When I first came across the photograph in 2006, I knew it would probably be stored somewhere in the photographic databases of Getty Images. After last month’s publication of the photograph in the Washington Post, it looks like the photograph was also republished on the website of Life Magazine. According to wikipedia, Getty Images and Life Magazine joined forces in March of 2009 and now jointly share some of their combined photo collections on Life.com.

---

Text of the Letter:

A D.C. protester garbles the garb
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Nikolas Schiller seems to lack a clear understanding of the history of the District of Columbia ["Hats off to D.C. statehood," the Reliable Source, Nov. 19]. He wears “Colonial” garb to make the point that, in his words, “the status of D.C. residents has not changed since Colonial times.” But there was, of course, no District of Columbia in colonial times. There was a city of Georgetown, in Maryland.

Mr. Schiller also needs a new costume consultant. His coat is cut incorrectly, and I hope he doesn’t really wear German lederhosen, as he said, but rather correctly cut knee breeches when he isn’t wearing blue jeans.

Ann Wass, Riverdale

---

I’ll have a reply in the afternoon. In the meantime, the Latin Phrase of the Day is Ad Hominem.

When I got back home from yesterday’s hearing I wrote my friend at the Washington Post the following e-mail:

Last night a friend of mine from college, Andrew Wiseman, left a message on my Facebook wall saying that he saw the map I made on Current TV. Knowing that I had met the film crew back in June of this year at the 18th Street Lounge, I was expecting the show to eventually broadcast. Earlier today the full show was uploaded to YouTube:

Around 18 minutes into the episode, while Eric Hilton and Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation are at the record shop Som Records (about 4 blocks from my house), Rob picks up the record Supreme Illusion, which I licensed Pentagon Quilt and Lower Manhattan Quilt as the cover artwork.

If you don’t want to watch the entire show, you can skip to 50 second mark on this truncated version of the show:

Last month I posted the photograph above in my entry about adding some political commentary to the area around the Real World DC house in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC. This morning a friend of mine left a somewhat cryptic comment on my Facebook page telling me to check section E6 in today’s Washington Post. I ran downstairs, opened the paper up, and let out out a hearty laugh.

Transcribed near the end of Dan Zak’s article, Neighborhood Watch: MTV Is in the House, and Everyone Else Just Wants to Be, is the text of my sign:

Reality Bites

Sometime in July, a sign is posted on the base of the lamppost on the northeast corner of the intersection. In simple black lettering on a plain white background, it reads, one word per line:

IN
THE
REAL
WORLD
ALL
AMERICANS
DESERVE
FULL
REPRESENTATION
IN
CONGRESS.

In the next section of the article there is choice quote from some teenagers from Maryland:

“It’s been 23 years. . . . D.C. is a treasure. . . . They’ve been to New York, like, five times. . . . It’s the capital. . . . It’ll be a really good representation of the city. . . . I talked to the cast before and they’re really down to earth.”

(underline added for emphasis of the Congressional lack thereof)

While I was not identified as the creator of the sign, even though a simple Google Search would have brought the author to my website, and the author only mentioned that there was one sign (there are 8 still up last time I counted), I’m very pleased that my sign was mentioned in today’s article. In that respect, the ten dollars spent making those signs & purchasing the wheatpaste was completely validated— my message made it into the Washington Post. But the real question is if the message will make the cut and be mentioned in any of the episodes set to air on MTV in 2010?

---

Since the sign(s) has been up now for just about a month, I figure its time to remove them and put up something new. I already have the next flyer made, but I’m debating if I should put them up or not. The flyer is a bit over the top, but well, umm, so are most of the people mentioned in the article. But unlike the ones who actually give two shits about the show, my aim is not to get in the house or hang out with the cast (I really could care less about that), but to use their presence in Washington, DC as a vehicle to get out the larger message of DC residents being second class citizens denied representation in Congress.

---

Click on the screen grab below to read the last page of the article:

What’s interesting about the text on-line versus the text in the printed article is that there is extra space between lines of the poster in the on-line version captured above. These extra line breaks actually make the point of the poster appear more important on-line than it does in the print edition, which does not feature extra line breaks. But since the print edition of the Washington Post is not delivered outside of the Washington, DC area, this typographical difference carries significantly more weight on-line than in print. In that respect, I must thank the web editor at the Washington Post for giving the text of my sign a little bit more emphasis than it would otherwise have received if it were identical to the print edition.

---

UPDATE – After I posted this entry, I went back to the Washington Post website and found that the poster was briefly shown at the beginning of the video portion of the article:

This morning after I returned home from picking up my morning beverage, I was approached by Jennifer Donelan, a reporter for WJLA ABC7, who was doing a story about the recent up tick in crime in my neighborhood. She asked if I’d be willing to be interviewed and, surprisingly, I made the edit and show up about 50 seconds into the segment.

About a month ago, at probably the height of the car break-ins, I conceived the idea of doing a photo series of nothing but broken glass on the street & sidewalk. It seemed that nearly every day I would walk by a car with a smashed window and I felt compelled to document this travesty. But alas, I never seemed to have my camera with me when I needed it and the concept has since fallen by the wayside.

---

Related Crime Entries:

In today’s Weekend section of the Washington Post there is an article titled Artomatic ‘09: Survival Tips From an Expert*. In the article staff writer Michael O’Sullivan follows around Phillip Barlow, one of the DC area’s biggest art collectors, and asks him questions about how to go about exploring the 9 floors of art at Artomatic.

Near the end of the article Michael O’Sullivan writes:

Okay, spill it: So who does the collector like? Barlow wouldn’t give a Top 10 list or even a favorite floor. But he did express interest in — or lingered longingly in front of — the work of several artists. Here’s a partial list of his favorites:

Floor 9: Jessica Van Brakle.

Floor 8: Jared Davis, Nikolas R. Schiller.

Floor 7: Jeremy Arn.

Floor 6: Jen Dixon.

Floor 5: Mark Jude, Meinir Wyn Jones, Stephen Reveley, Michael Enn Sirvet, Steve Strawn.

Floor 2: Drew Graham, Kate McGovern.

Still, Barlow cautions against using his taste alone as a guide, adding that the secret to Artomatic’s success is volume, volume, volume. “There’s just so much stuff here that I can practically guarantee that something’s going to be new or interesting,” he says. “To someone.”

Read the entire article here. I plan on stopping by Artomatic this evening around 7pm. Maybe I will see you there?

---

* This article’s title in the print edition is different from the on-line edition. The print edition is titled Artomatic ‘09: Survival Tips From an Expert while the on-line edition is titled Annual Artomatic Show Exhibits the Works of More Than 1,000 Artists.

---

Related Artomatic Entries:

Hoyer Says He Will Soon Bring Bill to House Floor

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 28, 2009; Page B03

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer vowed yesterday to hold a vote “in the very near future” on legislation that would give the District a full voting seat in Congress.

“As majority leader, I tell you I intend to bring that bill to the floor,” Hoyer (D-Md.) told the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. He criticized Washington’s status, saying the city is “the only capital in the free world whose citizens do not have a voting member of their parliament.”

The hearing marked the first step in the bill’s path through Congress. It drew an overflow crowd to the wood-paneled room, including the measure’s sponsor, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and numerous activists — one in a purple colonial-style coat and a tricorn hat.

These photos were taken in 2006 in the same room where representatives were discussing the same unconstitutional bill.

Its sad that while times have changed, my colonial status has not…

Related Colonist Entries:

This morning after I woke up and turned on the TV, I noticed that someone in the background was holding up one of the “Yes We Can – DC Statehood Now!” posters (above). I decided remove my poster from the window and head down to the Mall to see if I could join the person. After I arrived it turned out that the person had already left, but fortunately the crowd was pretty thin around filming area and I was able to go right up to the fence and hold up my sign. Around 10am David Shuster went outside and interviewed different people around the fence and eventually came up to me. He let me speak about DC statehood for about 15 seconds on live TV! It was quite rewarding to say the least! I ended up staying around the fence holding up the sign for the next 3 hours and left when I started to get hungry. I hope to get the footage shortly and when I do, I’ll post it here.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a friend asking if I knew who was behind the “1/3 Representation Please” poster that has been showing up around town. I responded by stating that I did not know who the person was and sent the friend the two links related to poster. In the response e-mail it was then suggested that I contact the show to further the dialogue. So before the show started I decided to e-mail Kojo Nnamdi with the license plate above and the D.C. flag redesign as attachments and state for the record that I was NOT behind the poster or its placement around town.

The executive director of DC Vote, Ilir Zherka, was the guest on the show during the voting rights segment. Through the years he & I have had a very turbid relationship. We have a differing opinion on the 1/3 representation route his organization is advocating. During the show I paid close attention to his words and realized that he is not advocating for statehood at all, which is very sad because more DC residents want statehood and not fractional representation. During the show’s dialogue, the subject of president-elect Barack Obama changing the license plates on his limousine comes up….

Click here to listen to an MP3 of today’s show. The clip starts out with Zherka speaking about Obama changing the plates, then Tom Sherwood throws in a little bit of history, followed a question from Sommer Mathis, editor of one of my favorite DC blogs- DCist, then Kojo brings up my license plate, and Ilir Zherka responds….

Of note is that he states that his organization is already preparing for a court challenge if the bill his organization is advocating for gets passed in the House or Senate. Frankly I find this both sad and frustrating. Sad because they are knowingly trying to advance a bill that is not constitutional– only STATES can receive representation in the House or Senate. This is also frustrating because it only delays the equality for the residents of the America’s capital city. They could easily be advocating a new bill using a new strategy because there is a new congress, but they are still pushing for a piece of sub-par legislation that will be struck down on constitutional grounds.

After the show Kojo had an on-line chat in which I participated in. Below is the text from the chat:

QST magazine is the most widely read Amateur Radio publication in the country. Since 1915, QST has been delivering the latest news and practical information from the world of Amateur Radio. In September I was contacted about supplying a map similar to the one in the photograph above for an upcoming advertisement in the magazine. While I didn’t have the original map shown above, I was able to print a copy of my “New Blaeu” map for Brian Wood of the DZ Company. The advertisement below is featured in the December edition of QST Magazine on page 150. If you see it on the newsstands, please pick up a copy! Click the advertisement below to be taken to www.dzkit.com

---

Related Antique Entries:

---

---

The Quart Bag group art show that I wrote about the other day is happening tonight. If you are in the DC area, I hope you come & check it out.

My piece at the JCC is mentioned in an article in today’s Washington Jewish Weekly:

The piece by D.C. resident Nikolas Schiller portrays the Palestinian refugees’ perspective and, he says, “dissent.” He is dissenting from the 1993 map of Israel and the Palestinian territories, upon which he based his kaleidoscope image, because he sees it as “biased” in showing the territories in stripes, he says.

He also has included an image of Handala, an iconic Palestinian cartoon that he found on the Internet, on the map. Handala, which means “bitterness” in Arabic, “represents the abused Palestinian refugees,” he says.

I don’t remember saying the word “abused” the entire time I spoke with the reporter, but I’ll let it slide.

Read the entire article:

I was able to extract Teresa Mendez’s 90 second audio segment from the Christian Science Monitor’s website. I uploaded it to my website for archival purposes. You can listen to her talk about the Festival of Maps in Chicago and my Lenz Projection.

Click here to download the 90 second MP3.

A little over a week ago I noticed that Teresa Mendez article from the Christian Science Monitor had been syndicated in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and ABC News.

Today I found that the article was syndicated again on December 30th, 2007 on quite a few NPR affiliates, including the one I used to listen to when I was young (KWMU 90.3) and, curiously, even in Taiwan.

Screen grabs below:

It looks like my ‘oil slick’ overlay of downtown Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Interchange Series are getting some exposure.

Some day I’d like to have the entire series printed and hung in Los Angeles and maybe include a gilded bicycle [ha!]. I wonder why there isn’t a Curbed DC yet?

Teresa Méndez article from the Christian Science Monitor was syndicated on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. According to wikipedia, Sunday’s circulation is a little over 500,000 papers and this article appeared right before Christmas (when there are a lot of house guests). Unlike David Montgomery’s article, Teresa’s was not edited very much upon syndication, but her’s is a shorter article in wordage.

A couple weeks ago I spotted the article syndicated on the ABC News website (screen grab below), but I still don’t know how the article was ultimately used. It was written for newspapers and ABC News is broadcast news, so did it appear on a TV segment? I doubt it. ABC News probably just paid to have the article syndicated on their website to get more advertising dollars.

For both ABC News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the editors included my URL in the story, but unlike the Christian Science Monitor article, neither hyper-linked the URL, so I don’t know how many direct visitors my website received because of the article’s syndication. This is very annoying and I wished the web editors of the respective news organizations would do a better job with their on-line articles.

Regardless, what I like best about this syndication is that while the Christian Science Monitor article contains a 90 second audio report by the author, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a robot that will read the entire article for you.

On March 26, 2007, the Philadelphia Inquirer published David Montgomery’s Here Be Dragons article. That morning I received a phone call from one of my best friends who happened to be in Philadelphia on business. He excitedly informed me that one of my maps was on the cover of a section in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I asked him to purchase as many copies as possible and about a month later I picked up the six copies from his house. My housemate let me borrow his camera to take an overhead photograph of the two newspaper articles side by side. When the housemate moved out a few months ago he gave me all of his photographs that he had on his computer and I found this photograph that I had forgotten about. What I found to be the most interesting aspect is the size of the map that was used in Philadelphia, the change of the article’s name, the movement from “Style” to “Health & Science.” I’ve tried to track down other syndications, but so far only the Philadelphia Inquirer has been obtained. The article itself has already been deaccessioned from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website.

Related In The News Entries:

Exactly 9 months to the day after David Montgomery’s article in the Washington Post was published, Teresa Mendez writes a great piece about maps and she includes section about me:

__snippet__[with links added]

They are artists such as Ms. Contro and the 11 others featured in “The Legend Altered: Maps as Method and Medium,” the Carrie Secrist Gallery exhibition. And they are artists such as Nikolas Schiller.

Except Mr. Schiller hesitates when asked to define what he does. Is the young D.C. resident, profiled earlier this year on the cover of The Washington Post Style section, an artist? Is he a mapmaker?

“I make pretty maps or artistic maps,” he says, searching for the right description, “or boutique maps.” He finally settles on “conceptual cartographer.”

Schiller takes US Geological Survey aerial photographs and plays with them.

“The Quilt Projection” which his website (www.nikolasschiller.com) calls “A Journey Through Geometric Geography” is his most prolific series. It consists of 350 images that look less like maps and more like something you might see peering through a kaleidoscope.

There are the “quilted” neighborhoods of Mount Vernon in Baltimore, Md., and Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan. There is George Washington University in D.C., which Schiller attended for a time, and the University of Texas at Austin. Look close enough and you can identify familiar landmarks: streets, parks, a monument. But step back and the tessellation makes for a wonderfully abstract mosaic.

Schiller’s work is a way to see the world anew, to be an explorer when nearly every corner of the earth has previously been combed.

“With the world already charted and mapped,” he says, “geospatial art allows you to discover it all over again.”

Schiller is something of a curator of maps. He can point one to websites of antique maps, industry maps, and calendars detailing map exhibits around the world. The Internet, it would seem, abounds with cartograms. Twice, he mentions the Waldseemueller Map.

Also included on the Christian Science Monitor’s website is a 90 second audio report filed by the author. She talks about my Lenz Projection and how it was developed.