Radio Free Mike

a berlin blog

Monday, August 11, 2003

Baghdad Flashmob?

Bear with me, this is good:

A German blog called Flashmop reports "the first flashmob in Baghdad," and offers a photograph of the 100 or so locals who supposedly emerged out of nowhere to "execute a sort of oriental jazz gymnastics for approximately one and a half minutes," then called out, in chorus, "'Steigt der Erpel auf die Ente, zahlt der Kerl bald Alimente'*, applauded, and vanished again in to the crowd."

* "The mallard who mounts the hen soon pays alimony."

(If you're not sure just what a flashmob is, visit cheesebikini.com.)

The thing about this Baghdad flashmob is that it never happened. Note that "Steigt der Erpel auf die Ente, zahlt der Kerl bald Alimente,"* most likely doesn't rhyme in Arabic; that the men in the photograph are clearly Shi'ite flagellants; and that Germans in general are so verrückt about the flashmob idea that someone in my strange mother country went to the trouble of inventing one in Baghdad.

German flashmobbers are having a fine old laugh over this. Which in itself is hilarious.

For the record, we're very much in favor of flashmobs. We even had advance word of one on Market Street awhile back. But ever since the Radio Free Mike megacomplex moved out to Ocean Beach we haven't been as mobile as we'd like to be.

UPDATE: The San Francisco Chronicle outs the flashmob movement, and puts it in a local context: "The Bay Area has a history of impromptu performances in public spaces, from the Merry Pranksters and the San Francisco Mime Troupe to Survival Research Laboratories and the Cacophony Society."

posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:49 PM

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