This past weekend I had the pleasure of hosting Claire and Matt from Mizzou who were here in C-U to attend a geography conference on campus. Geography is such a cool subject. I thought that before, and then last night I listened to this episode of This American Life, which only confirmed for me the coolness of maps.
I especially enjoy the first act, in which Ira talks with Denis Wood, author of The Power of Maps. Wood tells Ira about the maps he's made of his neighborhood, Boylan Heights in Raleigh, North Carolina, that attempt to spatially represent what it's like to live there. He's describing one of his maps when Ira observes, "That makes a neighborhood sound like a living organism," and he replies, "It is a living organism!" Couldn't agree more.
He maps the traffic signs, the pumpkins on porches, the addresses of all those people mentioned in the neighborhood's newsletter, the pools of light cast by the street lights in the neighborhood. His thing is "selecting subjects for cartographic display that are other than those that are typically picked." He's trying to write a novel with maps, he says, "Why not?"
Some of Wood's maps are here.
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