joegratz.net

I just got back from Minneapolis Mob #1 (invitation here). My friend Stacia and I arrived at the bar corresponding to my birth month, Gator’s. When we arrived, the place was nearly empty. There was one table of tourists in the back and two identical tight-white-tee-short-black-skirt-lower-back-tattoo waitresses … and two people sitting on opposite sides of the bar, checking their watches rather frequently. We sat down at the bar, between the lone patrons. The woman was reading Warrior Woman by Maxine Hong Kingston; the man was smoking American Spirits.

These were our people.

“Someplace to be at 6:30?,” the woman asked me. I smiled. Apparently, it’s easy to pick out who’s a pretentious hipster and who’s a regular in this place. We talked for a bit. Turns out three of the four of us were in the middle of books by Lemony Snicket. These events, apparently, attract a rather specific crowd.

At the appointed hour, a man in a leather jacket sidled in, smiling broadly. As the invitation prophesied, he took a beaten, wide-brimmed hat out of his coat pocket, tipped it on his head, and ordered a beer. A tall man, probably about 25, walked up to him.

“Not exactly a mob scene in here, eh?”

The man in the hat slipped him a small piece of paper. He palmed it and walked off.

We passed the slips around, under the bar, among the four of us who had gathered. They looked like this:

Slowly, people started coming out of the woodwork, walking up to the man in the hat, and getting handed their slips. As the appointed hour approached, we paid up and left.

It took a while to get to the court outside Sears. We hung back until 6:25 exactly, having a look at the New York Review of Books and the Onion anthologies at the nearby Barnes and Noble. Then, at 6:30, about 40 people walked to the middle of the court and started acting like robots. A small crowd gathered. We were under an atrium, so tourists peered over the railings at us. One man walked up to a participant and asked what was going on, and who we were. The robotic man turned his back, Animatronics-style.

Exactly five minutes later, we all walked off in various directions, as if nothing had happened.

At the Bose store, we filled the front viewing rooms to capacity. The Lord of The Rings was playing. The bemused salesman refused our requests for popcorn and Junior Mints, but complied when someone asked him to turn up the movie. A small crowd gathered outside the Bose store’s windows, wondering what had drawn the rapt attention of the packed-in twentysomethings inside.

Exactly five minutes later, we all walked off in various directions, as if nothing had happened.

I never caught the names of the two other Gator’s loiterers, but I’m sure I’ll see them next Tuesday in Uptown.

UPDATE: Photos are now available, as is coverage from the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press. Quote from a Bose store employee, in the Pioneer Press article: “This is the weirdest and most random thing that ever happened in my life.” Two responses: (1) Yes, that would be the point; (2) If this is the strangest, most random thing that has ever happened in your life, you need more strange randomness in your life. Also: Yes, that’s my ass on the front page of the Star Trib Metro Section today.