LINES ON OUR MAPS: notes to a cartopoetics
Anastasios Kozaitis
A day
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers meet just north of the Persian Gulf. Two
main channels meeting at the commissure like our optic nerves. Does the
great Dark deep of Genesis come from biological and geographical
architectures?
Today shifts from dynamic cold to dead cold. Cold = cold.
The next
Nacogdoches’ county shares a spatial shape with Iraq. Today’s NYT’s
maps of fallen debris could just as easily be “surgical strike targets” for
the US’s upcoming carpet bombing show brought to you courtesy of the
US Department of Defense via Cable News Network or Home Box Office
and Michael Keaton or Fox News Network.
Visiting www.terraserver.com
Looking at aerial photos of Bonita Junction, TX and Baghdad, Iraq. Will
the authorities rename the city of antiquity, Libertyville?
A palimpsest: An archetype: either internal like CE Jung discussed or an
analogous land map, both represent a surface where we place
manuscripts and maps. The squared-off circle of our inner eye plants its
inked, raised surface upon our parchments.
The Human Genome Project’s glossary
Gene mapping: Determination of the relative positions of genes
on a DNA molecule (chromosome or plasmid) and of the
distance, in linkage units or physical units, between them.
Linkage map: A map of the relative positions of genetic loci on
a chromosome, determined on the basis of how often the loci are
inherited together. Distance is measured in centimorgans (cM).
Physical map: A map of the locations of identifiable landmarks
on DNA (e.g., restriction-enzyme cutting sites, genes), regardless
of inheritance. Distance is measured in base pairs. For the
human genome, the lowest-resolution physical map is the
banding patterns on the 24 different chromosomes; the highest-
resolution map is the complete nucleotide sequence of the
chromosomes.
In the Science Times a few weeks ago an article claimed that what was
once coined as useless enzymatic pairings between genes now functions
as directions for RNA behavior.
Another
Place = specific to it <—> the capacity to hold and situate things; to give
them local habituation
Navajo cosmogony lays down piece of emergence —> underworlds that
are both located [under the visible world] + locating [of all that is on and
in the upper world]. The purpose of this: to establish place right at the
beginning when the void gets described. It’s a “topocosmic” move.
This “move” checkmates the Void at creation’s “beginning” and place
becomes central and explicit. It’s not inferred.
Topogenesis
Topocosmos created from the debris maps of Columbia. Place that wasn’t
there. Icarus falling off the painting’s canvas. Auden and WCW’s poems.
No water but the Gulf of Mexico.
These maps establish themselves as matrices. Insideous game theory:
zero sum game. Winner will be the institution that absolves itself of fault.
Loser gets sued into the void. Matrix creates place—elemental matter.
Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place
Dhammai (northern India) Creation Myth: Before there was anything, there
existed Shuzanghu and his wife, Zumaing-Nui. In time she gave birth to a
girl (earth) and a boy (sky). Sky and earth mated and gave birth to the
mountains. Then they produced two frogs who married and made the first
humans. These humans were covered with thick hair, but when they
mated they produced people as they are now: the bickering, murdering
ones. The assassinating kind, who pile bodies on top one another. Our
personal topographies.
Before war time, 2003