Monthly Archive for August, 2008

Mp3 Experiment: NYC, Chicago, SF

The date of Improv Everywhere’s annual Mp3 Experiment has been announced. New York City will be hosting its fifth annual event and the fun is touring this year to Chicago and San Francisco. For now only the dates have been released, but more information will be released the week of September 15.

9/27 - NYC (Governor’s Island)
9/28 - Chicago (Location TBA)
10/4 - San Francisco (Location TBA)**

Mp3 Experiment 5 - Save The Date at Improv Everywhere

**Chicago date may change. More info soon. We also may add one more city to the tour!

Bring Back Crystal Pepsi

Some clever pranksters managed to get this sign onto MSNBC’s coverage of the DNC on Monday night. I saw it live and found it quite hilarious. I found it a little less funny when I realized the DNC was taking place at the Pepsi Center (I thought it was a total non-sequitur,) but it’s still awesome to see something this silly in a crowd otherwise filled with 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

via Agent Skwrl

James Powderly Interview

Last week we told you about how our friend James Powderly was detained along with other US activists/artists in China. Thankfully they are all back home. Here’s his interview with Rocketboom where he explains how it went down.

David Byrne’s Bike Racks

Talking Head David Byrne designed some awesome bike racks for the NYC Department of Transportation. Amazingly, the DOT swiftly gave him the green light to turn his sketches into reality.

Gothamist has a great photo gallery of all of the racks installed so far.

The Strand Race

Last weekend, GuerilLA held an impromptu Finish Line on The Strand in Manhattan Beach, CA.

The race was complete with a Finish Line sign, finish line tape, water tables, supportive signs, journalists, photographers, videographers, and a large cheering group of people spread along a quarter mile of The Strand. Runners and cyclists had no idea that they were actually near the end of a marathon, until the last second!

Events This Weekend

Here’s a roundup of the interesting free public events we know of going on this weekend:

- Saturday in Las Vegas: Urban Conga Line
- Saturday in Mexico City: Kiss Parade
- Saturday in Austin: Bat Bridge Pillow Fight
- Sunday in Lisbon: A mission described in Portuguese!

Also, there’s mischief being planned in the Twin Cities for Tuesday the 26th…

Know anything else going on? Let everyone know in the comments.

Bus Stop Swing

As part of Bruno Taylor’s series “Playful Spaces,” he installed a swing at a London bust stop.

via wooster collective

Revolutionary Water Gun Battle

Remember the water gun battle in Boston we told you about a couple of weeks ago? It happened this Saturday and Nick Carlisle wrote in with a report:

On Saturday, we (Banditos Misteriosos) hosted a Revolutionary War re-enactment…with water guns and bubbles. We had probably about 300 people, separated into two teams: the “Redcoats” and the “Colonists.”

We marched from two different locations and met up to douse each other in water on the Charles River Esplanade. People of all ages took part.

I put a quick video together (as I’m sure you can surmise, filming in the midst of hundreds of people with water guns can be risky, but I couldn’t resist).

The bubbles were meant to be a “peacetime cease-fire” (of course it didn’t work, the “troops” re-engaged and resumed battle within a couple of minutes — word has it that many people dipped their water guns into the Charles River to re-load during this time.)

6 US Activists Detained in China

We’ve just learned that six US activists have been detained in China. Five Americans were detained for displaying the above banner (using 500 LED “Throwies”.) Video of the action:

In addition, our friend James Powderly of the Graffiti Research Lab has been detained now for over 24 hours after police got word of his plans to project “Free Tibet” onto Beijing buildings using his new “Green Lantern” LASER stencil. The same Green Lantern LASER was recently used in New York.

The Associated Press has the story.

We hope that everyone makes it back home safe very soon.

Fadu Falta Plata

A reader from Argentina sent us the above video. He explains:

Here in Buenos Aires, Argentina, we are living in some hard times, and our public (free) University of Buenos Aires is almost bankrupt.

The Architecture and Design Faculty are even poorer. So we decided, mostly spontaneously, to use some “table choreography” to make a video inviting people to join our fight for more funding for public education.

FADU = Facultad de Arquitectura Diseño y Urbanismo
FALTA = lacks
PLATA = money.