cce blog

dinosaur mob review

Last night's MOB #6 was cute, but a bit of a disappointment. I met up with Kennyb, Ben, and Ton (public-art pranksters themselves, of Astor Cube fame) at 7pm at Hamburger Harry's in Times Square, and on my way to their table walked right into a young man passing out slips of paper with the following instructions:

Duration: 6 minutes (Gather at 7:18; disperse at 7:24.)

The Site: Toys R Us (Broadway at 44th St).

By 7:15, situate yourself on the second floor of Toys R Us, away from the Jurassic Park section.

At 7:18, approach the giant animatronic dinosaur. Fill in all around it. It is like a terrible god to you. Stare at it transfixed.

At 7:20, drop to your knees, still staring at the dinosaur. Whenever it roars, moan and cower behind outstretched hands.

At 7:24, disperse. No one should remain in Toys R Us after 7:27.

KEEP THIS SLIP HIDDEN. NO PHOTOS OR INTERVIEWS BETWEEN 7:15 AND 7:20.

And that was basically exactly what occurred. Kenny finished a beer, we got up, went to Toys R Us, and got in a loong line up the escalator to the second floor where the giant dinosaur was. Hundreds of people amassed and we ended up at the front of the crowd, pretty close to the dinosaur, but not as close as the photographers and cameramen all poised to record whatever was supposed to take place. There were a LOT of people.

Then conversation started to peter out and people began simply staring at the dinosaur. I tried to keep an awed stare on the thing while I made sideways conversation with Ton, and wondered whether we would really all get down on our knees, which seemed a little silly to me.

After a few awkward minutes, a wave of kneeling suddenly swept across the room, taking me by surprise, and I found myself simply obeying the collective groupthink, half-heartedly waving my arms in praise of the dinosaur but mostly feeling silly. But people really did all put their hands out and began to moan -- check out these great pictures.

The moaning began to die down, and though we were on our knees, no one had really cowered yet, but suddenly the dinosaur roared loudly and everyone screamed, and covered themselves with their hands. Then the dinosaur roared, again, louder this time, and I have to admit with everyone else cowering in fear it wasn't hard to join in the cowering-and-yelling routine. The dinosaur roared again, propelling us to a climax, and after that died down everyone just got up and started walking out.

All told, it seemed pretty silly: afterwards I couldn't help thinking we'd all go swallow goldfish next, or see how many people we could stuff into a phone booth. As I said in my last entry, I still think these things need a real purpose -- political, artistic, or otherwise -- or at the least a cleverer idea than convening the huddling masses in a Toys 'R Us. Blogger Queixa agrees with me here, and bloggers fancyrobot and Satan's Laundromat (good photos) shared my hopes that the mob would take place outdoors in Times Square proper, rather than inside a store with insufficient entrance/exits.

Then again, mob supporter/reviewer fred hoysted and this glowlab guy (good photos) only have good things to say, calling it "surreal, hilarious chaos," and that "a symbolic point was scored on behalf of anti-capitalism." I doubt that's really the reason people came out, though. BBC Newshour has a very good bit with a few Salon-like "It's, like, so cool!" quotes from happy NYC mobbers, plus a very funny talk with the unwitting host of London's first mob, at a sofa store on Tottenham Court Road. He had an interesting observation on what these mobs are, in essence: "It's a secret society, basically ... they meet every fortnight, receive secret instructions, and yesterday just happened to be 'Sofa Appreciation Day!'"

But I think the common feeling among these blogger reviews is: where does the idea go from here? My last blog entry might seem a bit negative, but after seeing hundreds of people show up for no good reason, it's obvious that there's some kind of potential for artistic or political expression here, beyond what Meetup.com and Dean for America types have harnessed so far. I have an idea or two. I guess I will post them here next.

Posted by cce at August 8, 2003 11:23 AM | TrackBack