Original.Leisure.Society
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A Conspiracy Of Cartographers: Lessons in cartography
Basic cartography -
Interviewing an old Inuit man, a journalist asked him “How do you not get lost out here on the tundra? With no landmarks, how do you find your way home?”
The old man stopped to think about it.
His answer?
“Always know where everything is.”
Intermediate cartography…
(via fuckyeahcartography)
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Luchador drinking night. Original Leisure abounds.
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Stay Tuned
There’s going to be a lot more original leisure coming up soon.
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I think bowling in the desert qualifies as original leisure. Very much so.
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Avant-cartography is the new black.
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Mission 1: Mariana, New York
Last Tuesday night I somehow managed to convince my coworker and good friend M. to walk across the Manhattan Bridge with me. The breakfast we planned to consume at DUMBO General Store before our walk sweetened the deal for her, but I have to admit I was surprised that it was that easy to convince someone to meet me bright and early the very next morning. The city was especially hot and polluted, which I don’t consider ideal conditions for even a minor expedition, but we did have that incredible egg toast to look forward to. Neither of us are natives, but like true New Yorkers, there’s not much we won’t do for a good meal.
I made it to DUMBO early last Wednesday morning and poked around the neighborhood while I waited for M. to arrive. German tourists were taking pictures of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges in the distance, and a big bookstore with window displays full of old books on the corner wasn’t open yet. There were enough women pushing strollers full of children that were obviously not their own to remind me of the Upper East Side.
My friend met me at Almar (formerly DUMBO General Store) and we tucked into iced coffee and breakfast: an egg baked inside a fat slice of brioche, covered with melted fontina, with truffle-scented asparagus. I have never been to Venice, or to Europe, for that matter, and neither has she. We decided we’d be pleased with ourselves if we could cross the bridge on foot and make it to work on time, never mind Venice.
We woke up, gossiped, and followed the signs to the Manhattan Bridge bike path, hoping to find the pedestrian path nearby. We met the New York Bike Ambassador, which was definitely a little creepy (his accent was some sort of extreme Brooklynese, and we were decidedly judgmental of bike folk that day), but at least he directed us to the pedestrian entrance. It was nice not being surrounded by angry-looking bike people. We set out from the Brooklyn side with only views of crowded freeways and what were most likely repurposed factories.
It felt like it took forever to enter what felt like the “real” bridge. We were talking about boys and Detroit (where M. is from) and suddenly she said she felt a bit queasy from the movement caused by the D train rattling by. She couldn’t look out across the East River when we reached the middle. We noticed fluorescent graffiti alongside the turn of the century, grime-encrusted architectural details. I thought of Rio, of the graffiti and the tram to Pão de Açúcar that had terrified my friend but thrilled me on my last trip. The sun beat down on us in our dresses and we walked across slowly, still full from breakfast and not sure we were completely awake. I looked out over the river shimmering underneath us and we endured a few catcalls from the workers cleaning the bridge.
Eventually we arrived in Chinatown, where the Popeye’s Chicken with Chinese signage awaited us, along with what I imagine may be the closest we came to experiencing the Venetian walk that morning: the aroma of fish markets. We wandered, tired and discombobulated, worried we’d be late for work. Chinatown is not an especially soothing place to be on a weekday morning, and unfortunately we were short on time. We decided to reward ourselves for our labors with fresh doughnuts at Doughnut Plant. I had a Valrhona glazed yeasted doughnut and watched a little boy watching a telenovela from our doughnut-tiled bench. Flush with sugar and delirious from the sun and humidity, we boarded the F train and headed to work to begin our day for the second time.
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Mission 1: Walking Through Venice in Your Own City
Venice was incredibly hot, blue skies, sweaty, just like the background of a painting by Bellini. The bridge stood before me in a gentle arch, gondolas whipping by at an almost inhuman pace, the briny splash of the canal nearly feeling like sweat dripping down my brow. Time to take my first steps over the bridge crossing the Canal Grande.
The ancient brickwork of Venice, surely patroned by a Medici, or some other timeworn family with ambitions of entrenching their own line as Doge. I feel kind of Gnostic - superimposing one world over another and playing in the spaces that the bubbles overlap.
The walls on the bridges are high, preventing us from dropping to our watery embarrassment below. I see the muddy canals and wonder how many wine-soaked masked revelers have fallen in, how many rapier holes have fed the canals after merchants have dueled over a stolen bride.
The vestiges of Communism and late period Italy remain in some of the political graffiti to be found on newer buildings.
It’s almost like you can see the tracks through the water wrought from gondolas and old merchant barges that once churned through the canals.
Venetian locals drying fruits on the roof of their domiciles, the modern world peeks in a little bit when we see that Jim Morrison has made an appearance. No word about how he feels about all the pigeons at St. Mark’s Basilica.
Walk around the city long enough you may find some strange sculpture to take your fancy. Since I’m not an old sick composer I don’t fall in love with any of the languorous youth of the cartier.
Part of the Italian joie-de-vivre, we see passionate graffiti affirming local and cultural food choices, although to be hoenst, who among us doesn’t like cheese pizza?
Local homes grow grapes out from, though I’ve never heard tell of Venetian wine.
Only some first-class Venetian hipster would be proudly going a spaghetti western movie night in Italy, or perhaps that’s just my own cultural bias?
Thoughts on Travel Experiment:
I felt like I was walking in the middle part of a Venn Diagram… hallucinating the skin of a different city over that of my own certainly made me appreciate familiar things in a new light and made me wonder how I’d appreciate these things in a fresh context.
Taking this perspective also built a fast running synchronicity machine.. soon I was seeing parallels everywhere, too quick to think. It made me more aware of how I’m subconsciously filtering and sorting things on a daily basis.
“The map is not the territory.” - Alfred Korzybski -
Mission 1: Walking Through Venice in Your Own City
Your mission, should you choose accept it:
You will need:
- Feet
- A pen & paper OR a camera OR an audio recording device OR a film camera OR something for making an impression on paper OR another creative way to make some kind of record of something
- a copy of the following map
- an Open Mind
Action Steps:
1. Locate a bridge, or something that you can imagine is a bridge, over some water, or something that you can imagine is water. Bring company if you like it.
2. Follow the route on the walking map of Venice, ‘see’ Venice over your own city, the canals, the boats, the Italian delights.
3. Try to make a record along the journey - using whatever method of recording that you’ve brought with you. Capture some of the ‘sights’ of Venice.
4. Afterwards we’ll post the results of peoples journeys along with the basic walking routes of their city.
5. Enjoy yourself!
Self-exploratory questions: (if you’d like)
What here relates to Venice?How does this location make me feel?
How can we explore the city differently when we look at a different map?
How is this kind of travel thwarting my expectations?
How do we ‘normally’ look at the city? Am I catching things I’d miss otherwise?
Synchronicities?
When you’re done your can send the results to originalleisuresociety@gmail.com and I’ll post them up for everyone to see.
