It started with a 5 hour bus ride from D.C to New York. We were supposed to arrive in New York at 12:30, but instead we got there at 1:30 because our bus driver drove like a turtle (a Walmart 18-wheeler passed us.... that's how slow we were going). And what would New York be without a little traffic? Not gonna lie, but my first impression of New York was very stereotypical. People were literally honking car horns every 10 seconds! There wouldn't even be anything happening and someone would by laying on their horn and shouting obscenities out their window. Colleen said she even saw a guy get hit by a car because he was in the crosswalk when another car wanted to go. The intersections were kind of a free for all even though there were traffic lights, and I'm pretty sure the NYPD doesn't even bother ticketing drivers anymore. You really have to be born and raised in New York to drive there without getting killed.
When we finally got to New York and found the ferry to Governor's Island, we waited in line for over an hour just to get on the ferry. Thousands of people participate in the annual MP3 Experiment, but only a couple hundred fit on the ferry that comes every 30 minutes. I felt bad for the ferry staff. There was only one guy doing bag check, and the look on his face when someone told him there were 1,000 more people in line, was priceless. It got to the point where he wasn't even looking in the bags. He was just kind of letting people walk by him with their bags semi-opened. After all, every bag probably contained the same props; A white sheet, a soft toy, a hard flat object, a shower cap, a musical instrument, and a water gun. You know, normal stuff you'd bring on Governor's Island. Thankfully, we made it on the 3:00 ferry, and even though the flash mob started at 3, the ferry ride was short, so we only missed the first 10 minutes of it.
Now if you've never heard of the MP3 Experiment, I'll explain it here. Improv Everywhere is a NYC centralized group that puts on flash mobs all over New York. The MP3 experiment happens every summer in Manhattan. If you are part of their group, you get an email with the flash mob information like date, time, place, etc. As the date draws near, they post an 45 minute long MP3 on their website that you are supposed to download, but not listen to. Before the flash mob, you gather any necessary props they tell you to gather, and wear what they tell you to wear. On the day of, you gather in the said location, and at the set time everyone who knows about the flash mob and has the MP3 downloaded, presses play. The preceding 45 minutes are filled with crazy directions from the voice of "Omnipotent Steve".
I can't recreate the entire MP3, but I can tell you some of the crazy stuff we had to do. The MP3 usually begins with the same stuff every year; Clap your hands, follow a stranger, give a stranger a high-five, have a dance party, fall on the ground and pretend to sleep. After all the "normal" directions, the fun with the props starts. The theme this year was Olympics (duh!) and every prop was associated with a different Olympic event.... for the most part. At one point we were running around with sheets on our heads and shoulders pretending to be ghosts and superheroes.
We were supposed to fly/float to the field in the center of the island to begin the olympic games. The first event was trampoline. We got into groups of 4 and took one sheet and held it tight. We then put our soft objects and put them on the "trampoline" and made them fly in the sky. Following that, we took our hard flat objects and built towers. I know this is a little scattered, but thats exactly how the MP3 was. We then had to put everything away and split into 2 groups. On one side of the field was the "color" nation (everyone who was wearing a colored shirt) and on the other side was the "monochrome" nation (everyone who was wearing black and white).
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| I was on the color nation, and monochrome nation is on the far side. |
We then took out our musical instruments and played our nation's national anthem, or as Omnipotent Steve said, "Whatever you can play that sounds like a nation anthem". We then proceeded to take part in the final event, the water gun fight! Omnipotent Steve made us all put on our shower caps so our headphones wouldn't get wet.
He then told us to raise our water guns and give our best battle cry, but before he told us to start the water gun fight, chaos broke loose. People were way too excited and were already squirting eachother. By the time Steve said go, most people had run out of water. It was still fun though!
At the end of the flash mob, we managed to run into Charlie Todd, the creator of Improv Everywhere, so we got a picture with him! He's basically a flash mob celebrity:)
All in all it was totally worth the turtle bus ride there, and the even worse bus ride back. I'm planning on doing it again next year, so if you're ever interested in joining me, let me know!
*Here's some pictures some Improv Everywhere people took. Enjoy!
