Monthly Archives: July 2011

Certainly in the Global Top Ten of 20th Century Coolness: The Great Antonio Machin

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 Many people know the song “Dos Gardenias” from the film Buena Vista Social Club, in which it was sung by the great Ibrahim Ferrer. This is one of the most famous of the bolero songs and was written by the legendary Isolina Carrilo in the 1930s.

 The classic performance of this impossibly romantic song was by the Cuban singer and band leader Antonio Machin.

Imagine how I felt when I found a video of Machin’s performance. It reminds me that one of the most thrilling consequences of the digital age is that it has allowed the resurrection and wide distribution of classic, long hidden  performances. 

Watch how subtly and minimally Machin moves. The bolero singers were a special breed, masters of romance. He works his magic with his voice rather than any elaborate body movement.

Antonio Machin was impossibly cool. I am not sure I have ever seen anyone fit into such a superbly tailored suit with more grace and natural elegance.

I think my new personal “field of dreams”  fantasy is to wake up a band leader in a Havana nightclub, circa 1935. 

Mumbai Bombings and Social Media

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There will be time for more thoughtful analysis later. For now I wanted my students in particular to check out how today’s bombings in Mumbai are playing out in various social media.

I suggest you search Twitter using hashtags such as #MumbaiBlasts, #Mumbai, and — believe it or not — #here2help. You should also look for other video and accounts on YouTube and Facebook.

And remember: this flood of messages is inevitably packed with everything from the ridiculous to the sublime, from false claims to painful and urgent truths. When I suggest that you get a feel for the role that social media can play in events like these, I am not making any claim about accuracy. They simply are a fact of global social life in the 21st century.

The sad fact is these types of tragedies do seem to reveal so many of the potential uses and abuses, opportunities and dangers, of social media. And every so often, some truly profound development finds its way through the confusion and crowd of the digital world,  and quickly commands global attention.

The trick will be for all of us to give up our passivity and see the flood of messages from social media as a resource that requires us to actively be our own editors — to evaluate, curate, edit, and ultimately accept or reject what we discover.

It’s worth a look.