Following Matt Harding

I saw Matt Harding again. He announced on his blog that he’d be speaking at Wide World Books & Maps. This is a fascinating little store in Wallingford that I had never heard of before this announcement. They specialize in travel books, accessories, and all kinds of maps. I absolutely have to spend some quality time there before my next trip, whatever that may be.

Now, his story has been fascinating to me, I love the videos, I love his writing, I absorb everything he publishes one way or another. Honestly, I didn’t expect to hear anything new beyond my previous absorbances, but I nevertheless love hearing him speak about these things and enjoy his dry humor. To my surprise, there were numerous things that he spoke about that I hadn’t heard him cover. He passed around a couple of his passports. Yes, he has several. All filled up, all with extra pages, a couple were concurrent. This wasn’t done in a “hey, look how many stamps I have!” sort of way, it was to answer a question about needing extra pages. This led into another story about him getting stuck in Madagascaar (I believe) when he ran out of room for a stamp. It was quite the ordeal that Melissa had to get him out of. I did not get to see the passport with the Antarctica stamp either.

The evening was pretty good. I’d estimate 40+ people in attendance. He started off curious if everyone had seen “the video”. I think it’s funny how “the video” has been defined differently over the years. Now, it means video number three. I think a couple of people hadn’t seen it. Some had seen it only once. We watched it. The high def version is beautiful.

I don’t remember the question he was answering, but he asked if anyone had been at the gasworks filming. I raised my hand. I believe a couple other people behind me must have as well. He jokingly looked in our direction, waving, and said, “hi guys.” (Not really pretending to remember us.) It was kind of fun. Awhile later, someone asked if he had to get permission or releases for people in the video. He started in on explaining everything, and motioned in the general direction of those of us who were there, saying, “as these guys will remember,” then he paused, looked at me more carefully, and said, “I remember *you*… Kelly, is it?” I was floored. “Yes!” I then mentioned to him that he had used my photos for his blog about that day. He looked nervous, “did I give you credit?” “Yes, you did.” He then proceeded to actually answer the whole permission question that he had started.

There is really no reason he should have remembered me at all, much less my name. Seriously, only about 4 sentences were exchanged between us on the dancing day. I was mostly just hanging back, listening to the other conversations. There were 181 people there that danced, including a lot of family and friends he hadn’t seen in a long time. After I got home and uploaded the photos, I sent him an email with a link to the photos in case he wanted to use them. I gave him the quick “thank you” for doing what he does and sharing it with us. He responded with a couple sentences, thanking me for having pictures of him getting lifted up. That’s pretty much it. I have no idea how he would remember me three months later. Still, it’s pretty cool, even if it was a bizarre experience.

When asked if he’d thought of doing a book, he had some news in that department. He just signed a deal with a publisher a couple weeks ago (I think he said). He’s supposed to have a book out in May of next year, I believe. He was excited for the format. It will basically be stills from the videos and standalone stories from each. There will be no connecting narrative. That sounds like a nice thing to just be able to pick up here or there and read a random page or two.

Oh, and randomly, here’s a blog from a guy who was so excited to be there.

Dancing, one last time

Matt’s new video came out early this morning. I’ve watched it more times than I’d like to admit. I seem to catch something new each time. You can also go directly to YouTube and click on “watch in high quality” below the video for vast improvement.

Some favorites (yes, I realize this is most of the video)
Christmas Island crabs, Iceland, Guy falling down in Paris, Istanbul, Solomon Islands crack up, Yemen, DMZ Korea, Tokyo girls, Papua New Guinea, Tonga waves, Gurgaon India dancers, Seoul (12 days before arsonists burned down the ancient gate), NY/Tokyo similarities, Tonga whales (hard fought clip), Montreal, Zero G (also problematic), and of course Seattle.

And here’s a handy guide to finding my few pixels:

ETA: I just noticed this video as a response. It’s a documentary about the gasworks filming day and is surprisingly good. Also, I appear in the background a *lot*.

Update: Dancing

Matt Harding updated his blog with info about the dancing thing on Saturday. His is much more entertaining than mine, though he used half the pictures I posted on flickr (with my permission).

Read it!!! I command you!

Where the hell is Kelly?

I took a little break from reality today to go down to Gasworks Park so I could be a tiny spec in an upcoming video. I first saw Matt Harding’s second video shortly after it came out. My oldest brother sent it to me and said I’d like the last location in the video. I loved the video. After running across it several more times, I looked into it further. That’s when I found out that was the *second* video. The first video was made without sponsorship awhile before.

Most interesting to me was probably the three part lecture series he did in Vermont. I highly recommend it if you have an hour+ to kill. He has a very dry sense of humor and provides interesting insight into places he’s been, how the videos came to be, and talks about certain clips in the video.

He also released an amusing outtakes video last year and announced his plans to travel around again and this time to include others in the video. I signed up right away to be notified. It felt a little weird. He lives in Seattle. He’s here a lot. Still I assumed he’d want to continue his tradition of including a Seattle clip. The first clip had him dancing with his oldest niece at Pike Place Market. The second had his then two nieces at the Troll.

Well, he just wrapped up traveling around this big blue marble once more. He got back into town from South America yesterday and had invited everyone down to Gasworks to film the last clip to close out the next video. As usual I took pictures. While there, I met one woman up from Olympia wearing a Mutant Enemy t-shirt who had gone down to help picket during the writers strike. She marvelled at walking the picket line with Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, etc. Then she asked if I could direct her to the Wayward since she was up this way anyway. I also spoke with another young woman who has done a lot of travelling herself. She’s been to all seven continents and has spent a lot of time on several of them with the peace corps, teaching English, etc. She was very impressed that I brought up the Macedonian naming controversy when she mentioned having worked there. Sometimes it does pay to be up on current events in far flung places of the world.

But the main purpose of the event was to dance with Matt. I showed up about 5 minutes before he did. When I first got there, I saw a big group, all in costume. I wondered if I’d missed the memo about dressing funny. I quickly surmised these were cosplayers. Apparently they were there for their June photoshoot. I made my way to the place marked with an arrow in the email. Some people were milling about, but it was hard to tell who was there for what purpose. When Matt, his girlfriend Melissa, and a few others connected to them came around the corner it became clearer. He came over to each person, “Are you here to dance?” “Absolutely.” I introduced myself to Matt and Melissa and then let them get set up. There were various other family members and friends of both of them scattered about as well. They started registering each of us. Release form, picture, wrist band. KING and KOMO were both there as well. The cosplayers all went to set up for a shoot on the hill. Afterwards, many came over to see what was up and ended up registering. So, it’s going to look like Seattle is full of people in costumes… Hmmm…

Sadly, Waldo did not opt to be in the video.

Matt’s newest niece made it into the world just in time for the third video. She’s 6 weeks old. So, all three of them will be specs in this one.

He said he thinks this is the most people to come out from anywhere he’s been in the world. (I have to wonder if that would have been true if not for the cosplayers…) We were told the boundaries of the shoot and spread out to fill up the shot. I was pretty close to the middle. Sure enough, when Matt and his family types moved in, they took over the spot I had inhabited. Instead, I stood between his mom and the cosplayers. Interesting.

We did a few dancing clips and then broke up. He said he’d stay around for pictures and stuff and also reiterated not to hesitate to ask him to dance. So, I did. I think I was the last of the day.

Edit: WordPress apparently doesn’t like flickr video and stripped it out during the migration. Here is the link to the video of dancing.

Plus a plain old picture too.

The next video is due out June 21st, though it may come out a day earlier.

He mentioned plans to go back to the South Pacific. Looks like he’s off to get the rest of the Afunakwa story. I’m so relieved!