The hipsters have their flash mobs, the criminals their flash robs, and now regular Americans, too, have something: cash mobs.

Emery's 5 & 10 is believed to be oldest family-owned five-and-dime store in the U.S. But the store is struggling, the victim — like its neighboring businesses — of the economy and a bridge construction project that has diverted traffic away and turned the stretch of Chapman Road in Knoxville, Tenn., into what the mayor himself acknowledges is a "ghost area."

Then came last Friday.

Beginning at 10 a.m., nearly 800 people streamed through the doors at Emery's 5 & 10, ringing up 526 sales — many multiples of the store's usual take. The checkout line wrapped through the store, leaving barely enough room to move, said owner Ron Emery, the third generation of Emerys to tend shop there since the business opened in 1927.

"It's beyond our imagination," Emery said.

It was Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett's doing. Recently, Burchett was watching late-night TV and saw a report on "cash mobs" — flash mobs that organize to drive customers to struggling locally owned businesses — and the light bulb went off.
"Somebody was doing something at a hardware store in the Northeast, and I just thought: 'Dadgum. We ought to do that right here in Knoxville,'" Burchett said in an interview with NBC station WBIR.

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Holiday travelers passing through Denver International Airport last week were treated to a selection of Swing classics by about 100 dancers from the non-profit organization Community-Minded Dance.  The performance had been coordinated by the airport’s Art and Culture Program.

Internet meme is all fun and games until someone uses it to rob a convenience store. Here's what happened when the criminally-inclined use social media to organize the thievin' version of flash mobs: "flash robs."

It’s a fad that started in Washington, D.C. back in April, when around 20 people filed into a high-end jeans store in Dupont Circle and quickly made off with $20,000 in stock. Since then, the practice has spread — Dallas, Las Vegas, Ottawa, and Upper Darby, Pa. have all reported incidents since then — though the targets have gotten a bit more downscale, with most of the thefts taking place in convenience stores.

The latest crowd theft took place Saturday night at a 7-Eleven in Silver Spring, Md., and it fit the familiar pattern. Kids pour into the store, calmly help themselves to merchandise, and then stream out again.

Incredibly, in a poll taken in August, the National Retail Federation reported that a full 10 percent of businesses surveyed had experienced a “flash mob”-style theft.

Because many of these crimes remain unsolved, we don’t really know much about who these kids are, and how they get together. In Upper Darby, after around 40 teens hit a Sears at a shopping mall, the police were able to arrest 15, and the superintendent said they told him the event was planned out “earlier in the day on a social-networking site.”

Bill Wasik of Wired's Threat Level has the story: Link

A guy in Johannesburg hired 100 singers to stage a flashmob at a mall, all to propose to his girlfriend. I cannot understand how some shoppers are in such a hurry that they can’t stop and enjoy the moment with them. Or do singing flash mobs happen every day at the mall? -via Buzzfeed

The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Choir treated unsuspecting shoppers at Greenacres Shopping Centre in Port Elizabeth, South Africa to a concert performance right there in the mall court. The stunt is part of a recruiting drive for NMMU. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!

Three weeks ago, in the golden light of an early-summer evening, thousands of Parisians dressed entirely in white converged on two of the city’s most picturesque locations — 4,400 of them in the plaza at the cathedral of Notre Dame; 6,200 in a courtyard of the Louvre — for a feast that was neither advertised nor publicly heralded. They had brought along not only their own epicurean repasts but also their own tables, chairs, glasses, silver and napery.

At midnight, after dining and dancing, they packed up their dishes, stowed their empty Champagne bottles in trash bags brought for that purpose, stooped to pick up their cigarette butts from the cobbles and departed. The landmarks were left immaculate, with no traces of the revelry of the previous three hours.

Diner en Blanc is now coming to New York. Liesl Schillinger of The New York Times has the scoop: Link

A bottle lies in the middle of a walkway as hundreds of people walk by and no one bothers to pick it up and put it in a recycling bin merely inches away. That is until one startled mall patron throws it in the bin and is applauded by a huge flash mob. Seems like a great way to make recycling more fun. See full video at the link.

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Nothing screams  school spirit like a flash mob breaking  into a dance.  Check out the video of a recent University of Kansas basketball game.

The flash mob at Allen Fieldhouse was organized by KU Athletics and students who participate in the Jayhawk Buddy System.  The KU Spirit Squad choreographed the dance moves, and students participated in three rehearsals the week before the game.

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An Italian festival in Reading Terminal Market was the scene of lyrical vibrato as The Opera Company of Philadelphia’s singers performed Verdi’s “Brindisi from La Traviata” live and among the crowd. Cheers, Philly!

The year end lists are coming fast and furious! Here’s one you don’t see year after year, since flash mobs have only recently been numerous enough to invite ranking. Each one has a video, so you can see whether they deserve the honor. Pictured is the promotion for Elf Yourself last month in New York City. Link

English, she’s a’changin’. The latest edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary are 100 words that you may already be using:

There are words such as locavore (one who eats foods grown locally), frenemy (someone who acts like a friend but is really an enemy), waterboarding (an interrogation technique use to induce the sensation of drowning), vlogs (a blog that contains video material) and webisode (a TV show that can be viewed at a website).

There’s also flash mob (a group of people summoned electronically to a designated spot at a specified time to perform an indicated action before dispersing) and green-collar (involving actions for protecting the natural environment).

Some words that just now made the cut have been around for generations. The term "sock puppet" — a false online identity used for deceptive purposes — was tracked to 1959 but has taken on new popular use with people using fake IDs on social networking sites.

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Sure, it’s a viral for A&E’s Hammertime, a documentary about the rise and fall of MC Hammer, but it’s worth watching if only for the old bald dude in suit & Hammer pants gettin’ down @1:25.

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