armchair traveler: Edmunds, Washington/Maine

 

At today's virtual meeting of the VRA Cataloging & Metadata Standards Committee (CaMS), someone mentioned Story Maps software in connection with our discussion of coding the geographic coordinates of a building depicted in an image. I googled "story maps" after the meeting and went for a visit at the Library of Congress. I picked the Roadside America story map from photos by John Margolies who could easily be called the father of roadside Americana. Touring about the story map, I settled on various places I've visited. I clicked on the furthest east pin in far eastern Maine, near the bridge over to Campobello Island (New Brunswick) which I memorably visited with Christie. The pin led to the picture above and the metadata said the sign was located in Edmunds, Washington. Wrong side of the continental United States. My first thought was that the pin had slipped off the West Coast and ended up on the East Coast.

Appropriately enough, I ended up going into a rabbit hole to figure out why the pin got in the wrong place. Did the coordinates get entered wrong? But the coordinates were not in the LC bib record for the image. Then I zoomed into the part of Maine where the pin was stuck. Ah, Edmunds, Maine. The authorized heading for the town in Washington is Edmonds but there's a reference from Edmunds.

The image metadata indicated that the Harvey's Tavern sign was on Route 99. No Route 99 in that part of Maine but there it was in Washington. Got the little yellow man in Google Maps to take me on a tour of Route 99. There was the sign though it now says Harvey's Lounge. The picture of the rabbit appears to be the same. That stretch of Route 99 looks pretty busy nowadays.

Thursday adventures in Rochester

Thursday is usually one of my days to work at Scholes Library but I had a visit to the dermatologist in Rochester today. So it was off to the big city for a bit of adventure. I wanted to check the used bookstores to see if I could find of copy of The Gallery by John Horne Burns. I had finished not long ago the new biography on Burns entitled Dreadful: the short life and gay times of John Horne Burns by David Margolick. Imagine my delight that Greenwood Books had a copy and the added bonus was that it was a copy of the original 1947 Harper & Brothers edition that had belonged to the composer David Diamond. Franlee, the owner of Greenwood Books, said that she had bought several thousand of his books when his library was being cleared out. Normally I'd rather not have a marked copy but this copy had the marks of someone in whose notes I might be interested. On the way from the East End to the dermatologist, WXXI announced that they were going to be playing his fourth symphony tomorrow, 2015 being the centennial of his birth.

After I bought my book, I went over to Spot Coffee which is located in a former Chevrolet dealership.

I had last Thursday's New York Times with me, to read as I had a bagel snack and coffee. I was saddened to see the obituary for Phil Patton. I have enjoyed reading his essays and books since I was reading the chapter on Route 66 in Open road: a celebration of the American highway (1986) while sitting in a cafe named Route 66 in Amsterdam (yes, the one in the Netherlands). And I even saw a small version of the route sign on someone's mailbox post as I drove home.

Another article in the paper that especially caught my eye was a profile of fashion designer Nicole Hanley Mellon. She had been on a trip to Cuba in the spring. The article states that she "was initially confused by the Cuban capital. 'The first day we were there, it felt like there was no commerce. Each day, through conversation and observation, you peel off another layer.' She met a college student who was 'pretty candid and spoke about the way you're taught art to express a social issue or a political issue more than being personal, which I found interesting.'" This sense of the importance of social welfare and equality was something that seemed alive to me too when I was in Cuba in May. I just hope that Cuba doesn't become just another Caribbean island.

road trip 2015: hiatus for conference

The luxury and ease of the road trip will now be interrupted while I attend the 33rd annual conference of the Visual Resources Association in Denver. It's kind of a jolt to be in a city and on foot but I found a good breakfast place this morning. The places I'd noticed in the guide from the registration desk seemed to be chain-like or pretentious but I headed out toward one of them with an open mind. And there in the next block was the neon sign of Sam's Diner and Bar, looking rather dive-ish but picturesque.

What a treat. The clientele was a mix of businessmen, shabby guys, and all around normal folk of a wide variety of types, along with a waitress in short shorts. And it actually was in the guide and has been featured on the Food Network according to a sign in the window.

So the conference begins. Workshops now and I would probably go up to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver but it doesn't open until noon. Maybe the Denver Art Museum or Clyfford Still Museum which open at 10 am.

separated at birth

Marcos Ramírez Erre, Crossroads (Border Tijuana-San Diego), 2003
aluminum, automotive paint, wood, vinyl
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

license plates
Pierce-Arrow Museum, Buffalo, New York

what would Albert Speer do?

Click here for an article from io9.com on post-Soviet architecture in Kazakhstan. This is the Astana Music Hall, worthy of gold status in the Roadside Hall of Fame.