Strange Maps

Every disaster is always bigger than the last one. Newspapers and tv anchors have to say that, don’t they? Otherwise it wouldn’t be news. But those slick-covered birds look the same every time. A bit distressing, but what’s a pelican for, at the end of the day? To be honest, this disaster is getting a bit boring. Haven’t they capped that well yet?

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (1) is the worst environmental disaster in US history. But it’s a catastrophe of the creeping, cumulative kind, composed of images familiar from earlier ecocides. How to get a grip on its width and breadth? Obviously: a map. Ingeniously: a map of the area affected by the oil spill transposed on your geographic location of choice – your home, for optimum shock effect.

This simple act of teleportation, by the almost appropriately named website www.ifitwasmyhome.com (2) , puts a stark perspective on the disaster’s geographic impact, now stretching from the coast of Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. The immediate, visual result is immensely more powerful than crude statistics (3):

Since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20 (killing 11 crew), over 1 million US gallons have been spilling into the Gulf of Mexico every day, by now adding up to almost 50 million gallons. A recent study by the University of Miami puts the surface of the oil spill at about 10,000 square miles (almost 26,000 square km), or triple its size on May 1st. This means the affected area is rapidly approaching that oft-cited (4) unit of large-surface measurement, the size of Belgium (11,787 sq mi, or 30,528 km2).

The spill’s size is less abstract (and more ominous) if transported from its aquatic domain to a land-based vantage point. Centred on London (placing the gushing wellhead somewhere below Westminster), the area affected by the spill covers most of southern England, almost touching Swansea in Wales and nearly spilling over onto the French coast at Dunkirk. The area does look a lot larger than Belgium, to the spill’s east. One assumes that the calculations of Miami U refer to the darker-shaded areas within the total affected region.

You too can centre the spillage on your hometown. Go to the website (cf. sup.) See how far you would have  to travel to stay clear of the oily mess. Then zoom out to see how large it is on a global scale (spoiler: quite large!) Maybe not the most uplifting of pastimes, but an intelligent way to impress the scale of this disaster on our minds, saturated as they are by superlatives.

Many thanks to Stannous Flouride for sending in this link.

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(1) Or the BP oil spill, if you insist on naming, shaming and/or blaming the guilty.

(2) If it were my home, indeed. There is no need to compound ecocide with grammaticrime.

(3) excusez le pun.

(4) an entire website is dedicated to the recurrence of this rather unusual unit of surface.

The film industry’s move to Hollywood, early on in the 20th century, was not entirely an accident. Out west, good weather was more constant, the light better and the scenery more varied than on the East Coast. Hollywood, then still a sleepy hamlet 10 miles north of Los Angeles, was conveniently central between the bustling city and the natural splendour further afield.

Depending on how far afield you’d want to carry your tripod, that splendour could be a stand-in for a surprisingly wide swathe of the world.

• The mountainous areas adjacent to Lake Tahoe in the north have doubled for Siberia, the French Alps and Switzerland.
• The Sacramento River has stood in for the Mississippi, the southern Bay Area apparently passes for Alaskan river country, while further inland bears a strikingly enough resemblance to New England.
• The New England coast, meanwhile, is located immediately south of San Francisco, not far from the Nile River valley (appropriately north of Africa, but confusingly close to the Swiss Alps, a bit further inland).
• Santa Barbara is good Spanish California country, while the Ventura/Oxnard area passes for the Coast of Spain. The Palos Verdes peninsula has been the cinematographic double of Wales.
• Venice, Italy is adequately rendered by the area not too far from Venice, California. Holland, incredibly, is located a bit more to LA’s south, while the Channel Islands have stood in the South Sea Islands’ stead. Further south are Long Island Sound, the Malay Coast and, just north of San Diego, again, Spain.
• South to north, inland, are the Sahara Desert, the Red Sea and South Africa (all adjacent to the Salton Sea), Sherwood Forest, the Kentucky Mountains and, close to the Nevada border, Wyoming Cattle Ranches.

This map, apparently produced by Paramount Studios in 1927, does not mention the corresponding films. Can anybody suggest any of the movies these locations refer to? The map does mention, without further context, the 19th-century Californian poet Bret Harte.

Many thanks to Brian Kavanaugh, Lee Breisacher, Noah Feehan, Jim Eikner, Ben Jefferies and Dan Beaver-Seitz for sending in this map, found here on Flowing Data.



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Lange Lewis: Meat for Murder (Dell #135)

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Alfred Hitchcock: Rope (#262)

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Dashiel Hammett: Nightmare Town (#379)

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Many Thanks to J.B. Post for informing me about the Dell Books. Here is a link to some of the front and back covers of the Dashiel Hammett books (including the ones shown above). The previous covers were taken from here on Marble River’s Ephemera (browse back to find many more map backs). I am also indebted to Gary Lovisi for his article on Dell Map Back Mysteries: They Don’t Make ‘em Like That Anymore! (found here in Mystery Scene Magazine).

(1) among adults; children are almost universally against. Two presidential opinions weighing in on the matter: “Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!” (Theodore Roosevelt);  ”You do not lead by hitting people over the head-that’s assault, not leadership.” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

(2) corporal punishment in schools is illegal in almost all European countries (and almost never practised in the few remaining others). In the US and Australia, it is illegal in some states, but remains legal (if generally rather rare) in others. It is also illegal in Canada, Japan, New Zealand, but also in less ‘liberal’ regimes such as North Korea and China.  It remains legal in large parts of Africa and Asia.

(3) submersion as a method of dramatising cartographic information is a popular, if controversial method. Previous examples posted in this blog include Wallonie-sur-Mer (#176) and Palestine’s Island Paradise (#270).

(4) ‘Nordic’ or ‘Scandinavian’? See comments #4, 7 and 9.

Korea as a tiger: what a beautiful map. The peninsula’s shape is rendered in the image of the local big cat , also known as the Siberian, Manchurian or Altaic tiger (Panthera tigris altaica). This is done in a manner reminiscent of the Leo belgicus (see #425).

One obvious difference: tigers were actually endemic in Korea until quite recently, lions haven’t been sighted in northwestern Europe in recorded history. One obvious similarity: the predatory cat depicts a nation divided: in the belgicus case a nation now split between the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, in the Korean case, a nation still divided between the capitalist South and the stalinist North.

This map was brought to my attention by Anselm, who used it to point out the regional rivalry between Korea and Japan (nobody hates anybody like their neighbour) .

A first map shows how Japanese extremists feel about Korea (they’d rather it didn’t exist), a second one shows how Korean extremists might feel about Japan (as the excrement of the aforementioned Korean tiger).

ROSE: Yah it’s a lot of braunschweiger.

[Brenda starts to ring up the braunschweiger]

ROSE: It’s for my dad….. for his….. trip. My dad……. He… is going to……. Wisconsin.

BRENDA: Oh Wisconsin! A real party state.

[...]

BRENDA: Oh yah. He’s goin’ to visit his brother in Wisconsin.

DOROTHY: On a lawnmower?!?!

BRENDA: Yah…

DOROTHY: Great party place, Wisconsin.

[...]

ALVIN: In Wisconsin. Just over the state line.

CRYSTAL: (nodding) Oh….Cheddar Heads.

[Alvin laughs at this and Crystal smiles, too]

ALVIN: Aren’t those just about the dumbest things you ever saw a person put on their head?

[She nods and laughs]

CRYSTAL: I hear that’s a real party place, Wisconsin. Guess I’ll never get to find out.

The repeated insistence in The Straight Story – the slowest road movie ever – that the great, plain state of Wisconsin is a mecca of mirth seemed like a mere running gag, underlining the orneriness of Iowans. Turns out that director David Lynch might not have been joking after all. It seems those Cheddar Heads really do know a thing or two about partying – especially if it involves hanging out in bars.

This map represents localised references in the Google Maps directory to either grocery stores or bars. Yellow shading indicates that there are more references to grocery stores than bars at that particular location. Red indicates more references to bars.

Yellow is generally prevalent in most of the US; one can assume that there are more grocery stores than drinking establishments in those areas. But red dots, where bars outnumber grocery stores, are dominant in a few very particular regions:

• The aforementioned party state, Wisconsin. The dotting corresponds quite closely with the Wisconsin state line, turning yellow again where northwestern Wisconsin transforms into Michigan’s northern peninsula.
• North Dakota is also heavily bar-oriented, as are significant parts of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas and – ironically – Iowa.
• Illinois is also a mainly ‘red’ state, with the notable exception of Chicagoland, on the southern shore of Lake Michigan.
• Curiously, heavily red areas are almost all found in the Midwest. One exception is a red cluster in Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, overflowing to the coast into a semi-separate Boston cluster.

This strange map was produced by Floating Sheep, a website dedicated to “mapping and analyzing user generated Google Map placemarks”. In this instance, the ovine analysts of cybergeography were so startled by this remarkably differentiated result that they wanted to check it against information a bit more official than the data provided by Google Maps (1) .

According to the 2007 Census, there are on average 1.52 bars (2) for every 10,000 people in the US. Those numbers are a lot higher in the ‘red’ states: Wyoming (3.40), Nebraska (3.68), Iowa (3.73), South Dakota (4.73), Wisconsin (5.88), Montana (6.34) and North Dakota, which, with an average of 6.54 bars per 10,000 inhabitants apparently is the top “party state” in the Union. Next time you want to take your lawnmower to a party, you know in which direction to head.

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Many thanks to all who sent in this map: James Smith, Dan Boucher, Ted B. Gerstein, Mark Hamlin, J.P. Coughlin, Pepijn Hendriks and Matthew Zook (of Floating Sheep; this map on this page of their site. Do check out the rest of the site for more interesting statistical maps).

(1) No offence to Mountain View’s finest – and mightiest!

(2) In Census Speak, not bars but rather ”NACIS code 722410: Drinking places (alcoholic beverages)”.

Is there such a thing as collective guilt? Or if not that, then at least some kind of national responsibility for past state crimes? Was the Nazi period a freak of history, or an inevitable culmination of the revanchist, reactionary forces of German nationalism? And what did grandad do during the War?Those are just some of the issues that are the burden of every German born after 1945 – a peculiar variant on the concept of original sin.

Over six decades now separate us from the end of World War Two, but the conflict will not – will not be allowed to – fade away from German national consciousness. Post-war Germany’s actions on the European and world stage for the most part have been motivated by the responsibility of atonement for the war (1), and the apprehensive avoidance of any international grandstanding. Whether or not it was Helmut Kohl who said that “Europe should not become German, but Germany should become European,” the quote correctly identifies Germany’s exemplary pro-Europeanness as an essential part of its post-1945 identity.

The flipside of Germany’s new, post-war identity is a complete rejection and reversal of its pre-war and wartime Nazi ideology. This might seem like the obvious and only possible course, given the extent of the Nazi regime’s reprehensible belligerence, heinous perfidy and horrid crimes against humanity. However, the quasi-absoluteness of denazification in Germany contrasts markedly with Japan’s reluctant retro- and introspection vis-a-vis its wartime guilt (2).

And yet, despite the official attitude that fascism is not an opinion, but a crime (Faschismus ist keine Meinung, sondern ein Verbrechen), expressly criminalising the outward signs of Nazism (e.g. the swastika, the Nazi salute, denial of the Holocaust, publication of Mein Kampf), mementos of the other, older, evil Germany keep resurfacing. In recent years, several German cities have publicly retracted the honorary citizenship bestowed on Adolf Hitler in tempore suspecto (3): Düsseldorf (2000), Aschersleben (2006), Bad Doberan and Biedenkopf (2007), Kleve (2008), and Forst/Lausitz (2009), among others.

This map shows another clattering of skeletons in Germany’s closet (4). Under the ironic title ‘Germany’s most beautiful school names’, it catalogues German schools bearing the names of Germans with a less than salubrious track record during the Nazi years. The offending names are:

• Ferdinand Sauerbruch: surgeon and personal physician to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi’s chief propagandist. As a high-ranking medical official, he approved funding for medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.
• Klaus Riedel: Rocket scientist, co-developer of the Vergeltungswaffe (‘Retaliation Weapon’) V2, which caused the deaths of 100,000 civilians in Allied countries and of 12,000 forced labourers in Nazi-occupied Europe.
• Wernher von Braun: In charge of the Heeresversuchsanstalt (‘army test organisation’), member of the Nazi party and Sturmbannfuehrer in the SS, developer of the V2 rocket, personally selected forced labourers in the Buchenwald concentration camp (5).
• Rainer Fetscher: Physician, “racial hygienist”, member of the SA. Compiled a database to identify “biologically inferior individuals”, was responsible for at least 65 forced sterilisations. In this light, it is particularly unfortunate, to say the least, that his name is attached to a school for physcially handicapped children.
• Peter Petersen: A teacher, he wrote about “racial superiority” and about “the Jew, [...] who, in everything he touches, has a destructive, flattening, and even poisoning [effect].” As late as 1949, he complained that the German people was “racially polluted”. The large number of schools named after him can be explained by his development in 1927 of the ‘Jena Plan’, an educational concept still followed by quite a few schools in Germany (among which, one imagines, those named after Petersen himself).
• Rudolf Dietz: nostalgic poet, member of the racist Deutschbund (‘German Association’) and of the Nazi party. Wrote about 30 anti-semitic poems, in his poem Reichslied (‘song of the Empire’), he wrote approvingly of the “unity under the swastika”.
• Hermann, Herbert and Werner Andert: Hermann was a member of the Nazi party, his sons of the SA and the Nazi teachers’ union. Werner was a contributor to Nazi newspapers.
• Agnes Wiegel: Nazi poet, member of the Nazi party, ardent Hitler-worshipper. Wrote the Ode an den Fuehrer (‘Ode to the Leader’), signatory to the Gelobnis treuester Gefolgschaft (‘Promise of most loyal obedience’) to Hitler.

Many thanks to John D. Boy for sending in this map, found here on Extra 3, a blog associated with the northern German tv station NDR Fernsehen. Germans have, it seems, a bit of a tradition of humourous maps of their country. See also the Deutschlandkarte showing clusters of hair salon names, discussed earlier on this blog (#385).

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(1) whether the First One needs to be included in this exercise in atonement is a whole different can of worms.

(2) for a revealing comparison of the post-war attitudes on responsibility and rememberance, read Ian Buruma’s excellent book on the subject: ‘Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan’).

(3) The retractions were largely symbolic, as honorary citizenship (Ehrenbuergerschaft) is considered voided by the death of the person thus honoured.

(4) If you’ll pardon the expression. Also: what is the correct collective noun for a group of skeletons?

(5) Wernher von Braun of course became a respected member of the American scientific community, contributing to the American space programme. A multipurpose indoor arena in Huntsville, AL was named after him (the Von Braun Civic Center – VBCC).

Even old New York / Was once New Amsterdam / Why they changed it I can’t say / People just liked it better that way

- They Might Be Giants: “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”

This map is doubly strange. It simultaneously depicts the wrong city, and under a previous name – the former error committed on purpose, the latter possibly unwittingly.

Dated 1672, this map by Frenchman Gérard Jollain purports to represent Nowel Amsterdam en Lamerique (New Amsterdam in America) – the inset top left even shows its position relative to other Dutch possessions such as Le Fort d’Orange (present-day Albany, NY) and Fort Nassau (now Gloucester City, NJ), surrounding Indian tribes like the Maquimanes, Capitanasses, Senecas and the Lacs des Iroquois peuples tres cruels (lakes of the Iroquois, very cruel people); and the neighbouring English colony of Massachusets (sic).

But the main map – one of the first bird’s eye views of a North American city – is not of New Amsterdam. This depiction of a hilly metropolis, densely packed with churches and palaces, bears no resemblance to the fledgling city then clinging to Manhattan’s southern tip. It is an almost identical copy of a popular map (1) of Lisbon, the Portuguese capital.

Was it the windmills (2) on the horizon of the original (shown at the bottom of this post) that gave Jollain the idea to transmogrify Old Lisbon into New Amsterdam? The street grid, buildings and topography are copied fairly exactly and in great detail; but however blatant the forgery is, Jollain took pains to infuse it with a Dutch atmosphere.

The ships bobbing on the Mer du Nort (Atlantic Ocean) in the foreground of the forged map are clearly of a different (and doubtlessly more appropriate) type than those on the Tagus, in front of Lisbon. Most city blocks are rendered in similar layouts, but the meticulously drawn individual houses are different.

The larger buildings are visually identical to the originals, but obviously serve a different purpose. Lisbon’s grand cathedral is New Amsterdam’s impressive Maison de Ville (City Hall). Lisbon’s Central Square becomes New Amsterdam’s Amirauté (Admiralty), the castle of São Jorge on one of Lisbon’s hilltops the Chateau de Nassau (Nassau Castle) (3).

Jollain embellishes the original with a few fantastic additions of his own. An unnamed castle on a distant Portuguese hilltop becomes the even more distant French fortress of Quebec. An empty hilltop left of the castle of São Jorge in Lisbon is occupied by a gallows in New Amsterdam, chillingly named La Iustice (Justice). A building at the foot of that hill is the location of het Tuchthuys cesta dire Maison de Dicipline, aussi en icele (?) sont renfermer des Faineans que lon fait trauailler (The prison, where lazy people are also imprisoned and made to work).

Other Dutch-sounding names sprinkeled throughout the city are Wageschot (to the left), ouestkir (Western Church [?]) and the Eglise ou Temple de Bikerque (Church or Temple of Bikerque). Further places named are Magazins des cuirs (leather warehouses), Le bureau des entrées (Customs House), Grand quay, Pelletrie (furriery), Place de la Bourse (Stock Exchange Plaza). The area to the right that is called Campus S. Clarae (St Claire’s Field) on the Lisbon map is unnamed on the New Amsterdam one, but bordered by a Hopital and a Magasin de Castors (warehouse of beaver [pelts]).

Why would a cartographer commit such a gross, and presumably easily traceable forgery? And who was this Gérard Jollain anyway? Not easily traceable himself, the rather obscure Monsieur Jollain (1641-1704) was a map seller and engraver, at some point in his career in the service of the French court, at another working in Cologne (where, one imagines, he picked up the Lisbon map). The reason for his forgery is unknown, but it is not unthinkable that he callously abused the relative ignorance of the times to present a French audience with a map of a city they had very little knowledge of. Dutch city views of New Amsterdam were in existence when Jollain produced his, but were possibly quite rare in France.

I do not know whether this forgery was a one-off, or if Jollain was in the habit of abusing his audience’s lack of access to the latest knowledge. The nomenclature of the map might illustrate how Jollain was beaten at his own game, though. He still calls the city New Amsterdam, and in the legend at the bottom of the map describes it as a Dutch colony. In fact, the city was taken over by the English in 1664 and renamed New York - eight years before he produced his remarkable forgery.

Many thanks to Francisco Feijó Delgado, who brought these maps to my attention. Quite aptly, Mr Delgado is Portuguese, and noticed that Jollain’s map of what he calls Nova Amesterdão “seemed strangely similar to our own city of Lisbon, pre-1755 [the year of the devastating earthquake].” His original entry on these maps here on his blog. Both taken from (and eminently zoomable at) the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library (here for Old Lisbon, here for New Amsterdam).

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1 From the Civitates Orbis Terrarum, published by Braun & Hogenberg in Cologne in 1617.

2 Windmills, deemed iconic attributes of Dutchness (together with clogs and tulips) are quite common and typical elsewhere, also on the Iberian peninsula (Don Quixote famously fought them).

3 Please report any other concordances you might spot.

All French towns of above a certain size, in any of the six corners of the country, have a Place de la République at their centre, and an Avenue Charles de Gaulle in its vicinity. Each of France’s départements is numbered alphabetically – that there are exactly 100 at present may be a coincidence, but there once was a plan to make them all perfectly rectangular (#159).

Two main trends have resulted from the rationalist vein coursing through France’s administrative politics since its revolution in 1789: towards homogeneity and centralization. The latter tendency, also called parisianism, obviously emanates from the republican capital so succulently portrayed in the previous post.

And yet, in some ways, France remains a very unhomogenised country. “These maps illustrate the perdurating cultural diversity of contemporary France, in spite of a long-time process of cultural unification,” writes Olivier, who sent in these maps from Tours (capital of département number 37, Indre-et-Loire).

Even though standard French has by now replaced most of France’s regional languages, that vanished linguistic diversity remains a good marker for cultural variation within France. The southern third of the republic was once the domain of a rival romance language, the so-called Langue d’Oc (or Occitan), so called after its word for ‘yes’ (oc). This area was (and is) more ‘mediterranean’ in outlook than the northern rest of France, where the Langue d’Oïl (i.e. French, or its dialects) was spoken.

To this binary view should be added the other, non-romance language areas of France, in the north (Flemish), east (German), south (Basque) and west (Breton). Another linguistically distinct region is the small area around Perpignan, where another romance language – Catalan – is spoken.

Each of these five maps, taken from the 1997 edition of Géographie Première, a schoolbook by Rémy Knafou, slices up metropolitan France in surprising ways, but also every time reflecting, in some way, the divisions described above.

Map [1] compares the household money spent on butter and oil; with most money spent on butter in the north and west (blue) and most spent on oil in the south (light orange).

Map [2] shows between 90 and 100 litres of beer per inhabitant imbibed in the north and east, with less than half of that in most of the country, but especially in the south. See the entry on Europe’s alcohol belts (#442) for a similar take on regional differences in alcohol consumption.

Map [3] reveals how many members pétanque clubs have per thousand inhabitants. The game was conceived in Provence, and its name derives from the Occitan pès tancats, meaning ‘anchored feet’. In keeping with its southern origin, it is 10 times more popular in the Occitan swathe across the south of France than in the north, northeast and northwest.

Map [5] charts the dominant roof type throughout much of the south (and, surprisingly, in the northeast): flat roofs with curved tiles.

Map [7] details the popularity of bicycle clubs. The sport of the Tour de France is most popular in Brittany, but also adjacent areas inland (darkest red), and quite popular throughout most of central and northern France (orangey red). The areas least likely to cycle are scattered throughout the north, northeast, east, southeast, and south.

Many thanks to Oliver for sending in these maps.

“I have been seeing this image almost every day for years, but only a few days ago did I realize that it was actually a map,” writes Julien Nègre. It’s an ad for Boucherie Chevy, a butcher shop in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. The ad shows a slice of red meat which turns out also to be a map of Paris.

“The Eiffel Tower is of course the main point de repère to get your bearings, but if you look closely you’ll notice that the white piece of fat that runs across the red meat also follows the curve of the Seine River that runs across the city. The two small patches of red meat in the middle correspond to the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis. And even the parsley leaves on the right and left are vegetal representations of the Bois de Boulogne to the West and the Bois de Vincennes to the East.”

Image sent in by Mr Nègre.

Washington DC as a big, red heart, pumping life-blood through the arteries of the nation’s body? Few Americans will view their oft-reviled capital as favourably as this metaphor suggests. However, the ‘body politic’ is a philosophical trope with a more than respectable pedigree.

Around 500 BC, the Roman consul Menenius Agrippa faced down a seditious band of soldiers with one of Antiquity’s most potent weapons – rhetoric. He convinced the mutinous militiamen to return to the Mother City (at that time still a fledgling backwater rather than a grandiosely Eternal metropolis) with this somatic parable:

“In the days when all the parts of the human body were not as now agreeing together, but each member took its own course and spoke its own speech, the other members, indignant at seeing that everything acquired by their care and labour and ministry went to the belly, whilst it, undisturbed in the middle of them all, did nothing but enjoy the pleasures provided for it, entered into a conspiracy; the hands were not to bring food to the mouth, the mouth was not to accept it when offered, the teeth were not to masticate it.”

“Whilst, in their resentment, they were anxious to coerce the belly by starving it, the members themselves wasted away, and the whole body was reduced to the last stage of exhaustion. Then it became evident that the belly rendered no idle service, and the nourishment it received was no greater than that which it bestowed by returning to all parts of the body this blood by which we live and are strong, equally distributed into the veins, after being matured by the digestion of the food.”

The secessionists got the message. Even though working-class plebeians like themselves disliked the pampered patricians, neither party could survive without the other. This anecdote, related half a millennium later by the Roman historian Livy (1), is one of many examples in western political and philosophical discourse (2) comparing an ideal, ‘organic’ society to the workings of a single (human) body. The earliest instances, albeit less explicit in their analogy than Livy, are to be found in Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics and a few other Greek philosophical works; later examples are in Cicero’s De officis, and even in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (3).

The conceit of society as a living body can be seen as a particular subgenre of hylozoism, the idea that all matter is in some way alive. The Middle Ages saw the development of both secular and religious analogies of societies-as-bodies. The basic trichotomy of medieval society was explained thus: the clery were the far-seeing eyes, the nobility the delicate and/or firm hands and the peasants the plodding feet of society. The Church emphasised its role as a mystical body of which all Christians were members, with the pope at its head – and as its head, literally and figuratively. For a long time, kings and popes competed for the honorific epitheton of ‘head’ of Christendom, the European monarchies’ increasing power eventually reclaiming the metaphor from the Church. Corporeal analogies crop up in Milton and Shakespeare (5).

Over the centuries, the advancement of science (particularly biology) progressively undermined the comparison, exposing it as a vain attempt to find analogy where none existed. Also, the ‘organic’ model of governance ceded to the idea of the relation between rulers and their people as subject to a ‘social contract’: the state retaining certain natural rights from its citizens (like absolute freedom) in exchange for the dispensation of certain advantages (like security and justice).

If the hylozoic analogy survived, it was in significantly altered form. Hobbes summarised this shifting view of society-as-body in Leviathan (1651), where he described the state as an artificial body, a human construct. He calls this the Body Politique, as opposed to (instead of analogous to) the Body Naturall.

Where kings themselves were once deemed to be the body politic, as literal embodiments of their function’s power, majesty and reach, Hobbes redefines the body politic as a territory with a government. ‘Body politic’ soon becomes an expression devoid of somatic analogy, simply meaning ‘political entity’ – although the phrasing of the metaphor will always imply some sort of organic harmony. Present use in our democratic, all-inclusive era could be said to define the body politic as a representative expression, encompassing all segments of the population and political institutions of a given political entity.

The map shown here is a very recent adaptation of Menenius Agrippa’s metaphor, building on the historical image of the body politic to illustrate a point in the very contemporary debate on the American political agenda – healthcare reform. Leaving aside all the intricacies of the proposed healthcare legislation currently winding its way through the US Congress, this map astutely expands the very somatic aspect of healthcare to the ‘body politic’ of the US, presenting an aspect of healthcare reform – the Public Option – as a necessary medicine for the patient – America itself. All of which combines to an image conveying a message in a very direct manner. No wonder the map won the first prize in a contest organised by Public Option Please, a group advocating that healthcare reform include said Option.

Many thanks to Dean G. Karayanis for sending in this map, found at Public Option Please, a health reform advocacy group.

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(1) Titus Livius (a.k.a. Livy): Ab Urbe Condita (‘From the Founding of the City’), ca. Book 2, Chapter 32. Quote taken from the text at Wikisource.

(2) Similar analogies also surface in Islamic and Hindu philosophy.

(3) “For as the body is one, and hath many members [...] so also is Christ [...] Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular [...]“

(4) Shakespeare actually re-imagines Menenius Agrippa’s speech to the rebels: “There was a time when all the body’s members Rebell’d against the belly, thus accused it: That only like a gulf it did remain I’ the midst o’ the body, idle and unactive, Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, And, mutually participate, did minister Unto the appetite and affection common Of the whole body. [...]“

(Coriolanus, Act I, Scene I)

This map is an essential ingredient of a story that has ‘Indiana Jones’ written all over it: secret caves, a lost civilisation and above all, a treasure trove of gold in unimaginable quantities. And all this in the ground below the present-day metropolis of Los Angeles.

Below are two extracts from the LA Times of 29 January 1934, in the first of which reporter Jean Bosquet details the incredible story of G. Warren Shufelt, a mining engineer, who had been told of the underground city and its treasures by a wise old Indian, had consequently located it via ‘radio X-ray’ and was currently sinking shafts into the ground to reach it.

The second extract explains the whereabouts of the putative underground city on the map, and provides the legends for a few photos showing Shufelt hard at work.

Needless to say, no such city has ever been found. Whether fully intentional or not, the hoax did leave us with this strange map of the supposed underground city, its tunnels vaguely laid out in the shape of a lizard.

Interestingly, this article on Skeptoid, a website providing critical analysis of pop phenomena, raises the possibility that Mr Bosquet’s story may be the original source for the later conspiracy theories about humanoid reptilians controlling the world. Indiana Jones has turned into David Icke…

Many thanks to Manuel for sending in this map, found here on Flickr.　

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LIZARD PEOPLE’S CATACOMB CITY HUNTED

Engineer Sinks Shaft Under Fort Moore Hill to Find Maze of Tunnels and Priceless Treasures of Legendary Inhabitants

(LA Times, 29 Jan 1934)

By Jean Bosquet

Busy Los Angeles, although little realizing it in the hustle and bustle of modern existence, stands above a lost city of catacombs filled with incalculable treasure and imperishable records of a race of humans further advanced intellectually and scientifically than even the highest type of present day peoples, in the belief of G. Warren Shufelt, geophysical engineer now engaged in an attempt to wrest from the lost city deep in the earth below Fort Moore Hill the secrets of the Lizard People of legendary fame in the medicine lodges of the American Indian.

So firmly does Shufelt and a little staff of assistants believe that a maze of catacombs and priceless golden tablets are to be found beneath downtown Los Angeles that the engineer and his aides have already driven a shaft 250 feet into the ground, the mouth of the shaft being on the old Banning property on North Hill street overlooking Sunset Boulevard, Spring street and North Broadway.

LEGEND SUPPLIES CLEW (sic)

Shufelt learned of the legend of the Lizard People after his radio X-ray had led him hither and yon, over an area extending from the Public Library on West Fifth street to the Southwest Museum, on Museum Drive, at the foot of Mt. Washington.

“I knew I was over a pattern of tunnels,” the engineer explained yesterday, “and I had mapped out the course of the tunnels, the position of large rooms scattered along the tunnel route, as well as the position of deposits of gold, but I couldn’t understand the meaning of it.”

FIRE DESTROYS ALL

According to the legend as imparted to Shufelt by Macklin, the radio X-ray has revealed the location of one of three lost cities on the Pacific Coast, the local one having been dug by the Lizzard People after the “great catastrophe” which occurred about 5000 years ago. This legendary catastrophe was in the form of a huge tongue of fire which “came out of the Southwest, destroying all life in its path,” the path being “several hundred miles wide.” The city underground was dug as a means of escaping future fires.

The lost city, dug with powerful chemicals by the Lizard People instead of pick and shovel, was drained into the ocean, where its tunnels began, according to the legend. The tide passing daily in and out of the lower tunnel portals and forcing air into the upper tunnels, provided ventilation and “cleansed and sanitized the lower tunnels,” the legend states.

Large rooms in the domes of the hills above the city of labyrinths housed 1000 families “in the manner of tall buildings” and imperishable food supplies of the herb variety were stored in the catacombs to provide sustenance for the lizard folk for great lengths of time as the next fire swept over the earth.

CITY LAID OUT LIKE LIZARD

The Lizard People, the legend has it, regarded the lizard as the symbol of long life. Their city is laid out like a lizard, according to the legend, its tail to the southwest, far below Fifth and Hope streets, its head to the northeast, at Lookout and Marda streets. The city’s key room is situated directly under South Broadway, near Second street, according to Shufelt and the legend.

This key room is the directory to all parts of the city and to all record tablets, the legend states. All records were kept on gold tablets, four feet long and fourteen inches wide. On these tablets of gold, gold having been the symbol of life to the legendary Lizard People, will be found the recorded history of the Mayans on on one particular tablet,the southwest corner of which will be missing, is to be found the “record of the origin of the human race.”

TABLETS PHOTOGRAPHED

Shufelt stated he has taken “X-ray pictures” of thirty-seven such tablets, three of which have their southwest corners cut off.

“My radio X-ray pictures of tunnels and rooms, which are sub-surface voids, and of gold pictures with perfect corners, sides and ends, are scientific proof of their existence,” Shufelt said. “However, the legendary story must remain speculative until unearthed by excavation.”

The Lizard Peoplem according to Macklin, were of a much higher type intellectually than modern human beings. The intellectual accomplishments of their 9-year-old children were the equal of those of present day college graduates, he said. So greatly advanced scientifically were these people that, in addition to perfecting a chemical solution by which they bored underground without removing earth and rock, they also developed a cement far stronger and better than any in use in modern times with which they lined their tunnels and rooms.

HILLS INCLOSE CITY

Macklin said legendary advice to American Indians was to seek the lost city in an area within a chain of hills forming “the frog of a horse’s hoof.” The contour of hills surrounding this region forms such a design, substantiating Shufelt’s findings, he said.

Shufelt’s radio device consists chiefly of a cylindrical glass case inside of which a plummet attached to a copper wire held by the engineer sways continually, pointing, he asserts, toward minerals or tunnels below the surface of the ground, and then revolves when over the mineral or swings in prolongation of the tunnel when above the excavation.

He has used the instrument extensively in mining fields, he said.

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DID STRANGE PEOPLE LIVE UNDER SITE OF LOS ANGELES 5000 YEARS AGO?

An amazing labyrinth of underground passages and caverns hundreds of feet below the surface of Fort Moore Hill is revealed in maps – all rights to which have been reserved – prepared by G. Warren Shufelt, local mining engineer, who explains his topographical endeavors as being based on results obtained from a radio X-ray perfected by him. In this elaborate system of tunnels and rooms, according to a legend furnished Shufelt by an Indian authority, a tribe of human beings called the Lizard People, lived, 5000 years ago. The network of tunnels formed what Indians call the lost Lizard City, according to Shufelt and the legend. Gold tablets on which are written the origin of the human race and other priceless documents are to be found in the tunnels, according to the legend. Shufelt declares his radio X-ray has located the gold. The engineer has dug a shaft 250 feet deep on North Hill street, overlooking North Broadway, Sunset and Spring streets, and intends to dig to 1000 feet in an effort to strike the lost city. Upper right-hand corner inset is Times Staff Artist Ewing’s conception of the Lizard People at work. Lower left, upper inset shows Shufelt and crew at top of shaft, baling water out of their deep excavation. Lower left inset shows Shufelt operating his radio X-ray device.

It matters where we are, for it helps determine who we are. Or, as the quote often attributed to Napoleon states: Geography is destiny. That destiny extends to drink, as demonstrated by this map. Where we are determines to a statistically significant degree what kind of alcohol we prefer. Or is it the other way around: the kind of alcohol preferred is determined by the place where it is produced?

This map shows Europe dominated by three so-called ‘alcohol belts’, the northernmost one for distilled spirits, a middle one for beer and the southernmost one for wine. Each one’s existence and extension is determined by a mix of culture and agriculture.

The Wine Belt covers the southern parts of Europe, where wine has historically been an important industry and an everyday commodity: the whole of Portugal, Spain, Italy, Montenegro, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova and Georgia; all but the northwestern zone of France; and significant parts of Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania.

Either through effects of climate change or renewed viticultural enthusiasm, grapes and wine-making have in recent years been introduced in areas to the north of the traditional Wine Belt, in southern Britain and the Low Countries, creating an overlap between Wine and Beer Belts. That overlap is often ancient rather than recent; the introduction not rarely is a reintroduction. And indeed, southwestern Germany, for example, has an ancient and unbroken tradition of wine-making.

The Beer Belt comprises areas where beer has been the alcoholic beverage of choice since times immemorial: Ireland and the UK, the Low Countries, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Bosnia and Albania; most of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia and Romania; and significant, western parts of Poland. Beer production requires the cultivation of cereals, so this is a climatic-agricultural precondition for the Beer Belt.

An interesting co-explanation for the prevalence of beer in southern parts of this belt is the relatively weak cultural influence of the Roman Empire on these places. The Wine Belt indeed conforms to a large extent with the territory formerly occupied by Rome, with notable exceptions in areas with large Slavic or Germanic migration (the Balkans, southwestern Germany, northern France respectively), where beer predominates (although often overlapping with wine).

The Vodka Belt occupies what’s left of Europe, to the east and north: Scandinavia (except Denmark), Russia, the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and central and eastern Poland. There is a climatological imperative to the Vodka Belt: freezing temperatures make grape cultivation impossible (except in southernmost Russia and some areas of Ukraine). So there’s almost no overlap possible between the Vodka and Wine Belts. For cultural reasons, however, the Vodka Belt has been losing ground to the Beer Belt. Scandinavians tend to drink more beer than before (although possibly this doesn’t mean they drink less wodka). Maybe this is due to the perception of beer correlating more with ‘core European’ behaviour (as it is the preferred alcoholic beverage of Britain, Germany and other influential and centrally positioned countries). That might explain the emergence in Poland, some years ago, of a Beer-Lovers’ Party (which actually won seats in the Polish Parliament in the early 1990s). Beer has since surpassed wodka as the most consumed type of alcohol in Poland.

Many thanks for this map (found here) to Leszek Jan Lipinski, who is Polish, studies in Denmark and currently resides in Liechtenstein, and therefore can “confirm from everyday practice that the theory [of alcohol belts] seems quite relevant, not in terms of concrete consumption numbers (Poles currently have 4th highest beer consumption per capita), but in terms of cultural reverence, drinking patterns, festivities and role of pubs in the culture,” even though this map might not be entirely accurate: “[The] Balkan area division is highly disputable and Western Poland does not have the beer culture inherited from the Germans.”

Another version of Europe’s alcohol belts (cf.inf.) is found here; more detailed, but, gathering from anecdotal knowledge, also not entirely accurate.

These maps bring to mind Terry Pratchett’s witty remark that Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it. And grapes, grain and potatoes.

Europe’s alcohol belts are reminiscent (and up to a point co-occurrent) with its religious, cultural and linguistic divides, as discussed earlier on this blog (#12, #24).

Scattered across the centre of San Francisco are almost seventy semi-secret spaces, privately owned but open to the public. Subject to the fine print of a little-known pact between City and Commerce, these so-called POPOS (Privately Owned Public Open Spaces) allow alluring vistas of San Francisco and access to its intimate interiors. However, they are often poorly indicated – perhaps a deliberate tactic by the private companies who own the spaces to prevent the pesky public from using them. Accessing POPOS sometimes even requires walking past security guards, or through unmarked doors. No wonder many are underfrequented.

A concerted effort of concerned citizens – and this map produced by them – is aimed at raising awareness of the existence of these fascinating spaces, 68 in all, both north and south of Market Street, many in existence for decades. This map is part of a guide produced by SPUR (San Francisco Planning & Urban Research Association); the 45 round indicators are POPOS set up between 1959 and 1985, the squares mark the 23 inaugurated after the 1985 Downtown Plan, which stipulated the zoning regulations requiring commercial urban development to be counterbalanced by POPOS.

POPOS come in many guises. They can be either indoor or outdoor – and indeed even on rooftops. They might be the size of a small park, or merely a ‘snippet’. There are single-area POPOS, and ones composed of several different spaces. Some are open at all times, others accessible only during office hours. Quite a few are graced with public works or art. POPOS operated under the Downtown Plan need to provide access to restrooms and other amenities.

SPUR lists all 68 POPOS in downtown San Francisco and rates them from poor over good to fair and excellent. For a complete overview, download SPUR’s guide (see below). Or take one of the architectural tours leading you through the network of POPOS in San Francisco’s downtown. Below is a brief legend to the map above.

1. Redwood Park: An urban park at the foot of San Francisco’s most striking skyscraper with redwoods, sculptures and a fountain.
2. 505 Sansome Street: A greenhouse in the lobby of an office building, connecting to Redwood Park.
3. Empire Park: An urban garden on the site of a demolished building.
4. Embarcadero Center West: Three separate open spaces.
5. 456 Montgomery Street: An urban garden cascading into the middle recess of a building.
6. 343 Sansome Street: Two open spaces, one a sun terrace on the 15th floor (with an obelisk), the other a lunchtime mall.
7. 650 California Street:Two “largely barren” plazas.
8. 600 California Street: A ‘snippet’ without amenities or seating, but with lots of art pieces.
9. 555 California Street: A “grand, almost forbidding” plaza, with a sculpture, a garden and teak benches.
10. 345 California Street: A “shady snippet” with granite benches and some planters.
11. 200 California Street: A public sitting area in a pedestrian walkway, featuring a bronze sculpture called The Hawaiian.
12. 150 California Street: A sun terrace with tables, chairs, plants an public art – but you have to get past a security guard.
13. 50 California Street: A snippet enlivened by a small café.
14. One California Street: Snippets around the building feature trees and benches, and is partly occupied by the indoor café’s tables and chairs.
15. 101 California: An urban garden within a large plaza, dominated by three stepped pyramids.
16. 100 Pine Street: An urban garden squeezed in between a few skyscrapers, a “gem” but without direct sunlight.
17. 444 Market Street: A plaza leading to the entrance of the Market Street building.
18. One Bush Street: A “beautifully designed and maintained” urban garden surrounding “the first postwar high-rise” in San Francisco.
19. Citygroup Center: A greenhouse in a former bank building.
20. Trinity Alley: A pedestrian walkway with a narrow plaza.
21. Crocker Galleria: Two rooftop sun terraces, one on an historic bank building, the other “accessed from an obscure staircase in the northwest corner of the Galleria”.
22. One Post Street: Snippets with stand-up tables and square concrete blocks at sitting height next to food services.
23. 595 Market Street: Two triangular entryway plazas. One “could become a pleasant public sitting area”.
24. 555/575 Market Street: A “beautifully landscaped” urban garden between two highrises.
25. 525 Market Street: An urban garden with a double granite fountain.
26. 425 Market Street: An urban garden surrounded by highrises that is “shady but nonetheless a jewel”.
27. 14 Fremont Street: A wide sitting area in a pedestrian walkway, furnished with tables and chairs.
28. 333 Market Street: A small plaza with planters.
29. 45 Fremont Street: A narrow plaza with a hedge of Japanese maples and a row of metal benches.
30. 50 Beale Street: A “rather large” urban park full of trees and bushes, and including a railroad car housing a Bechtel Corp. museum.
31. 77 Beale Street: An entry plaza featuring a water wall, granite planters, Gingko trees and sitting ledges.
32. 201 Mission Street: An urban garden in the setbacks on Beale Street.
33. 123 Mission Street: An urban garden in three successive parts, with plenty of vegetation.
34. One Market Street: A plaza oriented to the sunny side of the building.
35. 135 Main Street: An enclosed front courtyard turned into an indoor park with a metal wall water feature.
36. 160 Spear Street: An entrance walkway widening into an urban garden with water feature and aluminium sculpture.
37. 180 Howard Street: A public sitting area in a walkway that is a continuation of (36).
38. 201 Spear Street: A walkway widening into an urban garden, centered on the sculpture of a photographing man.
39. 211 Main Street: A front entry plaza with sunny exposure and the potential to be a “very pleasant space”.
40. 221 Main Street: “Four benches in a sea of paving”.
41. 301 Howard Street: A small urban garden featuring a food truck in an Art Deco building, thus “destroy[ing] the charm of the little pavilion”.
42. 199 Fremont Street: An urban garden that is the result of the collaboration of a sculptor, a poet and an architect.
43. 100 First Street: A popular sun terrace with water spouting from a black granite wall.
44. 25 Jessie Street: A “small but lovely” urban garden with a water wall but without seating.
45. Golden Gate University: A bridge turned into a ‘snippet’.

An exhaustive treatment of POPOS history and regulations here at SPUR, which also produced an 8-page guide to San Francisco’s POPOS (including this map) called Secrets of San Francisco. The guide elaborates on the accessibility and overall quality of all POPOS (or rather it would, if it didn’t stop abruptly at page 8, and #45). Even more information on POPOS here at sf.streetsblog.org.

With an army numbering a mere 7,000 soldiers and an official policy of neutrality, the Irish Free State’s attitude at the outbreak of the Second World War was that of a very nervous bystander. While covertly providing the Brits with some intelligence and assistance, the overt goal throughout what was called the Emergency was to remain non-involved enough to prevent both a British and a German invasion. If it could, the Emerald Isle would have taken on, chameleon-like, the colour of the surrounding ocean waves.

This map shows the next best thing: dissuasive cartography. Its actual title is Cautious Cartography, as it appeared in the August 1940 issue of the Irish satirical magazine Dublin Opinion. The map purports to portray Ireland in as unappealing a perspective as possible. The text accompanying the map explains how cartography may be at least partly to blame for Europe’s misfortune:

Feeling that the present unrest in Europe may have been largely caused by the well-intended, but highly mistaken policy pursued by countries of boasting about their natural advantages and attractions, a policy which has had the not unnatural result of exciting the cupidity of other countries, our Grangegorman Cartographer has designed the above map of Ireland, which is calculated to discourage the inhabitants, much less strangers. The trouble is, he feels, that, even as depicted, the country still looks more attractive than the rest of Europe.

Maybe because the rest of Europe was busy going up in flames. But still, who would want to invade a country wracked by rheumatism, plagued by cholera and diphteria belts (not to mention ‘inspectors’ and pipers’ bands)? The interior of Ireland is further disfigured by bog and swamp, alternating with swamp and bog, a great quagmire and a great Meath desert.

The approaches to the island are littered with deadly whirlpools, quicksands, rocks, more rocks and still more rocks. Dublin, the ultimate prize for any invader, is a mere hut. The North, still British, is diplomatically marked as Unexplored. Double dotted lines denote goat tracks, single dotted lines are unreliable trails. Xes mark miasmas, and shaded areas are Almost inhabitable areas.

Ireland’s ploy worked. By remaining as inobtrusive as possible, the Republic was able to remain out of the war (although 50,000 Irish volunteers did take up arms with the British).

Many thanks to Cormac for sending in this map.

We could rattle off some statistics, about size and distance. But sometimes a picture is more eloquent than a thousand words. Here are two postcard maps. That’s two thousand words right there.

Many thanks to Anna Chlebinska, a collector of cartographic postcards, for sending in these beauts.