  If one encodes the gravitational degrees of freedom in an orthonormal frame
field there is a very natural first order action one can write down (which in
four dimensions is known as the Goldberg action). In this essay we will show
that this action contains a boundary action for certain microscopic degrees of
freedom living at the horizon of a black hole, and argue that these degrees of
freedom hold great promise for explaining the microstates responsible for black
hole entropy, in any number of spacetime dimensions. This approach faces many
interesting challenges, both technical and conceptual.
