Boylan Heights and the Poetics of Cartography

Denis Wood's recent book Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas is featured on Places, an online journal of design. In the 1970's and 80's he began working with his students on a "narrative atlas" of the Boylan Heights neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. These maps are unique in that they remove the usual street patterns to reveal the bare details. His map of jack-o'-lanterns from this series was featured here on a Halloween post a couple of years ago.  The Places feature has a slideshow of some of these maps. Here are a couple of examples:

Fences

Traffic Signs

Porch Ceiling Colors

The Places feature includes Wood's eloquent descriptions of the creative process. Here is a quote about making the "Pools of Light" map:

 The usual “efficient” map would have located everything on the street onto a single sheet — that is, different marks for lamp posts, fire hydrants, street signs, trees. Our inefficient map concentrated on a single subject, and, rather than lamp posts, it brought the pools of light into view. No legend, no north arrow, no neat line, none of the usual apparatus. At last, a modernist feel!

That’s when I knew we could write poems in maps, and I began thinking seriously about a poetics of cartography.

 A few more maps:

Intrusions Under the Hill - water, sewer and gas lines

Barking Dogs

Other maps include a map of power lines titled "Squirrel Highways", a mailman's delivery route, a diagram of the distance and direction that rent money travels to absentee landlords, wind chimes, viewsheds, and a bunch of others. The slideshow can be seen here.

Holiday Books and Exhibit

I will now proceed to discuss two books I have not read yet and one exhibit I haven't been to yet. After all, this is the internet where you just say stuff!

The Hand Drawn Map Association (HDMA) has a book out entitled From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association.

Those of you in the Philadelphia area can see a parallel exhibit of their maps called No where at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA.

The exhibit only goes until December 19th so hurry up!






Here are some maps in the exhibit lifted from Kris Harzinski's website. Harzinski is the founder of the HDMA and an artist from the semi-hip Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Perry Steindel, Untitled, 1965.

Scott Griffith, Window map of Anchorage, 2010.

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Mapping America is a follow up to the Mapping New York book featured previously. Once again Black Dog Publishing is offering a 40% discount for readers of this blog. For the discount send an e-mail to Jess Atkins jess@blackdogonline.com

Here are some sample images.

Detail from a pictorial Wildlife and Game map from 1956.

"Dissected Map of the United States" by Rev. E. J. Clemens, 1893. This is the box of a jigsaw puzzle meant to teach geography. The American figure is handing out pieces to grateful representatives of various foreign countries. On the back is an ad for Sherwin Williams paint.

Finally, I will leave you with this heart-warming image- "States United", a poster by Greg Beauchamp, 2009.




I like the legend at the bottom of the poster.

I am a Very Slow Reader-Part 2

I'm not only a slow reader, but slow to pick up on "new" things.
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet has been out for over a year but I only discovered it over the summer as one of the staff picks at the Maine Coast Bookshop.  Two things drew me in; one, the staff picks at this store have never let me down and two, it's a book about a cartographer!

The book is very enjoyable, however I find parts of it to be a bit of a reach. A 12 year old cartographer maybe, but one with such maturity and depth of knowledge (including an expertise in entomology) just seems a bit of a reach. Perhaps if Reif Larsen had made him 14 or 15 I might find this story easier to believe. The basic plot of the book is that a 12 year old prodigy who lives on a ranch in Montana named Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is invited to the Smithsonian, unknown to his parents, to accept an award for his scientific work. The book is illustrated with some beautiful maps and illustrations, apparently these were an afterthought to the book.

Here is his map of the ranch in Montana. I could not find the original image online so I took this German version (note the building names) from the Fischerverlage publishing site.

T. S. Spivet's obsession with diagramming everything he sees, from the way his sister shucks corn, to male pattern baldness is borderline annoying but it makes for some fun marginalia. The map that begins Chapter 10, shows a large U.S. City and slightly gives away a bit of plot ahead of time if you recognize this street pattern.

 Even if you don't recognize this place chances are very high that if you're riding a train across the country you will get there as will the plot. The image above is from the Boston Globe review.

Overall, this is a clever and unique book that is an entertaining read for anyone, regardless of your knowledge of cartography, entomology or male pattern baldness.

 

I am a very slow reader

There have been a number of good map related books out recently. I would have reviewed these books when they first arrived but I like to take my time and enjoy a good read. Sometimes that time turns into months.

First up is The Fourth Part of the World by Toby Lester.

Originally this was imagined as a book about the 1507 Martin Waldseemüller map that is commonly considered to be the first map to use the name "America."

However, the scope of the book expands into a broad geopolitical history of European exploration and colonialism that is the context in which this map appeared. This is a fascinating look at the religious and commercial motivations behind the urge to explore the world and at the revival of science, humanism and the knowledge of the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately the book is a bit Eurocentric in that it glosses over the contributions and discoveries of Chinese, Arab and even northern European scientists and explorers. However, the author does at least acknowledge that fact in his preface.
This "macrohistory" details travels of Marco Polo and others to the far east, the search for the mythical Prester John, attempts to determine the world's circumference, the uncertain dimensions of Africa, the Papal Schism, and the effects of the Spanish Inquisition on regional commerce. It also covers the rivalries among Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, other explorers and the countries that they sailed for. All these threads are tied up into a cohesive narrative.

The production of the Waldseemüller map is detailed in the final chapters but the book is more about the historical and cultural journey that lead to this map rather than the finished product.

Next up we have Lost States by Michael J. Trinklein.

The cover of this book is a fold-out map! Very cool. This book details various failed schemes to create new states. Each state features a map and a short history. Some of the descriptions are a bit too short and the author often substitutes amusing flip comments for valuable historical context. Some of the maps are a bit sloppy.

For example his delineation of Acacdia - a straight line across Maine with no regard for the geography or culture of the state.

Speaking of sloppy, note the name of the state above New Mexico on this map of Comancheria.
Also some of the "states" seem to be pointless filler. Iceland? Guyana? Albania? It's a pretty long stretch to consider these as serious proposals.

The book has a nice blog with some additional worthwhile information.

Finally, as a fellow map blogger, I should mention Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities by Frank Jacobs.

He has taken entries from his popular blog Strange Maps and turned them into a book. I did not run out and get the book because I am a regular reader of his blog and as I understand it, there is no additional content. The blog is always full of interesting content so I'm sure the book is too. When I was in 7th grade, I tried to review a book that I did not read. The results were not so good so I won't repeat that mistake here.

There are several other good map books that have come out in the last year. Maybe I'll get to those but I am a very slow reader. 

Full disclosure section:

"Lost States" was sent to me for free by the publisher.

"The Fourth Part of the World" was a gift from my mother in law.

I do not have a copy of "Strange Maps"

Book of the Week - Mapping New York

      Mapping New York provides a look at historical and present day New York City through cartography. Black Dog Publishing has recently released this book as a follow up to their previous title, Mapping London.  The publishing company has allowed me to include some images from the book. They have offered me and any readers of this blog copies at a 40% discount--send an e-mail to jess@blackdogonline.com quoting ‘Map of the Week Offer’ as the subject.
        This book starts with a history of the city beginning with a few maps showing a small village at the tip of Manhattan Island extending northwards to the city's wall at present day Wall Street. Urban development and planning maps detail the growth of the city and of its transportation network. Below is part of Oscar Hinrich's "Guide Map of Central Park" from the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. The map was drawn 16 years after the park's opening and two years after its completion.

     Later chapters show maps from artistic and political perspectives. Below is a map titled "Routes of Least Surveillance" courtesy of The Institute of Applied Autonomy and Site-R. The red dots show the locations of CCTV cameras and the green lines indicate walking paths that minimize your exposure to them. Ordinary folks with legitimate reasons to be concerned about these cameras are detailed at the edges of the map.

         Here is a clever ad for the SONY Walkman.  The image is courtesy of Sony and the ad's creators, Saatchi and Saatchi Sydney. The subway stations represent musical groups.

Here is a detail from the map.

      The book concludes with some various "imaginings" of the city from artists, social scientists and others with many more interesting and unique maps.