“Birds of a Feather: Pollos and the Nineteenth-Century Prehistory of Mexican Homosexuality” by Christopher Conway, from Building Nineteenth-Century Latin American: Re-Rooted Cultures, Identities, and Nations, edited by William Acree and Juan Carlos González Espitia (Vanderbilt University Press, 2009). You can order the book here. The article is illustrated.

ABSTRACT

Carlos Monsivais has attributed the invention of homosexuality to a 1901 police raid on a Mexico City ball in which forty-one men, many of whom were dressed as women, were arrested for indecency. The sensational press that these arrests provoked, including broadsides by the popular engraver and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada, publicly disclosed and disseminated the concept of the abject, effeminate invert. The Forty-One represented a break with the past because Mexican print culture had never before disclosed, acknowledged, or disseminated such transparent images of sexually deviant, effeminate men. Instead, the nineteenth-century print media circulated several ambiguous yet non-sexual stereotypes of effeminate masculinity that were continuous with centuries-old, etymological geneaologies of male effeminacy in Spanish and European culture. In Mexico, such men had many names, including Dandy, Currutaco, and Petimetre, but one of the most prevalent and local labels at mid-century was that of Pollo (Chicken), a type that foreshadowed important aspects of the sensationalist stereotypes of the Joto and Marica that burst into print literature in 1901. The Pollo was not a sodomite, but his androgynous style was universally seen as implying a closer proximity to feminine qualities than to masculine ones. The Pollo is not only key for understanding the more fluid and androgynous versions of masculinity that circulated at the dawn of Mexican modernity, but also for bringing into focus notions of productive (procreative) and unproductive (effeminate) notions of masculinity in the nineteenth-century.

“Birds of a Feather…” traces and specifically dates the emergence of the Pollo as a cultural category in nineteenth-century Mexico, and traces the gendered affinities between him and other androgynous men, such as currutacos, beaus, petimetres and dandies. My article also discusses the symbolic and etymological connection between birds and sexuality throughout history, and the construction of gender, specifically masculinity, in different historical periods and cultures. I define and explore the effeminacy of the pollo in relation to theatricality, childhood, leisure, fashion and transatlantic cosmopolitanism through texts drawn from an archive of nineteenth-century Mexican journalism, the caricatures of José María Villasana and the well-known writings of José Tomás de Cuéllar, who did more to popularize the term pollo than any other nineteenth-century writer.

The article closes with a discussion of the ways in which pollos may be read as forebears of the Mexican ‘homosexual’ that emerged as a result of the scandal of the forty-one at the turn of the century. My fragmentary reconstruction of early references to Mexican dandies (including an intriguing and revealing reference to “gay” in 1840’s Mexico), and coded and historically significant representations of same-sex desire (such as the use of the color green) lead me to suggest that the Mexican pollo was more than simply a Mexican beau or dandy.

This is not a review of the new Star Trek, which I like very much (especially because of Karl Urban’s brilliant take on Leonard “Bones” McCoy). As we all know, this reboot of Star Trek is predicated on creating an alternate, future timeline for some of the most beloved science fiction characters of our time.  All that is well and good, especially if you’re a fan and want to revisit the world of classic Trek.

One element of classic Trek, both in the series and the movies starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, as well as in the fan mythology about Kirk and Spock, is the intense and emotional friendship between the two men. In the world of popular culture, we would be hard pressed to find a friendship between men as strong and emotional as the friendship between Kirk and Spock. The original Star Trek movies were particularly invested in mining this “bromance”, especially when Spock dies in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and in Star Trek III and Star Trek IV, which are about recovering Spock and reigniting his connection with Kirk. Fan fiction has been obsessing over this friendship since the 1970’s, when stories about Kirk and Spock romancing, seducing and sexing each other became popular (the genre is called “Slash” fiction). Now, Kirk/Spock Slash has migrated to the web, both in text and video mashups. Be that as it may, it is clear that the friendship between Shatner’s Kirk and Nimoy’s Spock has been a challenge to traditional definitions of masculinity. Spock’s devotion to Kirk is undying, and outlives a trip to the grave. Kirk is equally devoted. Who can forget Kirk’s eulogy for Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? “Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most…human.” Spock’s death scene and Kirk’s response to it are the equivalent of a male weepie, and it taught younger male fans of the series that deep, emotional bonds between men were desirable and even admirable.

Spoiler Alert. Don’t read on if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want a surprise to be ruined. So, here we are, 2009, and we have a new Trek. But something is very different. Spock is involved with Uhura! If this relationship endures in the new Star Trek mythology being built by director J.J. Abrams, how will it affect one of the most famous pop culture bromances of all time? It seems like it would have to lessen the bond between the two men. Spock’s asexuality –periods of Pon Farr aside– was intrinsic to his intimacy with Kirk. After all, it was Shatner’s Kirk, not a female partner, who mourned Spock more than anyone else, and later took it upon himself to oversee Spock’s regeneration and recuperation. And it could be argued that Spock’s emotional center was always modulated by his enduring friendship with Kirk. If Spock loves Uhura, how can he be as devoted to Kirk as the Spock in the older mythology? The two men can still be buds, but that obsession that they seemed to have had with each other in their Shatner/Nimoy incarnation must necessarily be transformed into something more conservative.

In a broader sense, the new version of Spock is different in another way. At the outset, the emphasis is on his humanity, not on his alien quality. In original Trek, expressions of Spock’s humanity creeped out more slowly, reaching a zenith in the original movie series. In the old days, Spock was much more of a mystery, and his friendship with and loyalty to Kirk were the most important clues to his repressed “feelings.” This paradoxical combination of Spock’s Vulcan hermeticism with his resolute commitment to Kirk made their friendship compelling and believable. In the new Trek, the audience learns immediately that Spock is a boiling cauldron of emotion. The veneer of logic is much more fragile and transparent in Zachary Quinto’s Spock than in the days of the classic series, when Spock’s rejection of emotion seemed much more formidable. This too, alters the Shatner-Nimoy dynamic in important ways.

In closing, I’d like to reiterate that I like this new movie a lot. But I worry that maybe we’re seeing the closing of a very important door in the Star Trek Universe: the emotionally intense friendship between Spock and Kirk. The film makers have fussed and changed a lot of things that Trekkies are familiar with, but perhaps nothing as important as the mysterious chemistry and formulation of the Kirk-Spock friendship. Maybe this is part and parcel of what Abrams thought was necessary to make Star Trek more “universal” to the non-initiated. If that’s the case, it’s kind of sad. Some kinds of bromances are worth honoring and maintaining.

More on Kirk/Spock Slash:

“Where No Man Has Gone Before” by Paul Constant (Newsweek)

Cultural studies (1992) by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, Paula A. Treichler
Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992) by Henry Jenkins
The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties (1998) by Rosemary Coombe
Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet(2006) by Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse
Encompassing gender: Integrating International Studies and Women’s Studies (2002) by Mary M. Lay, Janice J. Monk, Deborah Silverton Rosenfelt
Decoding gender in science fiction (2002) by Brian Attebery
NASA/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America by Constance Penley
“The Third Generation of Genre Science Fiction” by Brian Stableford (Science Fiction Studies, 1996)
“Sex and Star Trek” by Karin Blair (Science Fiction Studies, 1983).

These are my notes for my presentation at the UT Arlington Focus on Technology Conference, held on Wednesday October 22, 2008.

Asking the Wrong Questions of Instructional Technology

I would like to begin by thanking the organizers of this event—The Office of Information Technology, The UTA Library and The Center for Distance Education. I am flattered to be in such good company on this program. I am not an expert in Instructional Technology (from now on ‘IT’), whether it be in theories relating to it or the hardware involved in making it succeed in real live classes. If I have anything to contribute to today’s program, it is the testimony of a teacher who has been fussing with instructional technology for over ten years. In other words, I am a dedicated user, an inveterate experimenter, a restless traveller of web pedagogies.

It began for me in the late 90’s with rudimentary webpages and online reserve desks that were developed with the kind and generous support of the director and staff of the Language Acquisition Center in the Department of Modern Languages at UTA. I wonder what happened to those gentlemen? Maybe some of you remember Pete Smith, Clay Beberstein and Brett Benham. I heard they moved on to greener pastures. Later, I was mentored by Pete Smith’s succesor in Modern Languages, Scott Williams, and more recently and most importantly by Melissa Bowden, the current director of the Language Lab, who taught me how to build a web class from the ground up. And in the last year, I’ve worked closely with my friend and colleague José Tamez and the staff of the Center for Distance Education, particulary Matt Crosslin, on implementing two Spanish language web classes that have been successfully implemented and which are currently being taught. In short, my whole journey with IT has been mediated through collaboration.

As rewarding as it has been, however, to learn and team up with all of the great people I’ve mentioned, there have also been some notable failures or missteps in my use of IT. So this morning I hope to share some impressions with you about what I’ve learned, about what’s worked and what has not.
What I’d like to do is define three principles that, in my opinion, define successful, innovative teaching and how these may be migrated to online or hybrid classes. I also want to consider the ways in which certain types of IT practices run counter to these core principles, or at least present obstacles to their implementation.

So, what are the three principles that in my experience define innovative teaching? I would argue that they are (1) Contact; (2) Collaboration and (3) Creation. (1) Contact is predicated on students being able to interact, to have ‘contact’ with the object of study in a significant and transformative way. This can take many forms—the most obvious examples that come to mind are scientific experiments, internships, service learning projects. In literature, history and other classes in the humanities, contact can be as simple and modest as requiring students to read primary sources, as opposed to only secondary sources. In other words, rather than reading about Columbus, read his diary and his letters to the King and Queen of Spain. Instead of having the professor tell you what the horrors of the Civil War was like, have a memoirist who was there bring it to life for students. These obvious examples aside, there are deeper and more dramatic ways of creating “Contact”. Two years ago I had some students spend several hours in our library’s Special Collections Department looking at U.S. realia relating to the U.S. Mexico War of 1846-1848 for a research project. The exercise taught them about conservation, about the institutional function of special collections departments and naturally, made the war come alive as something distinct, profoundly complex and rich. Let me share another example: for a course on death and mourning in American literature, Dr. Desiree Henderson of the Department of English took her entire class to four Dallas area cemeteries: The Freedman’s Memorial, Greenwood Cemetery, Calvary Catholic Cemetery, and Temple Immanuel Cemetery. Thanks to this experience, students were able to visually and palpably gauge the politics of space, architectural design and the diversity of cemetery spaces in relation to their classroom discussions.  The principle of Contact is inherently defined by the drive to connect with what is outside of the classroom environment. It is defined by implicating students in the act of learning in experiential ways.

(2) Collaboration is the predominant process by which learning takes places in an innovative class. I don’t need to convince anyone here of the social, interactive nature of learning. Through our interlocutors we learn how to ask and answer the right questions, we pool our best resources and fill in the gaps. Collaborative learning takes many forms and includes group work, group projects and the kinds of experiences that students have when they participate in internships or service learning modules. Here I’d like to briefly share an example from Dr. John Garrigus’s teaching, and which he may be speaking to us about later today. Dr. Garrigus  has his students collaborate on an online textbook of World History that meets the content guidelines of the State of Texas Teacher Certification program. Using the interface of a wiki, Dr. Garrigus’s students embark on the shared experience of building narratives about our past. One of my favorite student projects in recent years has been the assigning of a classbook to my students. A classbook is a student-funded and student-produced book of essays. My students elect an editor, a treasurer, a designer and organize themselves in order to put together their final project as a class publication.

(3) Creation is what instructors ask students to produce in an innovative, active learning environment. Not to repeat received knowledge or to fill in the blank, but to create meaning, interpretation and synthesis. Creation happens all the time in many classes—wherever and whenever analysis is called for, creation is the principle that applies. Creation can also be more creative than simply working within the confines of academic convention and intellectual exercise. It can mean, instead of writing a paper, creating a sculpture to interpret or echo the meaning of a work of literature or art. It can mean writing poetry for the first time after twelve weeks of studying the poetry of a famous poet or poets. It can mean, as illustrated by one of the classes of Carolyn Guertin, the production of digital videos and films. It means empowering students to understand that they can be something more than consumers of knowledge or art, but also producers of it.

What’s interesting about these principles Contact, Collaboration and Creation is that they may also be used to summarize Web 2.0, that version of the internet and web practices that are defined by interactivity, decentralization and democracy. In Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools, Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum write that “Web 2.0 signals a transition from isolation to interconnectedness.” Whereas the original World Wide Web was defined by static web pages that encourage the passive consumption of texts and media, reinforcing the conceptual separation between author and reader, Web 2.0 transforms would-be-readers into active co-authors of online media. The isolated and voiceless consumer of Web 1.0 becomes connected and empowered to participate in a conversation through Web 2.0’s large array of interactive tools, such as blogs, wikis, video-sharing services, social annotation, and social networking and bookmarking tools, among others. To get back to IT, my point is that Web 2.0, to a large degree, values the principles of Contact, Creation and Collaboration, and is a good analogue of innovative teaching. In other words, I am arguing that Web 2.0 shares the same values that innovative teaching promotes and embodies. Both advocate constructivist notions of knowledge predicated on dialogue, exchange and creativity.

And yet, IT easily falls into the trap of doing everything that innovating teaching and web 2.0 is not. Rather than Contact, IT can promote Disconnection from the object of study. Instead of Collaboration, IT can reinforce isolation among students. In sum, IT by itself does not improve one’s teaching. In fact, whatever an instructor’s pedagogy is going into IT, it will be the same coming out the other side. So, the question for faculty who are curious about using more IT in their teaching is not about technical know-how or hardware, but whether or not they are ready to be unconventional, creative teachers. Is a course predicated on received, secondary knowledge or interacting with sources, realities or spaces that are of some kind of primary value? Does a course require students to only work alone, with limited interaction with peers and instructor or does it make social contact an integral part of the experience? Are assignments predicated on the imitation of conventional, simplistic formulas of expression or something different and new? How an instructor answers these questions will say a lot about whether an instructor is ready to make full use of the vast palette of colors and the canvas that IT can provide today.

Matt Crosslin, one of the designers at the Center for Distance Education her at UTA, touches on this subject in a series of articles that he is posted on a website called Edugeek Journal, and provides us with some interesting conceptual metaphors for thinking about convention versus innovation. Matt references the problem in his discussion of how Learning Management Systems, those systems like WebCt or Blackboard, can be made more flexible and fluid than they presently are. At their most conservative, Matt argues, these systems may be described as boxes inside of boxes inside of boxes, or as fortified castles or prisons that function as virtual repositories of content. As Web 2.0 tools like blogs and wikis have become more popular, LMS’s have tried to incorporate more and more of these tools inside of their programs, resulting in systems that are increasingly bloated and confusing. Matt’s argument is to counterpropose a different metaphor for the Learning Management System, one that dispenses with the conceit that a LMS should strive to contain everything that is on the WWW inside of it. His different metaphor is that of the control panel of a subway system. Students can circulate more freely in the virtual world but remain on well defined and well mapped tracks that make sense to the instructor and which relay information back to him or her. Matt writes: “The Learning Management System would become more of a hub than a walled garden or gated castle. Students might go there to view grades or get initial contact information, but leave and go out on to the web to learn and share. Instructors would use the LMS program to track student learning and centralize communications.” I encourage you to check out Edugeek Journal to find out more by reading Matt’s articles on the subject, but basically his argument is about finding a way to decentralize what is often an inert and static prison-box of tools.

Over the years I have tried to implement the values of Contact, Collaboration and Creation in live classes, in hybrid classes and in web only classes. What does this mean in practice? It means asking your students to be producers or knowledge and course content. My students have become bloggers and read each other’s work online. They have gone out into the business community, both locally and internationally, secured interviews with fascinating personalities of the business world and produced short films and audio files that become a part of the assigned course material in future semesters. They have become critics and commentators of the quality and reliability of webpages that purport to teach them something about a particular historical period or personage. And often, they have debated each other on message boards, discovering that amongst their peers there are deeply held conservative or liberal views on subjects that they assumed everyone saw in only one light. But all of this sounds very self-congratulatory. I have to tell you, and others who work with me in this area will back me up on this, that I am often frustrated by the results I have gotten. A lot of students think blogging is stupid and intimidating: they don’t read blogs and they are not interested in them, so asking them to be a blogger creates unexpected confusion, tensions, resistance and apathy. Message board discussions, when recommended loosely are ignored, when required for a grade become painful exercises in repetition and redundancy. And in general, when writing is required in my web classes, the floodgates of plagiarism are opened more dramatically than usual. And why not? You’re teaching on the web, why shouldn’t you be writing with what’s already on the web?

All of these experiences, misadventures and postmortems are the stuff of a different talk that I am not presenting to you today. But I offer these comments to you now as an indication that working with IT is no magic bullet. You can’t ever settle on one way of doing something and rest on your laurels; the pace of innovation is such that some tools fall by the wayside and new ones emerge, demanding our attention. Working with IT requires a constant state of self-reinvention and course re-design, and a continuous rethinking of one’s own teaching. You may think you have a course in the can thanks to IT, or you may wish to can it, but you can’t ever it keep it in there. And maybe that pretty much sums up my attitude about misconceptions surrounding the use of IT.

IT cannot resolve all problems by its very presence. Rather, it is continually posing new questions and challenges. Thank God for that because it keeps those of us working in it interested, engaged and caring about the outcome.

One of the interesting things about running a wordpress blog is being able to see how people find your webpage and for what purpose. Lately, one of my recent posts on The History of Love has been getting some traffic. Before I go further, let me explain that I am co-chair of the University of Texas Arlington OneBook Program, which selects a book for all incoming first year students to read. The book for 2008-2009 is The History of Love and I’ve been collaborating with many people at UT Arlington to generate resources that will help students with this book. Many of those resources have been posted on the OneBook homepage, others on the OneBook newsletter and once, recently, I published some notes on The History of Love on this page. Now classes have started and as I look at my wordpress control panel I see the following list of search terms that people are utilizing to find their way to my blog and its individual posts.

The last search term is interesting: essays “the history of love”. Here we go again– the irresistible impulse to use the web to find something that will help someone at my university understand the book. Or, at worst, plagiarism-in-progress (the penalties of which can be severe).

What is ironic is that the most valuable resources available to students on the web about The History of Love are materials that are READILY available on our UTA websites and in our publications, such as our deluxe Study Guide (here) and our outstanding library subject guide. Also, our Facebook group is open and awaiting students who want to use it for the purpose of asking questions. (At present, there is an open thread on the Facebook group that will take student questions, and we’ll do our best to answer them and get a good conversation going.)

People in this group are standing by, willing to help students who need it and who are genuinely interested in having a conversation about the book! But those students who are looking for 35 pre-written essays on The History of Love on the world wide web, they will not find them!

I recently read The Count of Montecristo by Dumas for the first time. I have read The Three Musketeers twice, the second time less than a year ago, and ever since I have been wanting to crack this other beloved ‘classic.’ In The Three Musketeers I was struck by how Dumas had single-handedly invented a swashbuckling, smart-ass talkin’ type of adventure story that has been with us ever since, through to Starsky and Hutch (t.v. series, not the film, please, some dignity) and the Lethal Weapon movies. It was great to drink from the source and find the water to be so fresh. But the unabridged The Count of Montecristo beckoned, with its daunting 1,300 pages, like a dark lighthouse shining in the distance, ominous and thrilling. I had to read this powerhouse of western popular literature, this Star Wars of the nineteenth-century.

The novel tells the story of Edmund Dantes, who is framed for a crime he did not commit and banished to a dungeon in a castle on a desolate island. There, he learns of a magical treasure from a fellow inmate, escapes and… well, let’s just say that one of the men responsible for the imprisonment puts it best when he says: “Yes, but people get out of prison and when you get out of prison and you are called Edmond Dantes, you take revenge.” Slow, insinuating, hidden and incontrovertible revenge, hidden in plain sight. He comes back to France, unimaginably rich and like a methodical, soulless vampire, seeks to destroy the men responsible for his suffering. It’s a cool set-up and Dumas does a lot with it. He packs the novel with thrills, uncanny gothic scenes, savage murder, endless disquisitions on money and credit, philosophical ruminations on the orient, extended and over-the-top sentimental pap, Italian travelogue, and bandit literature. The novel is thrilling for a few hundred pages, fascinating for another two hundred, exhausting and boring for another few hundred and then breathlessly exciting for the finish. It’s a feast. And it does give you some things to think about.

The Count of Montecristo and the Powers of Fiction

The conceit at the center of the plot of the novel is the fantasy of a man with almost limitless means to manipulate, control and ultimately punish others. At one point in the novel, Maximilien declares that the Count seems to control his every action and know his every thought. This is why I think that the character of the Count of Montecristo is an analogue of the figure of the author, the ultimate puppet-master, the figure that knows and controls all. The repeated mention of The Arabian Nights (or 1001 Nights) in the novel supports this reading, because, after all, what is the Arabian Nights if not a celebration of the powers of story-telling and authorship?

Orientalism

The Count of Montecristo is a profoundly orientalist work, meaning that it draws from images and concepts associated with the exotic and threatening East to define its protagonist and his quest for vengeance. The Count is many things–he is a Byronic, vampiric figure, and a cosmopolitan, but he is also an oriental character. His way of achieving vengeance is that of the Orient, as Montecristo himself speaks of poisons and crime with the Crown Prosecutors villainous wife. It is interesting to note that as an oriental, avenging figure, Montecristo becomes opaque when revenge is his primary function. Before and after that, Montecristo is a man, Edmund Dantes, and as such, a feeling, complex being.

Well, there is more to say, but I think I rather read Ivan Turgenev, so I am signing off from these speedy notes.

One of the biggest and most beautiful internet videos is Where the Hell is Matt Harding? It first appeared on youtube in 2005 and became a “feel good” classic of the genre.

Now Matt Harding has come back with a powerful sequel dated 2008 that is making the internet rounds all over again. There’s a different theme song, different locales and most importantly, he’s accompanied by jubilant crowds of goofy people. If you sample some of the gushing comments on vimeo we can see the effect that this video has on people, and the recurring confession that the video inspires tears of joy.

• Karina says: “This made me smile so much and for some reason cry a little… Well done… I wish I had the courage to do something like that”
  Drew says: “I’m supposed to be a 40-yr-old tough guy, but this vid just really got me, and I started smiling and crying (for good reasons) all of a sudden. Very powerful.”
• Beth says: “Felt like the world came together, for a minute. Who cares about differences! Felt a like I was dancing with everyone in the video and loving every minute of it! The Choreographed Indian shoot- lovely! Thanks Matt!!”
• Jen says: “I still have goosebumps and tears of joy streaming down my face. What an amazing piece of work this is. To imagine all of the fantastic people you met, places you’ve seen and all of the joyous dancing you’ve done~ is something I cannot do. Thank you for bringing this to light…I love your jig and I’m so happy you were able to do something as grand, yet simple as this…peace, joy and hugs to you. still weeping joyously:)”

In this age of malaise, of apocalyptic visions of terrorism and climate change, Matt Harding has stumbled onto something singular in the medium of the moment: to inspire people with hope that feels visceral and genuine. In an internet defined by simulacra and irony, Matt Harding succeeds in delivering joy and hope.

In a July 9 article for The New York Times, Charles McGrath wrote: “In many ways ‘Dancing’ is an almost perfect piece of Internet art: it’s short, pleasingly weird and so minimal in its content that it’s open to a multitude of interpretations. It could be a little commercial for one-world feel-goodism. It could be an allegory of American foreign policy: a bumptious foreigner turning up all over the world and answering just to his own inner music. Or it could be about nothing at all — just a guy dancing.”

It is paradoxical, but in spite of the diversity of filming locations, Harding’s video makes all the world essentially the same, happy place: a stage for his goofy jig. Harding’s video flattens the world and makes it plastic– its diversity is not cultural or political but purely aesthetic or visual. It’s as if the world were just a set of picturesque backdrops, rather than a network of places inhabited by different people with different languages and cultures. Nothing divides us, we’re all the same happy people everywhere, we just wanna dance! In this regard, Harding’s video is a kind of popular, web-video reinvention of Edward Steichen’s famous exhibition of photographs and subsequent book called The Family of Man from the 1950’s. In this collective, photographic experiment, Steichen proposed the universalist notion that we’re all the same because of certain, repeated emotional motifs or experiences regardless of our cultural or geographical background.

The Matt Harding videos are also a metaphor for the kind of self-expression that the internet is best at engendering: recycling, repeating, recreating and speaking back. Harding’s videos represent the conceit that the world is entirely within reach, knowable and representable. Through the internet, you can be whatever you want wherever you want. You are ‘free’ to roam. You have unlimited connectivity with other people and places. Whether or not these are real things, or worthwhile conceits, is besides the point. I’m arguing that Matt Harding is a metaphor of how some of us view the digital age.

Harding’s videos are multilayered. There are three planes and scripts superimposed upon one another: the background (tourist landmark or vista), Matt himself dancing, and the foreground explanatory caption that names the location where Matt is dancing. The background images are the beautiful landmarks that people might normally frame in a touristy photography. Harding’s dance in front of these landmarks puts an ironic, human signature on them, a grafitti that makes them intimate in unexpected ways. What is majestic, different, exotic, sublime or beautiful is accented with college dorm goofiness. We all know someone like Matt. Or all of us were like Matt once. And some of us are still Matt inside. In seeing him in front of the Taj Majal or an exotic mural, our happiness for Matt nurtures something inside of ourselves. And underlying it all, the music, which in the case of this latest film, carries the lyrics of the poem “Stream of Life” by Rabindranath Tagore: “The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures…”

Matt Harding teaches us that dancing is a universal language. His first video is not as good as the second in my opinion because it does not capture the communal nature of dance. The thrill of the second video is seeing people join in with so much gusto. And so it has been since time immemorial… whenever there has been dance and celebration, people have done it together.

There’s so much to look at in Matt Harding’s newest video. It rewards repeated viewings. There’s the man in the orange boots, the bearded Frenchman, the Soweto girls, the goofball in the orange shirt and blue shorts…

It’s that time of the year when the “best of…” lists come out. These are my favorites so far. I can only think of 5 stand-outs. (One or two may be technically from 2006, but I saw all of them in 2007).

1. Once (Ireland)

Very simple, and absolutely charming and uplifting. Out on DVD on December 18, 2007.

2. 3:10 to Yuma (USA)

Christian Bale is brilliant. A complex and mythical character study dressed up in the genre of the western.

3. After the Wedding (Denmark)

This is a Danish movie that’s kind of soap-opera-ish. But it works beautifully and is very involving.

4. The Bourne Ultimatum (USA)

What can I say? It has been said already.

5. No Country for Old Men (USA)

Not for the faint of heart. Brutal and unrelenting. But exquisitely made.

 First, the Inimitable Mr. Louis Armstrong, doing one of his signatures.

Now, the immensely talented Ruben Blades, doing the latin descendant of Mack the Knife, “Pedro Navaja”(Peter the Knife or Switchblade). Check out Oscar H on the piano!

 The one and only time the great Charlie Chaplin’s vagabond spoke was when he sung this song in “Modern Times” (1936), one of my all-time favorite movies. The lyrics are in gibberish!!