Buckdance and beyond

I’m in Nova Scotia for a few days, but it seems not a whit further away from everything. Example: I’m sitting in a friend’s house recovering from the 9-hour drive, and Skype goes off –my octogenarian friend Max (in Arkansas), calling to find out if I know how he can find a Mike Seeger project called Talking Feet, a film about Appalachian dance traditions. As it happens, Betsy is in Virginia for 10 days, and she’s staying at Mike and Alexia’s house, so I email her to ask her to ask Mike, and while waiting for her reply I do a quick Google search and what do I find but the whole film in streaming video (choose between QuickTime and RealPlayer)… and Betsy writes back to say that Mike and Alexia’s current project is updating the 1987 project… It’s a wonderful film, the sort of thing that’ll make you think differently about the pedagogical possibilities of the YouTube revolution.