Improv Everywhere

And because I'm going to vanish unaccountably from blogworld for at least a few more days, here's the latest installment of "Amusing Things I've Found On The Web": Improv Everywhere.

IE is a NYC-based group whose "agents" go on "missions" around the city: impromptu pieces of humorous performance art.

My favorite 'missions' so far:

• McDonalds Bathroom Attendant, in which a man in a tuxedo sets up a high-end attendant's station (soaps, lotion, towels, peppermints, etc.) in the men's bathroom of the Times Square McDonald's. Management is not in the least perturbed; at worst, they think he's merely in the wrong McDonalds.
• Anton Chekov, in which famed Russian playwright Anton Chekov does a reading at the Union Square Barnes and Noble (hint: Chekov died in 1904).
• Megastore, in which all of the listening stations in a Virgin Megastore are taken over for synchronized dancing. This is so menacing (although nobody can say why) that the police are called.
• Dollar Dudes: they're on the subway, and they want to give you a dollar -- for free! Then Los Hombres Del Peso show up, and inter-currency warfare ensues.
• Offshore Gambling: ... from a rowboat in the middle of a pond in Central Park.
• Circle Line Tours: Tour New York City by water! Via two rubber rafts in the Union Square fountain, that is. Features a dramatic high-seas rescue when one of the rafts springs a leak.
• ... and there's more, much more.

... to tie this to a previous blog entry, IE appeared on a recent episode of This American Life.

Posted by Kevin at May 2, 2005 09:39 AM