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Sep. 22nd, 2009 09:02 pmSo what I do for a living is restore antique maps and prints. I get given pieces that look like hell and have all the colour faded off 'em, and using references I put the colour back.
Every so often I get weird things.
Like the map of Romania with the weirdass ugly dragonbatbear thing on the cartouche (decorated title block).
And the maps of Japan from Japan, printed on ridiculously thin paper that soaked up paint like a paper towel.
And another set of maps from Japan, this bunch on really slick shiny paper that the paint just SAT on. They depicted various place sin France, of all things, and in particular the railways, roadways, and reinforcement walls of cities were noted significantly.
I was holding those and looking at them and wondering what the heck they were for, and something occurred to me; then I felt as if I'd grabbed a handful of ghost. The maps didn't use hiragana for phonetic spelling, so they weren't modern. I can only really think of one reason why a map might denote such things in such meticulous detail. It ain't tourism. (The map could be for soemthing else, but - gah.)
Every so often history sneaks up and kicks me in the head. When it's something like, say, a map showing the full extent of the Ottoman empire, I think about how much the world's changed in a few centuries. When I'm looking through my little reference booklet of older flags (it's a little thing published by Players Tobacco in 1939) and I see the flag and arms that Germany had at that time, I get kind of a creepy feeling up the back of my neck. More recent history is easier to comprehend (for me at least) and the passage of time hasn't yet made it something beyond our understanding.
What's going to last from this point on? What traces do we leave behind? We sure don't make paper as well as we used to; what IS of that kind of quality is pricey.
I dunno. Just musing aimlessly as usual.
Sometimes I get some weird maps.
Every so often I get weird things.
Like the map of Romania with the weirdass ugly dragonbatbear thing on the cartouche (decorated title block).
And the maps of Japan from Japan, printed on ridiculously thin paper that soaked up paint like a paper towel.
And another set of maps from Japan, this bunch on really slick shiny paper that the paint just SAT on. They depicted various place sin France, of all things, and in particular the railways, roadways, and reinforcement walls of cities were noted significantly.
I was holding those and looking at them and wondering what the heck they were for, and something occurred to me; then I felt as if I'd grabbed a handful of ghost. The maps didn't use hiragana for phonetic spelling, so they weren't modern. I can only really think of one reason why a map might denote such things in such meticulous detail. It ain't tourism. (The map could be for soemthing else, but - gah.)
Every so often history sneaks up and kicks me in the head. When it's something like, say, a map showing the full extent of the Ottoman empire, I think about how much the world's changed in a few centuries. When I'm looking through my little reference booklet of older flags (it's a little thing published by Players Tobacco in 1939) and I see the flag and arms that Germany had at that time, I get kind of a creepy feeling up the back of my neck. More recent history is easier to comprehend (for me at least) and the passage of time hasn't yet made it something beyond our understanding.
What's going to last from this point on? What traces do we leave behind? We sure don't make paper as well as we used to; what IS of that kind of quality is pricey.
I dunno. Just musing aimlessly as usual.
Sometimes I get some weird maps.
