Simone WilsonCrazy things happening on the subway is not exactly an M.O. of Los Angeles. We admit, New York Shitty usually has us beat in this arena. (Turtles. Surfers. Naked, racist meltdowns. Homeless guys licking their own shoes. Zilla marches. The list goes on.)
But as of a couple weeks ago, we have a great hometown contender for subway moment of the year: A positively heart-melting flash mob who, along with KCET reporter Kelly Simpson, holiday-spirit-stormed the Red Line…
… to warm the collective commuter soul with an acapella/beatboxed version of Lil Wayne's “How to Love.”
A risky choice, seeing as that song is inherently kind of terrible. (Though we might still just be traumatized from the Autotuned tragedy that was Lil' Wayne's performance at the VMAs this year. Shudder.)
But the lyrics end up being kind of great for the flash mob's task at hand: To shake a “city anomalous with human interaction, [where] people seem unaccustomed to social interactions in public spaces” from its cold spell.
The crew of singers (and non-singers who sing anyway, Autotune be damned) is so perfectly motley, we almost suspect they were assembled by a Disney casting crew. But nope, this isn't a followup to that PR stunt at the Apple Store — just the latest installment of the Love Project, “a street-based cultural experiment,” according to KCET.
Cultural experiments don't get much cuter than this:
Looks like a for-fun flash mob just did what L.A. politicians and top brass have failed to do for years: They cleaned up the Red Line. And all it took — get ready, we're chin deep in warm-fuzzies right now — was a little love.
All together now: Awwwww. More of this, please, Los Angeles.
[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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