Flash Mob

#25

Doing a flash mob was another goal that I didn’t have on my original list. It actually had gotten cut out from the much longer list but then added back in the last second. My copywriter said cleaning out my closet was too boring. So I figured I’d grab my friend Sandra (who’s idea it was) and try do one this year. After adding it, I decided it was definitely a good idea. I mean, I love to dance and I love musicals. So why not participate in a flash mob?

You may ask what exactly is a flash mob? According to Wikipedia a flash mob is:

a term coined in 2003 to denote a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire

So kind of unusual and pointless act did I want to do? Dance around to a catchy song of course. Sounds fun, right? There are lots of famous flash mobs. Mostly in train stations or other such public places. My aunts did one recently on Main Street in Nantucket before Christmas. You may have seen the one that aired on Modern Family. And I’m pretty sure everyone has seen the one that the Black Eyed Peas surprised Oprah with.

So onto the flash mob that I participated in. Well my friend Pam’s coworker Danielle passed along an email chain from The Hom Store in Bay Ridge. Well they were working with The Green Spa and a local dance company to do a flash mob. Of course I immediately recruited my friend Sandra to participate.

On Saturday afternoon, we practiced for a couple of hours to "Dog Days are Over" by Florence and the Machine. When I say practice, we kind of danced around (well at least me, since Sandra is a legit dancer) and watched other flash mobs. Fun stuff.

The flash mob was to occur Sunday morning in Bay Ridge. If you know where I live in NYC, it’s like HOURS away! So I stayed overnight in Brooklyn (after some dinner and birthday partying). Needless to say, when our alarm went off at 6:45am, we were not too pleased. Way too early AND way too many beers the night before.

We get sustenance (bagels) and practiced with the group a little bit. Mostly stood around and watched. Well I was a bit unclear on the process since I’ve never done this before. I didn’t realize we would be practicing in public, which you figured you want to avoid until the actual performance... They were putting together a video that may or may not be on the O network. We shall see…

Well here’s the video (compliments of Danielle’s boyfriend Jeremiah):

Now as you can see from that video, I was about 1 second behind everyone else. Guess I needed to practice more and not drink the night before. Either way. I would love to do another one in a more public place and definitely have the element of surprise. Everyone knew what were doing on 3^rd Avenue in Bay Ridge. Next time Grand Central…