There Will Be a Cutting-Edge "Flash Mob" Tomorrow at Noon

I've been getting a ton of e-mails about this , and so here it is: Tomorrow at noon, the Friends of Seattle Public Library are throwing a "."

(Jesus, yes, I know. Listen. It'll be over soon.)

At twelve o'clock sharp in Westlake Center, a bunch of people (including you, if you want) will pull out books, sit down, and read. The blog post says, "The more people who show up and read, the greater the impact." I'm not sure what kind of "impact" they're talking about. Maybe if more than five people show up, Mary Ann Gwinn will write about it? Hooray! Books will be saved, then!

The blog post hilariously uses the word "spontaneous," when everyone knows that a flash mob is perhaps the least spontaneous thing in the world. I am a huge fan of Friends of Seattle Public Library. But I am not at all a fan of this kind of tired whimsical "guerilla marketing." It's just kind of a feedback loop between people who write about publicity stunts and people who do publicity stunts.

However! I will not judge people who decide to participate in this thing. I will achieve that goal by not attending or writing about this thing. If this sounds like a good time to you: By all means, go. Knock yourself out. Tell 'em Paul sent you.