Gopnik's mental maps and the changing cartography of New York

¶ … Children's Gate: Of a Home in New York by Gopnik (2008)

Of Maps

The work of Gopnik (2008) entitled "Through the Children's Gate: Of A Home In New York" relates a story about a man that worked for the city and during his employment took a set of aerial photographs and underground schematics and "turned every block, every highway and every awning -- everyone in all five boroughs! -- into neatly marked and brightly colored geometric spaces laid out on countless squares. Buildings red, streets blue, open spaces white, the underground tunnels sketched in dotted lines…everything in New York was on the map: every ramp to the Major Deegan Expressway and every abandoned brownstone in the Bronx." (Gopnik, 2008, p.3)

Of Mental Maps

Gopnik states in his work that it is not possible to make a life in New York absent the composition of a private map of the city in the minds of those residing there. The maps (private ones) are always "detailed, always divided into local square and always unfinished." (2008, p.4) The private mpa is such that "turns out to be as provisional as the public one -- not one on which our waks and lessons trace grooves deepending over the years, but one on which no step, no thing seems to leave a trace." (2008, p.3)

III. City Maps and the Cartographer

Gopnik states of the map of the city that was held by one only five years ago, that the same map "hardly corresponds to the city we know today." (2008, p.4) According to Gopnik the monuments in New York "even…fade from your mental map under the stress of daily life."(Gopnik, 2008, p.6) Gopnik describes suddenly one day discovering "the old monument looking just as it did the first time I saw it, the amazing white ziggurat on a city block worth going to see." (Gopnik, 2008, p.6)

IV. The Unfolding of Maps in Society

The work of Adam Gopnik, is a collection of essays that focuses on the theme of Existentialism and how each individual has their own personal perception of existence in their mind, represented in Gopnik's work by mind maps. Because of the ever-changing landscape of the City of New York, which Gopnik relates as a living and breathing place, the cartographer in the story is never able to complete what he conceived in the beginning to be a 'perfect map'. As such, maps are generally undergoing shifts and transformations that render the former 'authenticated' or true in the present moment map because as time progresses that which is true one moment may or may not be true in the following experiential moment. Just as the literal maps created by the cartographer soon become outdated the mind maps of the individual soon undergo the selfsame type of change rendering the prior map created in the mind of the individual useless. Gopnik specifically states are the following in regards to the human mind said by Gopnik to be "…constantly changing thus he can never really know what will happen because what he knows is constantly changing." (Gopnik, 2008) Constant change is a predictor of the future outcome through the effect of the change now on the outcomes of the future both literally for the Cartographer and as influenced in the world by the mental mapping of individuals in the world. Maps developed by a cartographer represent mankind's attempt to keep up with what is a progression of change continually moving forward and never being static in the material world nor in the mind of individuals mapping their reality.

V. Discussion

. What is presented is such that indicates that the future map of the real or physical world cannot be absolutely predicted due to the variables represented by the individuals and ultimately their mind mapping of the present world environment. Each individual would be characterized by gender, age, sexual orientation, educational attainment, physical attributes, their associations and that which served to influence them politically and where the religion was derived by each individual human being. The variable characteristics of the human being of which only a very few have been noted are numerous. The changes in society due to the variables in the human being are driven outwardly in the physical world by the mapping of the mind.

VI. Examination of Subterfuge

Subterfuge utilized in the initiates of human mental mapping sessions is sometimes intentional and yet other times it is not. Families use such subterfuge in their disagreements with other family members as their mental mapping of the world around them is not exactly mirrored and oftentimes are in complete and utter conflict with one another. One example stated involves a guy named Luke as his

"rites of passage' are "rolled out for our edification, too, that he isn't the font of heartwarming family fare that his sister is. When he and his pal Theo spend an afternoon shooting pool in the badlands of SoHo, Gopnik is one happy pappy. "I beamed with pleasure and relief. They had played pool! Pool hustlers! What could be better than learning how to adjust a cue to strike a ball into a pocket, as compared to another meaningless two-hour session in front of a screen doing mindless hand-eye-coordination games? They were not druggishly indulging in a cynically engineered entertainment. They were in touch with Americana, with history!" Martha, mistress of derision, sinks another fang into her husband's fun. "Wasn't pool sort of like the video game of nineteen-aught-three?" she snarks. "It sounds like instead of letting them do mindless crap, you're getting them to do dated mindless crap." Chalk up another one in the Can't Win department." (Gopnik, 2008)

In a later chapter Gopnik and Luke bond over baseball, guy stuff that they can share without mom's editorial interjections killing everything. When Luke opts for pinstripes, his father does likewise." (Gopnik, 2008) Gopkin relates the impact that even small choices when replicated, and in this study were a son and father who both bond by choosing to wear pinstripes. (Gopni, 2008

VII. Analysis of Gopnik's Work

The work of Knopf states that Gopnik's work is vain however, Wolcott holds that Adam Gopnik is one that "must have been put on this earth to annoy" and if so "mission accomplished." (nd) However, the deeper than observed superficial appearing facts in these essays holds in their common and simple declarations hints of how actions impact future outcomes and through their affects during the ever marching realm of time serve to impact forever the outcome of the human experience. While it would not appear to be important that these two men collectively wore pinstripes, the time of history in which they both in the City of New York made these declarations and took action. It was their determination to rebel against the Mind mapping if approached from a non-benevolent view, for the purpose of creating a human mind map convergence would be able to exert great influence over how society developed as more in numbers began mapping their minds towards achieving political or economic objectives.

The 19290s In New York City and the Infamous Zootsuit

Source:: Illustration Adapted from the Works of: American Vintage Costumers' in the Seattle Historic District. ( ) Retrieved from: http://www.arniesvintagecostumers.com/historicalcostumes30s40s.htm

IX. Change is New York City and New York City is Change

While Gopnik relates in his essays the belief that New York City would remain the same across time, he also relates the lesson that this simply is not and cannot be the case or indeed if New York City is still New York City. It is a city in which history is honored and revered but change viewed as inherent and something that cannot and should not be changed. New York City is a City of life, growth, transformation and even in the static corridors of the City Museums represented is that living entity known as New York City and a milestone in the City's growth that is worthy of recognition.

The differences that exist among the many tens of thousands living in New York City has historically been such that was a flavor of society that seasoned the ever-evolving and changing soup or the teeming of life in New York City. Societal change is such that bubbles along much like what is known as pot-luck or goulash a soup comprised of incidental mixing of variously available ingredients together to form the surprise soup. New Yorkers understand this fact inherently because the thought of New York City always remaining the same would render New York devoid of its historical and traditional charm.

Consider that New York City is the location of / Ellis Island, the gateway to living in America by many generations of immigrants into the land characterized by both democracy and freedom. Ellis Island and the variations of effects of individual mind mapping both in terms of the progression of history but also in terms of the mental mapping shifts represented through each advancing historical age or period and the reality of the world and society that results from these various impacts and resolutions of events.

A Final Thought

The word impromptu describes a state of unplanned musical composition or acting, reacting, creating or otherwise applying oneself to allowable whimsical beginnings but as well describes a process or experience in which one is not tied to the definite, proven and methodological processes toward reaching a goal and even the goal is such that may be undefined when anything is done 'impromptu'. Ad lib is another way to describe how the city of New York has been mapped by both the cartographer and the progression of mental maps created throughout the City's development over the past 100 years. To ad lib is to use verbal language in relating a story that has not been rehearsed or prepared in advance.

Therefore, the City of New York in terms of its mapping and development, has been created then, in a manner that seeks more toward the actual preservation of rather than the perpetuation of the existence previously known by the individual and their society. The living and breathing City of New York, home to Ellis Island and many other historical landmarks in the history of the United States, is not the same today as it were in the 1920s, 1930s, and even 40's as the city is always changing and never remaining the same. The City of New York does simultaneously value the classical and traditional famously-cited fashions, foods, and preferences that are changed by such variable influence existing in the City and that serve to change through various actions, interactions, or even lack of reaction in the City of New York.