47 Minutes of Color Coordinated City Interaction

Our expert at meeting new people, Claire, describes how in less than an hour she learned the folklore of a mysterious place called Roosevelt Island, stripped in public and restored a hard-fought peace to the land.

Last week, a friend of mine sent me a link to a fun free New York weekend experience. The website was Improv Everywhere and the experience was called mp3Experiment6, whatever that means. All we had to do was download a free 47-minute long mp3 track, wear a certain color shirt (we chose blue) with a white shirt underneath and take the subway to Roosevelt Island. When we got there, we had to press play at 4:00. Free color-coordinated adventure on an island I'd never been to before? I'm there!

We took the F-train from Union Square and the closer we got to Roosevelt Island, the more people wearing colored shirts with white undershirts got on the train. When we finally got there, I knew I'd have to use the bathroom before this 47 minute long experience began. Unfortunately, it turns out that the only public bathroom on Roosevelt Island is a Starbucks with one stall. While we waited in the incredibly long line, curious people were taking our pictures. [I should also mention there was one main rule for the event: don't discuss the event with other people while on the island.] We managed to get it done just in time for the 4 o'clock start.

We decided that we didn't want to be right near the subway entrance, sandwiched between a Starbucks and a Duane Reade, so we headed over to a grassy knoll with a beautiful view of some Queens factories.

At 4, we pushed play and after a couple minutes of Island techno music, the "Omipotent Voice of Steve" welcomed us to the Experience. He told us we would be learning the magical history of Roosevelt Island but there were a few things we had to do first: deep breathing, touching our toes, giving thumbs up to people not participating in the experience and also shadowing said people on the island, square dancing, and taking 15 second naps.

After all that, we finally began the Journey to the southern tip of the Island. To help pass time, Steve told us the story of Peters and the Wolves, a tale of three friends named Peter who decided to play a game of baseball, they lost their ball, some wolves got it, they beat up the wolves with their bats, there was a sexy lady wolf who tried to woo them but it turned out she was a sheep and they ate her. We were told this tale took place on the island.

After a few more activities - Steve Says, freeze tag and a dance party - the real event began. We were instructed to seperate based on our shirt colors for a game of Bats vs. Hammers. According to the website, 1400 people were given inflatable bats and hammers (there were many more who were not armed simply because supplies ran out) and all were told to attack. We fought for a few minutes until Steve chimed in with a message of unity. He told us we should unite against the "common evil." In this case, that evil was The Wolf. He told us to look south and there was a big cloud of smoke out of which a big Man-Wolf emerged.

To show our new team unity, everyone took off their colored t-shirts and began one large White team. The Wolf ran through the crowd of thousands and everyone attacked him, either with their inflatable weapons or their t-shirts. Once the wolf was defeated, we celebrated in slow motion for a long time. It all ended with a final instruction from Steve to look up to the sky and say goodbye.

The real adventure was getting off the island. Fucking F-train.

Check out the Improv Everywhere website for some of their other city antics including the No Pants subway ride and the Cell Phone Symphony.