Stunts involving 'mob' silliness latest e-mail craze (Latest "Flash Mob" occurance)

DALLAS - Flash mobbing arrived in Dallas Thursday night - fittingly, outside the trendy Angelika Film Center & Caf.

At 7:43 p.m. about 40 people gathered, splitting into groups under two balloons, one red, one blue. The red mob began yelling "Marco!" and the blue mob replied "Polo!" After about a minute of call and response, the two balloons were released, and the mobbers - OK, pranksters - broke into applause.

These are obviously dry runs to test communications and organization for bigger plans in the future. That is why I say let's roll out Flash Freeping! Look for the left to resort to desperate measures in the next election. Not another "stolen election" will be their rallying cry.

The funny thing about these is that, in order to keep with the spirit of the original creators, they must remain completely pointless and trivial.

With most things, people want to outdo the previous event. To outdo a "flash mob" the only thing you can do is have more people doing less meaningful stuff.

Those nude gatherings, for instance, had too much meaning. For a "flash mob" a great event would be 2000 people all meeting at a mall and grouping together within minutes then, at the same time, whistleing the andy griffith song then all running off and leaving.

From the "There's Nothing New Under the Sun Files", Author, recording artist (spoken word), and longtime 1950's and 60's New York City late night radio (WOR) host Jean Shepherd, had his listeners meet at a specific time and place in New York City to "mill about" in the early 60s. He wrote about it in an article in the Village Voice that is in a compilation book of Voice articles.

Paul Krassner briefly described it this way:

One time, he called for a "milling" of his listeners across the street from the burned-out Wanamaker's department-store building to take place on a certain day and time. Police came upon the scene, but nobody among this horde of citizen-stragglers would tell why they were congregated there. One cop complained, "This is like trying to break up a pack of friendly dogs." Finally someone spilled the beans (the dirty snitch) and police began to herd those who were milling around into an empty parking lot, asking each passerby, "Are you waiting for Shepherd?" Of course, he didn't show up. He never said he would.

http://www.flicklives.com/Articles/Playboy/Krassner/krassner.htm

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