WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.519 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here. 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:11.800 Let's get into it. On a Tuesday that felt designed 3 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:13.720 for walking shop, with sunlight on the river and a 4 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:16.120 breeze stirring the plane trees outside City Hall, I first 5 00:00:16.199 --> 00:00:18.039 noticed this something in my city did not quite fit. 6 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:20.000 Not the way one notices a pothole, but the way 7 00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:21.839 you feel an ill tuned piano outside was to his 8 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:25.839 own sound. After thirty six years as a municipal building inspector, 9 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.399 retirement left me with twned spare and noisy feed and 10 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:31.519 used to their leisure. Wanting some light, volunteer work and 11 00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:33.640 a hint of purpose, I offered my hand and patience 12 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:36.560 for paperwork to the city's efforts to digitize all planning maps. 13 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:40.359 The project, based at City Hall, mostly involved minding a 14 00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:43.399 rickety scanner and straightening yellowed, rustling sheets that bore the 15 00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:46.679 careful handwriting of men long dead. The old Riverside district 16 00:00:46.679 --> 00:00:48.960 coupled lovely stubborn, was the heart of the effort and 17 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.640 the start of all my trouble. That first week, I 18 00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:53.679 was given a stack of antigue district maps to check 19 00:00:53.719 --> 00:00:57.719 against prison reality. Alex, the Record's clerk to a quietly amuse 20 00:00:57.799 --> 00:00:59.920 thirty something with a permanent stain of harg letter on it. 21 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.359 A shirt sleeve explained the jaw walk from City Hall 22 00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:05.040 to the river front, verify shops and street names note 23 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:07.760 were no longer matched, and returned to log the discrepancies. 24 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.200 It don't get too little with distances, he added, twirling 25 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:14.239 a binder clip between his fingers. The old guys were 26 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:17.280 never precise. I smiled at this precision was an old 27 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:18.959 ditche of mine, and I took pride in knowing the 28 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:22.159 city's bones. Map gripped in one hand, I set out 29 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:24.879 tracing a route from city Hall steps through the surrounding square, 30 00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:27.840 winding toward the public playground, then down narrow Calton Lane 31 00:01:27.879 --> 00:01:31.120 to the riversides brick promenade, the s meld of baking bread. 32 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:33.200 The little bickery by the church was open, as it 33 00:01:33.239 --> 00:01:36.599 had been since the nineties. I measured mastrolle by memory. 34 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:39.719 I'd walked this stretch in pieces hundreds of times while 35 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:43.640 checking electrical permits or writing up crumbling brickwork violations. I 36 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:47.799 expected a twenty minute walk, or maybe less. Fifteen minutes later, 37 00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:49.959 a glance at my phone showed only six minutes had 38 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:52.319 passed since I had left the square, and not unusual, perhaps, 39 00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:55.040 but I remembered lingering, idling to admire the statue of 40 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:57.760 a dour must have showed may on the corner. A 41 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:01.040 trick of memory, surely, Yet when I reached the river, 42 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:03.760 the sunlight on the water felt impossibly fresh, as if 43 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:07.280 the whole walk had rushed by half Experienced curious, I 44 00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:09.960 checked the return on a parallel street bey with avenue. 45 00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:12.879 This time the blocks dragged beneath my shoes, and every 46 00:02:12.879 --> 00:02:16.159 crosswalk felt slightly further apart than I recalled. The detail 47 00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:18.759 should have cut two minutes. Instead, the walk back stretched 48 00:02:18.759 --> 00:02:21.400 to the point where Alex texted, wondering if I'd gotten 49 00:02:21.439 --> 00:02:24.159 lost or distracted by a lunch invitation from a cess closs. 50 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:26.840 I rechecked the map, then my phone for the time. 51 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:30.199 The numbers were all correct, but I was unsettled. I 52 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:32.879 prided myself on noticing small wrongness, as window frames out 53 00:02:32.919 --> 00:02:35.120 of square, a slope where one shouldn't exist, but hear 54 00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:38.560 nothing looked strange, the houses, the benches along the river, 55 00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:40.879 at the rhythm of children's laughter school let out, all 56 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:43.240 was as I remembered, and yet against my memory and 57 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:45.520 the map's measure greed. The ground did not seem to 58 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:48.520 agree with itself. Standing at the mouth of Beckwith I 59 00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:50.360 closed my eyes and tried to sense what was off. 60 00:02:50.919 --> 00:02:53.159 The wall did not till the blow. And yet every turn, 61 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:55.800 every check distance round discordant with how it should feel, 62 00:02:55.840 --> 00:02:58.639 sometimes too brief, sometimes oddly drawn out, never matching the 63 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:01.400 lines on the dusty paper map close asped under my arm. 64 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:04.159 Not alarming exactly, just persistent, as though the city had 65 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:06.400 learned a habit of sliding around inside its own skin 66 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.199 when no one was watching. The mystery didn't negle like 67 00:03:09.199 --> 00:03:12.800 a problem to be solved, it whispered. I scrabled a 68 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:15.360 tiny question mark in the map's margin and tucked it 69 00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:18.000 beneath my arm, and wondered if perhaps retirement had left 70 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:20.719 my own enc compass in need of calibration. The old 71 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:23.319 Riverside District is a palimpsyst, a layer cake of the 72 00:03:23.319 --> 00:03:27.240 city's ambition and neglect. Light falls differently here, felted through 73 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:29.360 the slow movement of trolley wires and the shade of 74 00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:32.120 plane trees older than the condominiums now rising above the water. 75 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:36.000 Cobblestone lanes bleed into a narrow alice lined with missmatched brickwork. 76 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:38.800 Some one's fancy now mossy, Others patched and painted a 77 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:43.120 dozen times, refusing uniformity between the lane squadishtoric statues. Maia 78 00:03:43.159 --> 00:03:45.439 Barren glawing over the bakery saw my world wore a 79 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:47.560 soldier clutching his rifle in the part triangle and in 80 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:50.319 their shadow. Generations of neighbors gathered to trade gentle gossip 81 00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:54.520 and complaints about construction noise. Those looming condominiums a new angular. 82 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:57.199 The glass faces turned self consciously toward the water, but 83 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:00.919 carrying none of the district acrude stories. Tractors cluster at 84 00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:05.159 their intersections, trading tape measures and sandwiches. Children hairoski from 85 00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:07.719 play chart, running paths that slice through tiny court huts 86 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:10.439 and shruck alleys. The old school wants a stoll at 87 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:13.120 Victorian hulk now harms with beg bells as students depart 88 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:15.800 and fazed by the confusion that made me pause. The 89 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.439 neighborhood is the sort of place that rewards the habitual. 90 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:21.680 I developed my own routines. Morning walks to the corner 91 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:24.680 store for a newspaper at afternion, conversations with messess costs 92 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:28.319 by the library steps. Missess Closs retired from head librarian 93 00:04:28.399 --> 00:04:30.800 six years ago, but never managed to leave. Is as 94 00:04:30.839 --> 00:04:33.800 if she has appointed herself guardian of the building's porch and, 95 00:04:33.879 --> 00:04:37.439 by proxy, the twan's memory. On good days, she'll trade 96 00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:40.120 stories for sweets. Pilford from Destras's stories of the city's 97 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:43.560 eccentric parades, the times someone painted footprints across several roofs, 98 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:46.040 the mayor who once declared all street signs should rhyme. 99 00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:48.439 I like to walk the same routes at different times, 100 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:51.279 testing traffic lights for their punctuality, checking that the bakery 101 00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:55.040 windows bread rotation matched the clock old habits I suppose. 102 00:04:55.720 --> 00:04:58.360 At City Hall, Alex kept the map archives running with 103 00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:01.800 the bemused energy of someone who'd seen bureaucracy's most inspired arrows. 104 00:05:02.399 --> 00:05:04.839 He delighted in pointing out which city councilor last lost 105 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:06.759 a crucial file or sign a permit that spelled down 106 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:09.800 street with a silent pe volunteer mapping has its own 107 00:05:09.879 --> 00:05:13.560 quiet rhythm. Teams of mostly retired residents in history wonks 108 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:16.839 come through calling blueprints and brittle cadastral diagrams, scanning them 109 00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:20.319 page by page, logging discrepancies between forgotten street corners in 110 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:23.839 remote park boundaries somewhat the routes to double check alignments, 111 00:05:23.879 --> 00:05:26.680 then print out fresh drafts with bright annotations, a winking 112 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:29.759 blend of nostalgia and officialdom. We joke about map rum 113 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:32.279 rhythm at the slow shuffle of chairs. The librarian's lecture 114 00:05:32.319 --> 00:05:34.959 is unproper labeling. The debate over whether Beckwith Lane should 115 00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:37.000 count as two streets or one boulevard. The joy of 116 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:38.920 finding your address on a map from an era before 117 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:41.800 your house was built. Change drifts through the district like 118 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:44.680 a well man of ghost. Some of the oldest residents 119 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:47.000 grumble about the new city creeping and on glass likes, 120 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:50.839 but mostly people carry on. Contractors grumble about property lines 121 00:05:50.879 --> 00:05:54.240 and ways they did decade ago. Ventures appear to shift slightly, 122 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:57.639 but quietly remain in familiar spots year to year. Children 123 00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:00.240 still cut the same paths through garden gates, Teachers still 124 00:06:00.279 --> 00:06:02.000 mark the start of term with the roundabou bred on 125 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:04.240 opening day, and no one fusses if a street name 126 00:06:04.279 --> 00:06:08.319 meanders between block and block, nothing about it registers is alarming. 127 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:11.319 And yet, as I settle into the new routine compiling 128 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:14.120 notes that subtlelynessmatch my memory. In every official measurement at 129 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:16.639 city Hall, a question continues to tap at my awareness. 130 00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:20.680 It's not that things vanish or spontaneously change. The ground 131 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:23.040 is solid under foot, the stones are moved, the roots 132 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:25.839 of the plane, trees pushing slow but relentless beneath cracked asphalt. 133 00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:28.920 But day by day the words fit between paper and place. 134 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:32.160 Belief in boundary seems to resist pinning down. It reminds 135 00:06:32.199 --> 00:06:34.120 me not of a city in decline, but of something 136 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:37.040 refusing to settle for a single version of itself. There's 137 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:39.759 comfort in this flexible familiarity. I suppose a sense that 138 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:42.120 the old district will, at last any recro, shaped not 139 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:44.360 only by pans and vapors, but by the collective shrugs 140 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:47.199 and nods of those who live upon it. My fascination 141 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:49.360 would have stolled it philosophical musing if not for a 142 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:52.079 stubborn niche. If none of these map and ground mismatches 143 00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:55.040 bothered anyone else, perhaps I was imagining it. Yet a 144 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:57.040 part of me, the part that once cited a developer 145 00:06:57.079 --> 00:06:59.439 for two inch vallation in parapetite, refused to let the 146 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:02.839 matter rest one Wednesday morning, determined to solve or at 147 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:04.680 least to find the riddle. A fist out Alma and 148 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:07.759 used mechanical pedometer from the Garachan, borrowing a basic GPS 149 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:10.079 device from my daughter, set out with tools in hand. 150 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:13.399 The plan walk a standard distance from the war memorial 151 00:07:13.399 --> 00:07:15.879 and the square up to the library's ionic column facade, 152 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:19.600 noting every step, glance and digital chirp starting at the 153 00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:22.800 date Pittebronze soldier as zer were both pedometer and GPS. 154 00:07:22.839 --> 00:07:25.839 Then strode northward, counting steps beneath my breath, a click 155 00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:29.560 of the pedometer echoing my pulse, the GPS accurate to 156 00:07:29.639 --> 00:07:32.279 within a handful of meters. Loved the journey, which should 157 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:34.639 have measured four hundred eighty meters according to both city 158 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:37.959 surveys and my own field memory. At the library steps 159 00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:41.000 I checked the data. The GPS registered five hundred three meters, 160 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:44.079 the pedometer talent four hundred ninety seven steps, which by 161 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:46.439 my stride should have been four hundred ninety six meters, 162 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:49.920 give or take. Close enough perhaps, except the map posted 163 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:52.199 by the librarian two years ago stills through the distance 164 00:07:52.279 --> 00:07:55.600 is four hundred eighty. Returning southward by foot, I retraced 165 00:07:55.600 --> 00:07:59.199 my path. This time the GPS recorded four hundred seventy 166 00:07:59.279 --> 00:08:02.160 meters twelve free cent shorter, while the pedometer insisted the 167 00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:06.040 distance had stretched five hundred fourteen steps. I double checked 168 00:08:06.040 --> 00:08:09.040 every calibration, careful to ensure the stride setting match my gait, 169 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:11.160 and verified the start and end points by surveying the 170 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:14.439 faint gold paint still visible on the curb. Consistency is 171 00:08:14.439 --> 00:08:17.160 the mark of a trust worthy anomaly. I repeated the 172 00:08:17.160 --> 00:08:19.439 test hoice in the same day, then again after lunch, 173 00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:22.839 this time moving through the tiny triangular park. Each result 174 00:08:22.839 --> 00:08:25.959 echoed the core puzzle. Measured distances disagreed not only with 175 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:29.000 the paper wrecker, but with each other. Worse, the air 176 00:08:29.079 --> 00:08:31.560 shifted by direction, but not always by routes. Sometimes the 177 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:34.559 GPS drifted lawn sometimes short as a reality shronk was 178 00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:37.679 stretched beneath my feet while I walked that afternoon, I 179 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:40.480 confided my findings to Alex, waving a map at one 180 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:42.799 hand and juggling print ups of GPS logs in the other. 181 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:46.000 These old blocks have always been a bit odd, haven't there, 182 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:49.519 he replied with a killers smile. Orientation here plays tricks. 183 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:51.799 Contractors used to call it the riverside rubber band. Back 184 00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:54.720 in the day. Maybe you're just noticing now, he shrugged. 185 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:57.360 If it works for the residents, I say, let the 186 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:00.679 city bend. He didn't seem troubled, In fact found it funny, 187 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:04.759 but his nonchalant stoked my curiosity. For someone whose job 188 00:09:04.759 --> 00:09:07.519 it was to catalog and rectify errors, he seemed comfortable 189 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:10.120 with contradiction. I left his desk with a sense of 190 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:13.840 childish determination. The city's distances were more than blurry facts. 191 00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:16.840 Something deeper was a play. Was it simply a bureaucratic 192 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:19.320 muddel or did the district itself shift ship when nobody 193 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:22.159 was looking? If so, wa Inco could be trusted in 194 00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:24.679 a place like that. The stack of maps haunted my 195 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:28.039 spare room. Every few days I found myself flipping through 196 00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:31.080 annotated print outs, looking for cracks, corrections, tiny shifts I 197 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:34.360 might have missed. On Saturday, I lingered in the map room, 198 00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:37.039 which always smelled of vink archevel glue and a faint 199 00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:40.720 suggestion of mustiness, like rain on all bricks. Alex humming 200 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:42.399 to the tin of a forgotten pop's arm, brought in 201 00:09:42.440 --> 00:09:45.480 a cardboard box labeled Survey Platt's Riverside eighteen eighty two 202 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:49.399 nineteen sixty two I dove. In the earliest a hand 203 00:09:49.399 --> 00:09:51.840 colored lethograph faded to Sebia marked the district as it 204 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:54.519 was in eighteen ninety, a cluster of rectangular blocks, the 205 00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:57.799 river crooked streets named for lost governors, each property line 206 00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:01.200 drafted as if inherited from Roman engineers, But the nineteen 207 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:03.679 o seven updates subtly readrew Glaston Street to clip the 208 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:06.200 bakery's corner, turning a right angle into a soft dock. 209 00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:10.240 From then on, each decades's mapped in curdiny. The nineteen 210 00:10:10.279 --> 00:10:12.919 twenty eight sheet shifted the playground boundary by four feet, 211 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:16.399 making room for a now demolished trolley turn. The nineteen 212 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:19.120 fifty edition, with crisp blue ink, moved the Cooliard hedge 213 00:10:19.159 --> 00:10:22.399 twelve feet east. The nineteen seventy four revisions walp the 214 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:26.000 names of two streets, Carlton and beckwicked without explanation. In 215 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:28.720 my lifetime, at least remaps had migrated the river front 216 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:30.600 promenade by as much as a full bench is with 217 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:34.519 Each edition retained familiar blocks, but never perfectly. Every so 218 00:10:34.639 --> 00:10:36.840 often a hedge, curve or a statue would slip a 219 00:10:36.840 --> 00:10:39.120 step or two down the paper, as if avoiding capture 220 00:10:39.159 --> 00:10:41.759 by virtue of its own inertia. On a whim, I 221 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:44.960 made a table listing the revision's block by block. Why, 222 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:47.120 I wondered, was the old bank and some map shown 223 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:50.000 with the forty foot rear lot elsewhere only thirty Why 224 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:52.159 did the pox westcape here on the east side, then 225 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:55.559 back again within a generation? None of the official explanations 226 00:10:55.639 --> 00:10:58.399 corrected based on new survey. It reflects as Bill conditioned, 227 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:01.919 really satisfied. The errors didn't add up to simple carelessness. 228 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:05.200 There were two systematic too persistent, like a tune always 229 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:08.360 played just slightly out of key. That evening I stopped 230 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:10.679 by the library to see misses Klass, who sat fanning 231 00:11:10.679 --> 00:11:13.879 herself with a program from last year's festival. Children were 232 00:11:13.879 --> 00:11:16.320 tumbling around her on the steps, shrieking at one another 233 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:19.679 in languages that dissolve into laughter. Tell me something, I said, 234 00:11:19.799 --> 00:11:22.879 leaning against the banister. Why do the festival parade ruts 235 00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:24.639 change so much from year to year? And why do 236 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:26.759 they always refer to a turn at the old barbers 237 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:30.120 when the barber's been gone twenty years? She laughed, folding 238 00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:33.200 the program into a triangle that riverside for you half 239 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:35.279 the funds. Seeing where the parade wanders this time. The 240 00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:37.519 pamphlets always say left at the absent shop, or march 241 00:11:37.559 --> 00:11:40.480 down Carlton Shadow trip leaders like their mystery, don't they. 242 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:43.279 It doesn't bother anyone that the streets don't quite match 243 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:47.360 the route. She shrugged, eyes twinkling. The parade always finds 244 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:49.720 its way. Kids follow the music and each other. Maybe 245 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:52.080 the city ships to make room for them. A cavel 246 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:56.080 curiosity easily becomes obsession. I gathered a half dozen festival 247 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:59.399 pamphlets from the library shelves, each with a map, sometimes sketched, 248 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:04.200 sometimes produced. Every parade, it seemed, mapped a new river's course. 249 00:12:04.919 --> 00:12:07.960 The legend would instruct turn left at Market, then two 250 00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:11.840 years later turn left at Chapel. Sometimes the routes included 251 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:14.279 alloys that had been gaited shut for decades. One year 252 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:16.679 claimed the parade passed through the lanes a garden path 253 00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:18.679 now interrupted by a row of gross as that, as 254 00:12:18.679 --> 00:12:21.399 far as property records showed, had been there since the fifties. 255 00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:23.960 The more I compared, the more I noticed the rout's 256 00:12:23.960 --> 00:12:25.879 worked only have taken with the kind of faith. Turning 257 00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:29.200 left broer hedo interrupted, stepping over fences with friendly nods 258 00:12:29.279 --> 00:12:31.960 passing briefly through the edge of backyuds that official maps 259 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:35.440 considered private. Yet every year people arrived at the festival 260 00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:38.600 square on time, children waving streamers, and the band precisely 261 00:12:38.679 --> 00:12:42.440 following corners that on paper didn't exist. As I puzzled 262 00:12:42.440 --> 00:12:45.000 through these contradictions, I began to hunt for evidence in 263 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:49.440 legal documents, property deeds, boundary surveys, instruments of sale. Alex, 264 00:12:49.639 --> 00:12:52.480 delighted by my new fixation, unlocked the restricted cabinet and 265 00:12:52.519 --> 00:12:56.519 let me leave through decades of agreements, Here too was confusion. 266 00:12:56.639 --> 00:12:58.559 Some deeds to find lots to the great Willow at 267 00:12:58.639 --> 00:13:00.720 River's Bend, but the willow had been cut down before 268 00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:04.120 I was born. Others described boundaries in terms of steps 269 00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:06.720 from the statue, though the statue had moved twice, and 270 00:13:06.759 --> 00:13:08.600 as plnt was rumored to have shifted in the flood 271 00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:12.679 of fifty one, neighbors settled disputes amicably, citing what's always been. 272 00:13:12.840 --> 00:13:16.159 While court records described exceptions granted to reflect practical use. 273 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:19.200 I kept a taally of what I found. Museum placards 274 00:13:19.200 --> 00:13:22.919 described building locations that Fortous placed several doors down, cross 275 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:26.039 plaques on benches gave installation dits that mismatched official city 276 00:13:26.039 --> 00:13:29.879 renovation reports. Even street numbers had drifted. The bakery's address 277 00:13:29.919 --> 00:13:32.279 was numbered fifty eight, and one phone directory eighty four 278 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:36.200 in another, despite never moving walls or swapping entrances. At first, 279 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:39.639 these seemed mere quirk's absurdities in bureaucracy. But as I 280 00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:42.159 traced each thread, what unfolded was not a web of mistakes, 281 00:13:42.159 --> 00:13:44.759 but system of shifting truth, every piece fitting only in 282 00:13:44.799 --> 00:13:48.919 its own context. Nothing aligned, but every record felt internally coherent, 283 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:51.360 as if every generation had inherited a slightly different city 284 00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:53.960 to match the map they chose to believe. Sitting at 285 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:56.440 my kitchen table, mats from years, each telling their own story, 286 00:13:56.480 --> 00:13:58.679 I began to wonder perhaps the city wasn't in error 287 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:01.320 at all. Perhaps it had always lived by many truths 288 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:03.559 at once, and the best anyone could do as record 289 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:06.440 as passing as faithfully as possible before the next change arrived. 290 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:09.000 I could not shake the notion that, far from being 291 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:11.840 a tangle of accidental contradictions, the district was a living 292 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:13.919 record of Palam's, a slayer by years in the stubhum 293 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.000 hope that with each new map the real city might 294 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:18.879 be pinned down at last, if, as the record seemed 295 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:21.080 to say, the city's ground change slightly to fit each 296 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:24.440 new map, then which, if any version was real, could 297 00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:26.279 the ground and a foot truly drift to match paper 298 00:14:26.279 --> 00:14:29.679 and ink? Fascinated, I decided to test the maps against 299 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:32.039 the world as scientifically as a retired inspector with a 300 00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:35.080 fondness for coffee could hope to manage. I learned enough 301 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:37.399 about digital ovlays to scan and import a stack of 302 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:39.799 maps all the way from the yellow eighty nineties lithograph 303 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:42.000 through the glossy two thousand four city plan into basic 304 00:14:42.039 --> 00:14:46.279 imaging software. Using transparancy, I laid them one atop the next, 305 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:49.679 adjusting scale and orientation, experimenting with the rubber sheet transforms 306 00:14:49.720 --> 00:14:53.240 I'd read about in geography articles. None fit perfectly, Yet 307 00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:55.399 with each gentle warping I could align the paths, the 308 00:14:55.519 --> 00:14:58.399 river banks, the monument corners, just not at the same time. 309 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:02.039 When I stretched, d and compressed each map to maximize 310 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:04.600 its fit to photographs and property markets from its own decade, 311 00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:08.240 the results surprised me. Every map, once mathematically notched, matched 312 00:15:08.279 --> 00:15:12.840 its contemporary evidence precisely projected outward. However, each was incompatible 313 00:15:12.840 --> 00:15:15.200 with the ear before or after. No two maps perfectly 314 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:18.080 overlaid could explain the modern city's prison, walks or addresses. 315 00:15:18.679 --> 00:15:21.120 The lived experience always belonged to its own time, its 316 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.759 own record. Curious a hunted through old field notebook stored 317 00:15:24.759 --> 00:15:27.519 in the map room, I fan scored notes by surveyors 318 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:30.720 dating as far back as the nineteen forties, claiming landmark's wandering, 319 00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:34.039 inexplicable change to bank walls, and perpetual need for a survey. 320 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:38.039 One entry, dated June twenty one, nineteen sixty three, simply 321 00:15:38.080 --> 00:15:40.600 read closed the loop three times, but the ground disagrees 322 00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:44.120 by four feet. Council satisfied regardless. I compared those notes 323 00:15:44.159 --> 00:15:46.679 to a battered set of handbooks, city issued, leather bound, 324 00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:50.320 their tips worn smooth. Some recommended blending new measurements with 325 00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:54.399 prior records, stressing the need to minimize discordance. A pattern emerged, 326 00:15:54.480 --> 00:15:58.000 not of incompetence, but of method. Errors were not eradicated, 327 00:15:58.039 --> 00:16:01.519 they became the new standard. Each generation's adjustment was considered 328 00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:04.399 a form of progress, legitimized not by accuracy, but by 329 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:07.720 the council's blessing. The more I examined, the clearer it became. 330 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:10.080 Every fresh round of correction made sense within its moment 331 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:13.120 only if one discounted or erode the previous. There was 332 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:15.799 artist true to it, and perhaps also a quiet resignation, 333 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:18.200 a sense that reality, at least here bent to the 334 00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:21.200 will of the community and its desire for closure. Even 335 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:23.679 my old suspicion, was the ground changing to fit the maps, 336 00:16:24.039 --> 00:16:26.639 or did the maps reflect some deeper instability grew fuzzy. 337 00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:30.360 It no longer seemed like just an error of measurement. Rather, 338 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:32.840 the entire old District seemed elastic in form, not so 339 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:36.240 much fixes, constantly redefined by layers of collective agreement, patched 340 00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:39.480 and blessed by those charged with its upkeep. Houses stayed upright, 341 00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:42.080 flower birds flourished, and people lived without worry At the 342 00:16:42.080 --> 00:16:44.879 stitch together, the city never closed the loop. I began 343 00:16:44.919 --> 00:16:47.320 to suspect the district's stupen refusal to align itself was 344 00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:49.200 less a failing and more a property of the place. 345 00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:52.080 It struck me then, that every attempt to fix the 346 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.440 city's geography did not so much reveals recreate it. Every 347 00:16:55.440 --> 00:16:57.639 new map was not a record but a gentle declaration, 348 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:00.919 and the world in its way listened. It was his 349 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:03.000 final angle that took me a suspicion that mapping was 350 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:05.799 not merely an act of bureaucratic description, but one of creation, 351 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:08.559 however minor, and that by agreeing upon a new geometry, 352 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:11.240 city officials and residents and Witty participated in a ritual 353 00:17:11.279 --> 00:17:14.440 that made the new world possible each time afresh. One 354 00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:17.440 morning I called Gladys, a retired surveyor whose reputation for 355 00:17:17.559 --> 00:17:19.759 never quite closing the loop had made her both legendary 356 00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:22.799 into some a risk for stubborn developers. How did you 357 00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:25.960 ever make sense of the district, I asked her, inviting 358 00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:28.720 her for a walk. Ladys, sharp as ever in a 359 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.279 cab and cargo vest, greeted me by the war memorial. 360 00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:34.720 Together we said off through the district. My neugpis claped 361 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:36.480 to my belt, her bet of measuring tape in hand. 362 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:39.920 She showed me an survey rods protruding like accused fingers 363 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:42.960 from corners of cracked sidewalks, the faint markings on cobstones, 364 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:45.279 and a set of scratch marks on the skills foundation 365 00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:48.759 stones that she insisted marked the true nineteen thirty seven boundary. 366 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:52.440 At least that month, she recited, almost cheerfully her long 367 00:17:52.519 --> 00:17:55.240 history of never quite closing the loop, and admitted finally 368 00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:57.519 that the longer she worked, the less she trusted even 369 00:17:57.519 --> 00:18:01.440 her own chain instrument triff burst. That's the gospel, she 370 00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:03.920 half joked, as we bent appear at a rod. But 371 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:06.039 half the time I'd swear the ground moved just because 372 00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:08.920 someone in council voted to shift a property line. She 373 00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:12.079 regarded me with a shrewd squint. Funny how once it 374 00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:14.240 in the record, everyone treats it as real, even if 375 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.319 the stones disagree. After a few years, nobody remembers it 376 00:18:17.359 --> 00:18:20.559 any other way. Later, over Tea, I spread the Severe 377 00:18:20.599 --> 00:18:24.559 handbooks up for her. Together we traced every addendum, redline 378 00:18:24.680 --> 00:18:27.839 and ritual. There In the margins of council meeting minutes 379 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:31.519 were notations committee required for harmonization, blend old and new, 380 00:18:31.559 --> 00:18:35.319 precisely to minimize discordance, use average boundary to declare boundary 381 00:18:35.319 --> 00:18:38.759 fixed upon adoption, regardless of survey closure. It was as 382 00:18:38.759 --> 00:18:41.599 if before every new map's adoption, a small committee performed 383 00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:44.680 a quite secular rite blended numbers proved the result declare 384 00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:47.440 the city in accord not because the numbers fit, but 385 00:18:47.480 --> 00:18:50.640 because the act itself was believed to create agreement. Map 386 00:18:50.680 --> 00:18:53.799 making was less a computation than a ceremony. We tracked 387 00:18:53.839 --> 00:18:57.200 down an urban planet. Jasper mid thirties elegantly dshevl who 388 00:18:57.240 --> 00:18:59.279 wore a tie like a leash someone had slipped off. 389 00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:03.440 Oh a lunch, Jasper waived off our growing files. Neighborhood 390 00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:06.279 measurements always take artistical license. Every old city is like this, 391 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:10.400 rounded corners, food factors, no maps perfect, he shrugged, folding 392 00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:13.119 gome let us into his mouth. What matters is the 393 00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:16.319 official version. That's what gets built, and everyone behaves accordingly. 394 00:19:16.359 --> 00:19:18.440 Next year someone will draw a new one, fix half 395 00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:21.240 the old mistakes, and start the whole process again. Easier 396 00:19:21.240 --> 00:19:24.440 to think of that as poetry than science, really, he smiled, 397 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:27.359 then grew thoughtful. I suppose if you kept updating it 398 00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:29.960 forever and everyone believed it enough, the real city might 399 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:32.519 move to match, or else our memories would, which is 400 00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:35.359 just as good. Were city plannings concerned, He grinned at 401 00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:37.640