Dayton Music Fest

The Fifth Annual Dayton Music Fest, a showcase of the Dayton Indie Rock scene, is this Saturday. I love the poster this year:

Ohio is a Piano

OK, I think I think we have a winner for coolest map-thing-of-the-year. Andy Woodruff at Cartogrammar has created a musical map:

Last month, as I was driving through Ohio to collect my final three counties in the state, it dawned on me: There are 88 counties in this state. There are 88 keys on a piano. I don’t know anything about music, but holy crap, I have to make a map based on this coincidence.

And so I did, bit by bit, gradually descending into madness in the process. It has no purpose, really, apart from being an experiment in some sort of weird artistic musical cartography. Ohio is a piano. Check it out. (It’s in Flash.)

Each county on the map is keyed to a piano note. Play the OhioPiano by plucking a county, or pull together a string of notes by charting a route between two cities. Change the note of each county by ranking them, highest to lowest, by a demographic (such as population, ethnic groups, number of farms, etc.). Arrange them just right to play a tune, or use one of the pre-programmed songs.

Woodruff says he's "gone off the deep end, musically and cartographically", but I say "Go Andy" you are now my carto-hero of 2009!

#440

On the Road to...?

It has not been my intention to turn this blog into a "Maps as Art" blog... but it certainly feels like it, lately. There have been so many good ones that have come my way...

I have been reading You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination, edited by Katharine Harmon. This book consists of dozens of excellent examples of "maps as art". Many of them have been featured here and on other map blogs (such as Strange Maps). Buy the book, or see a large portion of it on Google Books. I would love to reproduce all of the images here, but that is more than a bit out-of-bounds. So I'll leave you with this colorful and entertaining painting by Howard Finster:

Howard Finster, All Roads One Road Headed the Same Way, 1978

Baptist preacher and renowned folk artist Howard Finster (1916-2001) devoted his life to art and his art to God... [Finster's map] generously offers many routes to a paradise that is detailed in its delights.

Folks who are not familiar with outsider art may not recognize the name Howard Finster, but music fans might recognize the cover art he did for the Talking Heads album, Little Creatures, which ironicaly, included a song titled "Road To Nowhere" AND a globe!

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Ms. Cartophiliac was an Art History major in college and completed her senior thesis on outsider artists. Thus, I have been introduced to the chaotic delights of outsider art. Our favoritest museum in the whole world is the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, where many examples of this art genre can be found.

Ms. Cartophiliac is the proud owner of this small Howard Finster sculpture. Unfortunately, we have been obliged to keep it safely stowed away in a closet. Our feline roommates are way too fond of knocking things off of shelves for the fun of it.

Passport - Infinity Machine

While listening to the progressive rock Internet radio site, Aural Moon, this afternoon, I heard the track, "Contemplation", by the German prog-jazz fusion band, Passport, from their 1976 album, Infinity Machine. The music was pleasant, if a bit derivative (Europe's answer to The Weather Report?), but the album cover caught my eye.