All Over The Map

"Excuse me, where is Orchid Street? A waifish young lass asked me in the Lower East Side the other day. "You mean Orchard Street," as I pointed her to midtown. Feeling the end of summer doldrums and the only one not in the Cramptons this weekend, I filtered through the milling droves of tourists and became literal: I'll make beloved Labor Day all about work. (boo hoo shut up and get to work.)

Wondering why fantastic minds could come up with a cab mapper in real time, map the most famous voyages in history, map your interactive friend wheel, map all the public restrooms in the city, I thought, can't why not put the tourists into their correct place too? Color code them and give them some parameters so we can co-exist. For instance, If you are native, you are 100% cyan, majenta, yellow or black: you know where you are going. If you are a gawker, walkabout, or dawdler you recede to a noncommittal mauve, ochre or khaki. And if you slowly stroll hand in hand, or display any kind of p.d.a. in the middle of a thoroughfare you are not worthy of so much as a tint, but immediately become a target for the Street Wars.

I retreated to the office where I was happily surrounded by my maps, and found some good political maps worth mentioning. perspctv's real time twitter is entertaining. Below is a lovely vintage illustration of the roots of Democratic and Republican parties...



Wordie's map of the most emphasized words in Obama's acceptance speech...



and also check out digital history's U.S. social, political and social events plotted on a rollover slider.

And lastly here is the link to the Lennon infographic movie I posted previously, to inspire thoughts on peace...in hopes the near future holds easy wayfinding for all of us, and that we can all make like my fantasy tourist: get on with it and move forward.