"organized fun"

i don't even really know what to call them...

a comedy troupe? improv guerrillas? benevolent pranksters?

either way, they are the men and women of improv everywhere, and they are dedicated to causing "scenes of chaos and joy in public places."

personally? i'm a huge fan of chaos and joy... and if it's all going down in public, so much the better. not surprising, then, that one of my best afternoons in recent memory was courtesy of the improv everywhere crew and their "mp3 experiment 2.0". they have a lengthy, highly entertaining description and a million photos of this mission on their web site (as well as of all their other missions), but basically:

i was one of maybe 200 random people who had downloaded a 20 minute mp3 from their website, and my only instructions were 1. don't listen to it yet 2. show up at sheep meadow by 3:00 on october 16th. so i went and i sat and i wondered who else lounging around with headphones on was in on whatever it was that was about to happen. when someone yelled "ok, now!" i hit play on my ipod, and the goofiness began. me and the 200 other "agents" spread all over the meadow suddenly stood up. we danced to "bust a move". we walked like zombies to "thriller". we met our team captains (mine was the bee) and did an enormous amount of incredibly silly things as onlooker "civilians" who happened to be in the park watched and laughed and no doubt wondered what the heck was going on, since they couldn't hear any of the directions, or the jokes that has us agents cracking up, or the music that was our soundtrack.

the whole thing was beautifully done. it was unbelievably fun. it made a huge amount of people --both agents and onlookers--very very happy.

and coming in january: the fifth annual no-pants subway ride!