The Wit’s Guide to Maps

Or, here be marmots

Cheeky Swiss cartographers once hid a marmot in the topography.

In 1946, Jorge Luis Borges solved the problem of maps.

In the Argentinian metacartographer’s extremely short story “On Exactitude in Science,” he describes a perfect 1:1 map of the empire that exactly represents the lands, rivers, and newly shaded cities stuck underneath it. Sadly, a bunch of cartophobes take over and by the fourth and final sentence, all that remains “are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars.”

“His hometown is so small, the road map is actual size.”
— Milton Berle

The classic interpretation of Borges’ proposal is that an isomorphic map becomes useless, given the size of the glove compartment required to store it. But it inspired Baudrillard to describe the simulacrum in which we all now live, which inspired the Wachowskis to make The Matrix, which inspired me to see it at the Loew’s Theatre on Rue Sainte Catherine in Montreal, which inspired the idiot in front of me to claim I was kicking his seat when obviously I wasn’t. And Borges had my back, like Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall!

“I have a map of the United States. It’s original size. It says one mile equals one mile.”
— Stephen Wright

And so I support J.L.B., because a map as big as the world is actually a great idea. Consider that every human loves maps, but we all assume we’re the only ones. Here’s Bill Bryson on the subject: “What is it about maps? I could look at them all day, intently studying the names of towns and villages I have never heard of and will never visit, tracing the course of obscure rivers, checking elevations, consulting the marginal notes to see what a little circle with a flag on it signifies and what’s the difference between a pictogram of an airplane with a circle around it and one without, issuing small profound ‘hmmmms’ and nodding my head gravely without having the faintest idea why.” Let’s supersize those small profound hmmms, hmmm?

“I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I’m gonna put pins into all the locations that I’ve traveled to. But first, I’m gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won’t fall down.”
— Mitch Hedberg

And here’s Rebecca Solnit, the compiler of three atlases among many other works: “People love maps. There is a special incandescent joy to how they respond to a good map that is different from the way I’ve seen people respond to any other art form.” Globalize incandescent joy!

“Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.”
— Terry Pratchett

Also consider how many great works of literature are really just annotated maps. Robert Louis Stevenson only wrote Treasure Island to explain his map, and J.R.R. Tolkien drew maps of Middle Earth long before he sent hobbits out to traverse them. The Phantom Tollbooth? Norton Juster says in the introduction that “one of the reasons I wrote the book at all was so that I could have a map in it.” And when Nabokov taught literature, he insisted on using maps to explain what was going on: “Instead of perpetuating the pretentious nonsense of Homeric, chromatic, and visceral chapter headings, instructors should prepare maps of Dublin with Bloom’s and Stephen’s intertwining itineraries clearly traced.”

“Without geography, you’re nowhere”
— Jimmy Buffett

Of course there are skeptics. In an essay titled “On The Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1:1,” Umberto Eco was like, um, no. But that’s because he wrote it back in 1982, when we didn’t have printers big enough for the job. Also, they were all dot matrix, which meant you’d spend infinity ripping the perforated strips off the sides of every page. Today, we have the technology!

“With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.”
— C.S. Lewis

Imagine a restaurant where instead of a menu, the waiter just brings you every dish. That is the delicious metaphor we can bring to life! Oh say, say, say! Maps! They don’t love you like I love you!

“Every map is someone’s way of getting you to look at the world his or her way.”
— Lucy Fellowes’

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“If all the ways I have been along were marked on a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur.”
— Pablo Picasso

Everyone knows the map isn’t the territory. What this issue presupposes is … what if it is? Or not, whatever, onto next week!

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An invitation to Torontonians

Here’s an unpaywalled piece I wrote for The Toronto Star officially asking the city to join me in cheering on this weekend’s marathon. I’ll let you know what the city replies, though odds are it’ll be a traffic complaint.

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Just don’t forget that if you send me just a smidgen of money, I will send you Riposte Cards, the glorious collection of 28 bespoke works of art commissioned over two years, and now Aphoristicks, a monthly snicker of a sticker going out to those of you kind enough to cover the postage. And now the mail is working again!

Issue No. 340 of Get Wit Quick neglected to mention isochrone maps, which show how far in each direction you can get in a given amount of time. Such a map applied to this newsletter would indicate that it takes me 500 words to get to the point. On the weeks when there isn’t a point, it’s more like 650. Plum used to call the globe a mappy ball, and she wasn’t wrong. This newsletter’s mascot is a magpie named Magnus after the magician in Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy. The title font is Vulf Sans, the official typeface of the band Vulfpeck. The book was Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. The journey to the ❤️ below begins with a single tap.