He has this little dance he does and he’s been doing it for some time now. Back in 2005, a friend suggested that he film himself doing this dance. And he did. Everywhere he went, he’d dance in front of a camera. Eventually, he put this collection of silly dances (or rather, one silly dance repeated in various settings) on the Internet. This made him somewhat famous.

In 2006, he danced some more. On Stride Gum’s dime, Matt “took a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents.”* Pretty neat.

Then in 2007, he approached Stride with a new idea. He no longer wanted to dance alone. He wanted others to dance as well. Many, many others. Stride thought this was a cool idea, so they sent him everywhere.

(Including Atlanta.)

The finished product of Matt’s 2007 World Tour of Bad Dancing has been posted. And if you’re really observant — and not overly misty by a strange and unfamiliar sense of humanity’s goodness — you can catch a two or three second glimpse of Matt in our fair city. Maybe you’ll see someone you know.

(It’s around the 3:21 mark, but for the sake of your own soul, don’t skip ahead.)

Rediscovered via MeFi

The American Institute of Architects conducted a nationwide survey to clear the decks and get to the heart of one of the most important questions of our age: Which American edifices are held most dear by the average? Their result is a list of 150 American architectural favorites. (PDF list here.)

The top ten is full of the usual and expected suspects, like The Empire State Building, The White House and The Golden Gate Bridge. You can even find the nearby Biltmore Estate at #9.

But Atlanta’s offerings don’t show up until #96. That’s where you’ll find The High Museum, designed by Richard Meier. Scan down a few more listings and you’ll see our only other listing: The Hyatt Regency, John Portman’s 1967 masterpiece.

Admittedly, maybe those surveyed haven’t seen enough of The City Too Busy To Hate. So tell me … what other local works of multi-story art deserve to be on the big list of 150?

The show’s URL (www.slashershow.com) appears to be dead, but a little Googling has uncovered an archived Slasher Show from back in June, 2006.

So I need to know. Is this show always so stupendous? Have any of our readers actually been featured on The Slasher Show? Cisco Kid? King Of Bling? Are you out there?

PodCamp is coming to Atlanta in March!

PodCamp Atlanta promises to be fun, casual, and completely attendee-created. No boring suits sitting around talking about ‘Web 2.0′ and ’social media’ and other buzzwords. (Though those buzzwords may get dropped occasionally.) Because PodCamp Atlanta is an unconference, anyone can propose and lead a session. The organizers are looking for diversity in opinion, experience, and background, so if you have an idea for a session, add it to their wiki’s sessions page!

• When? March 16-18, 2007
• Where? Emory University
• How Much? Free! Just Register.

You don’t have to be a podcaster to attend - if you’ve the least bit of an interest in podcasting, come on out! Oh, and one more thing … the organizers promise post-unconference boozing at a yet-to-be-determined location.

Atlanta’s most famous address never existed. Its headstrong occupant, arguably Atlanta’s most celebrated woman, is entirely fictional. And yet, it cannot be denied that the home and heroine of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind serve as cultural ambassadors for our city the world around. Because really, who doesn’t know about Scarlett O’Hara? And just how many visitors flock to Atlanta, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tara?

I spent the afternoon in Roswell, Atlanta’s North Fulton County suburb. In addition to the riverside parks and quaint downtown shops that stretch in either direction from the town square, Roswell is home to several Greek Revival style homes. Most of them were built in the mid-1800s. At least three of them were designed by architect Wallis Ball, including Barrington Hall. Barrington Hall served as the residence of the King family. The city itself is named after the family patriarch, Roswell King. His son, Barrington, ran the Roswell Mill nearby. All that remains of the mill are ruins and more than a few ghosts, but the Hall is in remarkably good shape, having remained a functioning home for only three families for 162 years. In 2005, the property was purchased by the city and opened to the public for tours. It was there that I was volunteering, as they needed additional staff for a holiday festival.

So what does Barrington Hall have to do with Tara?

I asked a curious question of a docent at Barrington Hall. Do tourists walk into this historic home with Gone With The Wind on their minds? It turns out that most of them do. Almost all. While I was there today, a woman walked through the door and was sorely disappointed at the lack of a massive spiral staircase climbing from the foyer. “Why didn’t they build this place more like Tara?” However, the patron was assured, the front parlor did have green velvet curtains at one time. “Well, at least there’s that,” she sighed.

Because everyone’s looking for Tara.

The Civil War is a difficult chunk of history for modern Americans to swallow, but it must be moreso for the rest of the world. We present ourselves as the land of the free, the home of the brave, a place where opportunity awaits all. And yet, from 1861 to 1865, the hard work of our Founding Fathers was put in dire jeopardy. Our union was not even a century old, and already she was falling apart.

In its own way, Gone With The Wind places this bleak period of our history in a context that can be understood worldwide. Whether or not that context is the least bit accurate or factual, well, that’s a different issue entirely. I mean, think about it … why would the United States of America ever split into warring halves? Gone With The Wind provides one answer, even if that answer reduces the conflict to the sensationalized struggle of one imaginary Ante Bellum daughter to maintain her fictional home.

And when we talk about Gone With The Wind, we don’t just mean the novel alone. Margaret Mitchell’s book was powerful enough and very popular, but after the spectacle of producer David O. Selznick’s film of 1939, her imagined Atlanta of massive mansions and crinolined hoop-skirts took on a depth of reality that only Technicolor could provide. Scarlett O’Hara became Vivian Leigh became Scarlett O’Hara. And though the necklines of Leigh’s gowns showed inches more flesh than any self-respecting lady of the actual era would dare, costume designer Walter Plunkett’s updating of plantation fashion overtook reality.

The same can be said of everything related to GWTW. It overtook reality, almost entirely. It still does. Southern Gentlemen are almost always imagined as twins to Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler, though some might be more partial to Leslie Howard’s more genteel Ashley Wilkes. Atlanta is still burning, albeit on a Hollywood backlot. And any centuries-old home within Georgia’s state-lines with more than a few massive doric columns simply must be Tara.

So to my mind, Gone With The Wind is one of the greatest gifts that Atlanta has presented to the world. This is a unique gift, one that benefits the giver. The alternate history (or fictional reality) provided via Margaret Mitchell’s pen (and Victor Fleming’s direction) is the ultimate in glamorous backstories for a city with a lot of history to account for and explain, but no time or patience to do so.

And so they come, curious visitors from all around the world, still looking for Tara. And though they will never find it, we’re always happy to let them look. And to let them believe.

I know next to nothing about this contest at MP3.com, but I do know that one of the contestants is Big Eddie Meeks, one third of Atlanta’s own Prophetix. If you like good and honest hip-hop, give Meeks a listen, then give him your vote. And really, can you beat lyrics like this?

“My spectacular / vernacular / travels through space and time like Scott Bakula.”

Answer: You just can’t.

It is with sadness and woe that I share the following announcement:

“Action superstar Steven Seagal and his band Thunderbox have canceled their scheduled concert tonight at Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points.” *

I’m sure that I speak for everyone here at the Atlanta Metroblog when I say that our deepest sympathies are with the devastated ticketholders of this now-cancelled event. Though your hearts may be troubled, take comfort in knowing that his energy drink is still available to sustain you through this troubling time.

From the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

State road planners are considering double-decking Interstate 285 on the heavily traveled north side of Atlanta between I-75 and I-85 …

One possibility is adding four truck-only toll lanes in the middle of the heavily traveled northern stretch of I-285, with four high-occupancy-vehicle or high-occupancy-toll lanes over them.

Sure. Just what we need. Now we can have soul-crushing traffing and multi-car pile-ups in amazing 3-D!

(By the way, the ABC has a poll. Go express yourself.)

Photo from today’s April 10 Mobilization Rally in Atlanta.