it's hammer time...

today, while at my favorite subject (unmolested the entire time) I was quite entertained for precisely 60 seconds.

I was sitting at a small table, in the shade, between the beach and the utlra-wide sidewalk to accomodate all the tourists. It seems to me that this sidewalk is, at least at high tide, wider than the actual beach at Waikiki. It's not that the sidewalk is that incredibly wide, but it's that the beach is excessively narrow. (Waikiki Beach is actually not all that impressive in 'Beach Quality.' It IS however, quite high in 'People Quality.') There are MANY people, too many people in my opinion. To lay on Waikiki Beach and try to get some sun seems to remind me of the national geographic channel. I mean that these people remind me of Elephant Seals, splayed out in, often times, disgusting positions, sweating on and snarling at those who come too close to their space; which is everyone. There isn't a grain of sand that goes untouched in any given day. This is good for people watching from the sidelines, but this is not a Hawaiian beach, at least as I imagine it. It's a meat market.

So it was at this meat market that I was eating today, as I do everyday, when a clatter arose from behind me. There was a large group of what appeared to be highschool aged kids.... there were at least 50 of them surrounding my Elephant Seal observation deck. (Most of the Seals kept on sleeping, rolling and snorting away... paying no attention.)

I, on the other hand, wondered what the heck all these kids were doing here.... When all of a sudden, I cracked a smile in excited realization. I also chuckled a bit as I watched some dumbfounded people and their even dumber looking reactions to the newly created statues in the middle of the widest sidewalk in Waikiki.

I had seen this on the internet, maybe I-am-bored.com, or ebaumsworld.com, but either way, it's pretty cool. The first time I'd seen it done, it was in Grand Central Station, and involved a few hundred people I believe... however many it was, they were the majority in the station.

In Waikiki today, it was on a smaller scale, but cool none-the-less.

The students had just a moment before been chattering and milling about, around the sidewalk, into the grass near the palms, onto the beach... not straying too far from eachother, when all of a sudden, with seemingly one conciousness, they froze. They froze in whatever position they were in: mid-sentence, mid-step, in the middle of double-knotting a shoe, talking on the phone... whatever, they froze. Statues.

Baffled passers-by spun slow circles, gawking at the frozen clan as they navigated through the scene that was somewhat reminiscent of Pompeii (without all the death and destruction.)

I laughed at them for looking befuddled.

And just like that, sixty seconds later... they all, as one, continued on.... finished their sentence, hit their stride, tightened that knot, and continued that phone conversation. All of it, like nothing had happened, like time hadn't stood still for them.

turns out it was something like "take 60 seconds to think about big tobacco" it was an anti-smoking campaign... and boy howdy, it wasn't lost on the crowd. After they had frozen and reanimated, they eventually came back and handed out anti-smoking flyers... not a minute later there were six people within spitting distance of me smoking.

don't think the campaign worked, but the display of human art was cool none-the-less.

oh... and on a completely unrelated note, I got to use the phrase "toxic megacolon" in a real discussion today with a patient.... he had the megacolon, just not toxic. cooooooooool.