 

    Apparently, they do different things.  This ones at a library where they all just lay down in the aisle. 

    Here, they act like a bunch of chickens. 

    Or, the pillow fight one (complete with MyLittlePony in the camera frame).

  22. Jill Monroe says:

    I say we stage our own improv at National!

  23. Bex says:

    Heh, and we did a time freeze in Perth, Australia in May of this year with 300 (or there abouts) people in the arts district of central perth.

    Didn’t get an appluase though…

    Nice to see that Flashmobbing is taking off everywhere!!

    – b

  24. ev says:

    I say we stage our own improv at National!

    Romance readers everywhere could stop and hold their fave book up for 5 minutes, while reading. (No page turning though!!)

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