Ethereal Cartography by $c4ngel@++
June 1st, 2011 4:38 PMMahagonny is probably one of my favorite operas, and has some personal resonance for me, which isn't terribly important for critical purposes. Weill's music is really exciting. Additionally, I'm really drawn to the rancor, fraud, ugliness, and bad luck in a lot of Brecht's stories. All of the characters are such scumbags, I love it. Some more notable songs from the opera are "Alabama Song" which The Doors popularized and "Havana Lied."
Here's a clip from La Fura del Baus's revival last summer. I personally would've given an arm and leg to see it.
Brecht's sense for American geography was pretty awful: Mahagonny was somehow between Pensacola and also part of California's gold rush, but also not too far from Alaska. I went for a street level view in colored pencil.
The Untidy Workstation
The Map of Mahagonny
The map, which includes the Do It Tavern, Rich Man's Hotel, and public gallows, mentioned in Brecht's libretto. I fabricated a few other settings that would be appropriate for Mahagonny, like the convention center.
10 vote(s)
Lincøln
3
Samantha
3
Ombwah
4
Not Here No More
2
relet 裁判長
3
Dela Dejavoo
4
Pixie
4
the trace
4
twine
4
Idøntity matrix
Terms
(none yet)2 comment(s)
Hi mad,
The positions on the map are more or less indicated in some scenes, and other locations were inferred from the songs. For example, there's a boxing match between Trinity Moses and Alaska Wolf Joe, so I put a boxing gym on my map.
The local economy revolves around drinking whiskey, prostitution, and gambling, so I thought there should be some bars. I added one brothel because Mahagonny is a bit crooked, and I thought it would be very frustrating to have one brothel with rather high fees, which is vaguely hinted at in "Havanna Lied."
I took some license with the Greyhound Bus Station and Convention Center, which are pretty contemporary allusions. Convention centers always seem really seedy and like the perfect metaphor for capitalism/development/imperialism/business tourism. Maybe I'm the only person with these prejudices: I could elaborate, but don't want to get too wind-baggy on my first task. Every town in the south has a Greyhound, and I liked the contrast of wealth and desperation.
I think you bring up some good points about it not being a very functional map. I was a bit in between, and just went for it rather than having a super clear idea. I used to travel a lot more; so I was inspired by really awful free tourist maps that you get at the airport, the kind that have giant icons for malls, where to get private tour buses, and where the Ripley's Believe It or Not! is, but don't give you any helpful information.
I also like the idea of there being an unreliable map for Mahagonny, since it's a generally unreliable sort of place. There have been a few revivals of the opera in Europe recently. A lot of the printed material compares the town with Miami, but to me it seems more like an alternate version of Biloxi or Louisville than a larger city, which in turn influenced the size of my map.
Cheers,
ar
I like the setting. As a person working for a mapping authority, I have to mention that the main purpose of a map is for people to get an orientation on where they are and how they get to that other point.
Your map is missing some important clues here. Street names for example and names of other recognizable areas of interest. Maybe a compass rose for those who have their bearings right.
I would also be interested to hear how exactly you mapped the locations on the map to the positions you gave them.