Papa November

Check this out. It’s a little long, but well worth it. A group of Improve Everrywhere “agents” staged a series of events in a Starbucks and repeated them over and over much to the confusion of the other patrons. I loved how people tried to make sense of it and slowly began to point out little reacurring actions. They were probably very relieved to realize that there was something strange going on and they hadn’t just had to many non-fat iced mochas.

This reminded me of a less ingenius but still fun incident I participated in a few years ago. My friend Jason left a message that when I picked him up from the airport he was going to be wearing his Dickies jumpsuit with a racing stripe down it, and I “would know what to do.” It took me a minute to realize that I did in fact know what to do. I met him at the gate wearing my Dickies coveralls and holding a sign that said “Nascar racer Jason Cannon”. People getting off the plane looked puzzeled, but then something seemed to click and they either walked off or stepped to the side to get a better look at the celebrity. They had obviously been confused by the young man dressed like a race car driver on their flight and they seemed to be happy to have the explanation. We had filled in the pieces and it didn’t matter that it really made no sense that he would be wearing his racing duds on a flight, or that his pit crew would show up at the airport ready for a race, or that he would need to see “NASCAR racer” in front of his name to know that the guy dressed like a mechanic was there to pick him up. They were just happy to be able to put the two things together in some reasonable way. It was fun to pull people in for a moment and see them nod to each other once they “got it”.