The royal chariot was in the shop a few days ago, so I had to rent a car for a couple of days. What was inside but --- a GPS! Awesome! Be still my heart. So of course I spent all my lunch hours (and weekend…) driving around Charm City trying to get it to slip up but alas, I couldn’t outsmart the thing.
I was telling my new buddy at the Walters about it and he told me about one of the pieces soon to be on display at the Walters big big map exhibit. The Rand McNally Chicago to Lake Geneva Photographic Automobile Guide, sort of a pre-cursor to a modern navigation system. The book was written in 1905 by H Sargent Michaels and featured “turn by turn” directions from Chicago to Lake Geneva, with photographs of each turn taken from a camera mounted on the hood of a car. Very cool, back in the day. It’s very much like (i.e., pretty similar… exactly like) a mashup of Google Maps’ new StreetView feature and Hertz’ NeverLost GPS.
H Sargent will always have a special place in my heart.
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1 comment:
Greetings from the founder of The Baltimore Psychogeography Association (me)! Maps as art and the art of map making play a big role in psychogeography. I'm going to put a link to your blog and the Baltimore Map Festival on the BPA web page. I'm looking forward to the festival!
The BPA web page is at:
http://www.joshuaberlow.com/what.htm
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