Today, the second Montreal Flash Mob. It was absolutely great fun, a break from the every-day, an opportunity to live life differently. Transcendent? No. Silly? Surely! Arty? I guess. Elitist? Perhaps. But probably the most fun twenty-five minutes I've had this week.

Julian, Neale and I arrived at Else's early, in time to sip upon $3.50 cranberry juices and speculate about the other mobbers lurking in the shadows. At five, Julian noticed the appropriate party wearing "two hats" (as our emailed instructions had indicated), and we obtained our orders. Make our way to Prince Arthur and De Buillon, drawing chalk arrows to point towards the destination. Arrive at 5:25. Spend three minutes drawing twisty crazy point arrows like madmen. Then disperse. Ta-da!

The mobleader handed us each a stick of sidewalk chalk, and we were on our way. Loop-the-loop arrows, straightforward ones, dashed arrows on the sides of buildings. It looked like we were going to arrive too early, so we rounded a couple of extra blocks. We noticed others drawing their arrows, and soon there were swarms of brightly-coloured markers traced all over the pavement, all pointing to a single (still-empty) spot.

And then at 5:25 an explosion of activity as suddenly there were 30? 50? 80? people dashing about on their hands-and-knees, making a madchaotic mess of lines and arrows and circles and smiley faces. Prince Arthur is full of patio-sitters on Sunday afternoons, so we pointed arrows at them, we pointed arrows at their feet, we pointed arrows at other arrows, at pot-holes, at nothingness. When asked questions ("WHAT ARE YOU DOING AND WHY?" was the popular one), people either ignored the questions or acted ambiguous. Onlookers were bemused. Waiters wondered what to do. We simply drew.

At 5:28, poof, we dispersed. Sauntered non-chalante back home, leaving backward-pointing arrows in our wake, till our chalk ran out. Hopefully it'll not rain over night, and I'll go back tomorrow to see what we wrought (and how well it survived). A glorious bit of insanity.

The best part, of course, is that there will inevitably have been men who went to get another drink, women who visited the bathroom, and who were absent during those three minutes when 75 chalkers went crazy on the sidewalk. I imagine them emerging from the greek cafes and upscale ice-cream joints, unable to conceptualize what they see before them, the changes that the street has undergone in merely a few minutes. [photo, not mine.]

There are some things that could be improved upon: we were asked to each bring a dime (presumably to help pay the organizers back for the chalk), but no one collected ours; it also would have been handy to have some lines of scripted dialogue to use if asked about what we were doing - all of the answers I came up with were either awkward, contrived, cruel or stupid. Finally: no one was smiling! Everyone was so committed to drawing their feverish arrows that there was very little giggling, grinning, or collectivity. It was solo work. And I would have loved to feel more laughter. Next time I'll smile enough for ten: I promise.