Gonzo-a-go-go
I've always been a bit disappointed that the world isn't stranger than it is.There are weird things in the world; don't get me wrong. But day-to-day living contains few, if any, real surprises. When you go to work, you pretty much know what to expect. When you get together with your friends, you pretty much know what to expect. When you walk into a store, you pretty much know what to expect.
And pretty soon it all starts to blend together, because it's largely the same every time. How many really memorable store visits have you had in your life?
I ask this because a bunch of people apparently decided about a week ago that the world needed to be a bit stranger. So they invaded a Home Depot in slow motion.
It was a flash mob: a large group of strangers organized over the Internet to meet at a specific place and time, where they'll receive instructions to do something weird. In this case, that involved going to the local Home Depot and spending five minutes in slow motion, and five minutes frozen.
Reactions from the employees varied from the curmudgeony to the edge of hysterics, with most of them simply finding it very funny.
I think this happened in New York, but I find it encouraging. The world isn't very strange, but that doesn't mean we can't make it stranger. More people need to do things like this.
Think we could get a flash mob going in Erie?
posted by Smitty @ 11:27 PM
4 Comments:
I imagine a small flash mob could possibly be arranged in Erie, although I wouldn't rely entirely on the internet to do it--at least not initially.
I applaud the sentiment, but I feel compelled to mention the following. Out of all the people I know, you are possibly the least attuned to the world around you on both microscopic and macroscopic levels. Had you been in that Home Depot, I would expect you would have noticed people moving in slow motion, but at the same time, were you to tell me later that you had missed it completely, I wouldn't have been at all suprised.
My point, as you've undoubtedly surmised, is that the world might be stranger than you think, if you pay attention to it.
That said, you know I'm a fan of keeping things strange.
J.R.
A valid point.
But if it's not strange enough to attract my attention, it needs to be stranger.
Of course, a point that I wanted to shoehorn into the post but couldn't fit was the thought that, if you're dissastisfied with something in the world, the only rational course of action to to try to rectify it, since no one else can be relied upon to do so.
Which must seem kind of funny coming from me, but remember that I'm also very lazy.
So.
Want to start a flash mob?
That's hysterical coming from you, but I love to hear it! And I'm gonna get this link thing right...
Jer, how the hell did you do that?
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