Where the hell is Torley?

Dancing with Matt Harding, of course! (Keep reading for the video!)

Serendipity has a funny way of teaching us life lessons: just days before on vacation, I was at the beach with my wife, dancing (like Matt) on the tidal pools. Not knowing what was yet to transpire.

I hardly ever read the paper news, but this morning, when I picked up the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in front of our hotel room when we were checking out, I read that Matt was going to be at Wide World Books & Maps. It wasn't a feature-length article, just a brief blurb on a back page, which made it all the more surprising.

I knew we had to be there, and so, on the way back to Seattle, we stumbled upon more serendipity: the zany Archie McPhee toy store, which I wanted to visit but didn't lookup its address. As my wife and I walked down the street after parking to take a break on our travels, I saw the signature sign light up, and moments later…

I became the proud owner of a Seth Godin action figure! Since Godin is a viral marketing pioneer and Matt's dancing videos are among the most popular YouTube videos of all time, therein lies a connection!

(Maybe there are no coincidences, just events set in motion we need to be observant of and pilot so that future wonders can happen.)

Following a walk in a nearby park, here we were. Matt and his girlfriend Melissa — who works as a recruiter for Google and has a knack for helping Matt find talent for his vids! — were present, and he showed the intimate and rapt crowd the 3rd, newest video he did of dancing around the world with local people. It was silly, touching, and wonderful, and the hi-rez was much better quality than this YouTube version. Nevertheless, the goodness shines through.

A Q&A session followed and, as my wife astutely points out, Matt was tremendously generous with his time, answering queries charismatically with an amazing dose of depth and humor. Great questions from the audience too, like whether he needed extra pages for his passport (yes), what his affiliation is with the UN (working on a project to give 100 laptops and aid poor children), and how he got legal clearance to film everyone (he pulled up a contact sheet of many headshots showing the many dancers from a scene).

He uses Sony Vegas (my choice too) to edit his videos, and I noted with geeky glee that he uses a vertical Windows taskbar, like myself.

My turn to interrogate eventually came, and I excitedly asked Matt whether he had seen the Second Life homage to his dancing — yes!

(There've actually been several, including Carnah's, Louleen's, and Socks'; Artilect's was the first.) My 2nd Q, naturally, was a digest recant of my earlier serendipity, and whether I'd have the honor of dancing with Matt! AND HE SAID YES, OMG.

Matt mentioned he's working on a book with still imagery from his adventures and a short story for each country shown. He was also quizzed about whether he'd make a DVD, and he considers it interesting but isn't the kind of guy who gets alight when a camera is on him for longer periods of time than dancing.

What an awesome guy! He made everyone feel special and I'm totally fanboying this one out more than Knowles ever could, but I just had to share. The bookshop proprietors were kindly too, welcoming each & everyone in. Special thanx goes to my wife for ze filming.

My friends of teh awesome and enemies of the useless, I'm locationally back home and will be answering questions on my blog and playing in Second Life… but still on vacay, and not officially working until next Monday. I have more stories about my lives coming up in the days and weeks ahead, right on this here blog. So catch you around, and keep on dancing!

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