the timboucher experience

However, the true nature of maps is one of distortion, beginning with their projections of three-dimensional surfaces onto two-dimensional frames, and compounded by territorialization, a habit of identifying, naming and claiming. Maps are image-objects in which different conceptions and configurations of time and space are created, not just charted.

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In my haste to make other points last night, I forgot to tell the story of what actually happened when we went inside the World War I Memorial Bldg. It was great. I wasn’t sure what was in this building, other than supposedly a civic mural in grand style dedicated to the lives lost in the Great War. Armed with rumored knowledge, we walked in like something out of the Da Vinci Code.

“We heard there was a mural in here…” I said to a very nice woman who greeted us by the door, who kindly offered to show it to us.

“There’s another one upstairs,” she said as she pointed us down a hall to a bizarre psychedelic/historical painting which hung on the wall in two long panels. I looked down at the corner, Hieronimus ‘76. Must be another Dr. Bob piece. This guy has been haunting me in spacetime a little bit lately. Not in a bad way, references just keep coming up. I was actually really into Dr. Bob’s painting, but it was not quite what I had anticipated after seeing the grandeur of the War Memorial Bldg. It’s quite a marvelous facade - looks like some kind of ancient temple from the outside. One of those places that the mytho-fantastic side of my brain always makes me want to believe that they practice strange rites secretly inside of…

Finally, we found our helpful lady again and asked about the upstairs mural. She was more than happy to help us, and even went and retrieved a tour guide for us: an ex-military man who knew a hell of a lot about the history of the building. The cornerstone of the bldg (I’ll get to that in a second) was laid in 1923 to great fanfare, as these things often go. The masons are typically there, according to my friend who has been researching cornerstones lately. Human interactions with the land seem to require many ceremonial transactions to propiate the human and extra-human orders which sustain lasting material forms: blessings and ceremonies, designs and inspections. He kept cursing, the military man. Damn nice though. He unlocked a massive set of doors and lead us up darkened steps into the foyer of a magnificent hall. You could hear it in the darkness, the rich slabs of marble. A bit of dancing light caught my eye from over my shoulder. I turned suddenly and caught my breath at the reveal of a gigantic American flag hanging over a candle or flame which obviously stays lit whether or not the great room is in use.

As the lights come on, I realize that downstage of the ritual flag area is a podium and, well, a stage with many seats facing. A hundred or more I would estimate (and downstairs there is an assembly room, which is also a beautiful location, though hardly as grand), with PA speakers lined along either side. Flanking the gathering are decorative inscriptions in stone of the names of Maryland’s many counties along with a list of her dead from each. Behind the stage the main wall contains the much more massive scroll of those honored dead whose sacrifice is still remembered in this civic temple.

At the end with the stairs, where we entered, a humongous war mural overlooks the hall. Semi-nude soldiers from each branch of the service in quasi-Greek poses. People with wings and swords and things. The narrator for the BMA’s monument tour noted in the segment on the plaza upon which this magnificent building overlooks [street view - Obama spoke there earlier this year] said something to the effect of: you’d never see such lavish expenditure spent in memorial nowadays for veterans of un-popular wars like Iraq or Afghanistan. Been thinking about this a lot lately: that we haven’t had a really completely unarguably “righteous” war since WWII. I’m not saying we haven’t fought or stood behind some legitimate causes, but nothing like the great moral purpose and drama which unfolded at that moment in history. Our conflicts now as a people are of an entirely different order. Nothing so grandiose besets us, so much as billionaires and banks and governments up to their old tricks… Our identity as a collective is held upon this idealized image of ourselves as a people. That notion isn’t quite so celebrated nowadays as it once was. Why exactly? I’m curious to trace its demise, probe what changed at exactly what point in history to set us on our current course…

Which is what makes this building so interesting to me. According to our guide, funds for this facility are covered half by the state and half by the federal government. Veterans groups get to use it rent free. In the lobby down below are many military artifacts, some cool models and displays. Off in any direction are a variety of rooms used by the resident groups. Everything was really clean, well kept, and everyone in there was really nice and generous with their time and energy discussing the history of the place with us. It seemed to me, very much a temple after all - perhaps something after the classical Greek tradition even that its architecturally modeled upon…

We began asking about the cornerstone of the building and did our guide know where it was. He said no, but took us down into another smaller chamber off to one side, a locked door named after an African-American judge. He lead us in warmly indicating, “There’s some cool shit in here.” Across the room was a black and white photo of the cornerstone being laid, fifth level. From the photo, we were able to deduce which side of the building it was one, and he took us out and showed it to us. There it was, the numerals MCMXXIII etched in one block with expert precision: 1923. Mission accomplished.

I mentioned that we’d heard cornerstones sometimes contained time capsules. Our guide said he’d read all the historical documents and manifests for the location and that he’d never seen anything to indicate they put anything in the cornerstone. My friend, however, had seen one at the police station which was dug up from the old station and the contents were on display.

“Don’t tell me that,” he said laughing.

“Next thing you know, the homeless people will be over here trying to pry it out.”

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