Improv Everywhere

...is a really great group to get involved with for a few reasons:

1- They pull hilarious large scale pranks all over NYC. Nothing scandalous or illegal is involved- it's more along the lines of "once I wondered what would happen if I did xy&z" or "once I did this weird thing for psych class in college to find out what the reaction would be," only the activities are way more fun than running screaming through The Met or staring someone down in the library.

2- The people involved are, in general, just the right brand of lunacy-meets-awesomeness, and even if you go alone (which I have been known to do), you are sure to make a friend or two.

3- It's all free!

I've been taking part in IE stunts for a couple years now, and have had the time of my life. From de-pantsing on the subway (which, after 6 or 7 years, is now at the scale of a national holiday) to freeze-framing in Grand Central to participating in a giant game of twister in a plaza downtown, the antics are always jovial, light-hearted, and loads of fun. As a mid-western parent might say, "Good, clean fun!" And it's not often that something this clean is actually this much fun, people. Let's face it- at this stage in our lives, "fun" is generally a little more scandalous than The Little Rascals.

Last night hundreds of people braved freezing rain to span the entire length of the Brooklyn Bridge, in the dark, for the purpose of "doing the wave" with flash photography. It was cold, it was wet, and it would have been miserable- except for the collective thought that when else would you EVER get the chance to hang out on the Brooklyn Bridge with hundreds of other people, taking pictures in the dark to create a giant light show for the guys filming from the Manhattan Bridge? There were literally so many people that came out in the crap weather- all of us completely unknowing what the event would be, going on blind faith that it would be rather awesome- so many people that, when standing in a close single file line on the bridge, we had to double loop a second line of folks because there wasn't room for everyone.

I don't know if I did a good idea of describing the ultimate fun-ness of Improv Everywhere, but if this sounds like your cup of tea, go here and sign up for their mailing list:

improveverywhere.com