photographed in Cozumel, Mexico on July 26, 2008

When, after our journey, we reached the brink of the canyon, to drop down into the valley, pass over the lowlands, and settle ourselves comfortably in camp under the shadow of the old stockade fort by the river, was a matter of but a few hours. There we waited fro the afternoon shadows to lengthen and the evening to come, when off we went up the stream for five or six miles to a spot where some mighty forest monarchs with huge, bare, spreading limbs had caught the eye of one of our sporting scouts in the afternoon. Leaving our horses half a mile from the place, we walked silently among the river bank through the jungle to the roosting trees, where we scattered, and each man secreted himself as best he could in the underbrush, or in a hollow stump, or in the reeds of the river itself. The sun was setting, and over the hills and from the lowlands came the echoes of the familiar gobble, gobble, gobble, as each strutting, foolishly proud cock headed his admiring family for the roost, after their day’s feeding on the uplands.

Excerpted from Hunting Trips of a Ranchman by Theodore Roosevelt. Published by P.F. Collier & Son, New York, 1885.

photographed in Horse Cave, Kentucky on October 15, 2007

The tobacco war, which has raged intermittently and recently with increasing bitterness in Kentucky and Tennessee, presents many interesting topics for study; for it has developed a condition of lawlessness for which state authority has been unable to find a cure; it has shown all the faults of demagogic leadership and ignorant acceptance of wrong teaching, which animate the worst of our anarchists; it has shown how easily our apparently law-abiding communities may be thrown into disorder; but most of all it has given us the possibilities of rural pooling and some of the developments that may be expected of it.

This Kentucky lesson is one every American should take to heart as something which will aid him to understand a situation with which we will have to deal. The American farmer may be slow in coming to an idea; but when he grasps it he clings to it with determination. The American Society of Equity, which is his present means of pooling and combining his crops, may go the way of all other pools and combines among farmers; but it is a step in advance of all the others and the forerunner of stronger pools in which the crop-growers will year after year demand definite prices for their crops, unless some solution of their troubles be found by government.

Excerpted from ‘Agrarian Pooling in Kentucky’ by John L. Mathews. Appearing in Charities and the Commons, vol. XX. Published by The Charity Organization Society, New York, 1908.

photographed in Manhattan, New York on February 13, 2010

A business man went forth to sow advertisements, and as he sowed some fell by the wayside (sign-boards on fences), and the sun and fog faded some of them so that they could not be read; others were torn down and used to kindle fires by the “Knights of the Road.” Some fell among thorns (advertising columns containing questionable ads), and these sprang up and choked them. Some fell on stony ground (sample copy editions), and these bore some fruit, but because they had no paid circulation they soon ceased their usefulness. Others fell on good ground (reputable newspapers of known circulation), and brought forth paying results — some a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty. Moral: Sow your seed in the fertile advertising columns of journals of known circulation, whose advertising as well as reading columns inspires the confidence of readers.

The full text of ‘Parable of the Sower (Revised),’ a letter to the editor by W.D. Curtis of Los Angeles. Appearing in Printers’ Ink, A Journal for Advertisers, published in New York on June 17, 1896.

photographed on November 12, 2010 in Manhattan, New York

Fourthly, the sacred monkey totem is very dear to the young. Many myths point to a special relationship that monkeys have with young people that does not appear immediately in myth. The monkey is entertainer, magician, clown and storyteller. The children trust the monkey and enjoy the fact that many of them look very much like human-beings. In some regions of the world, this aspect of the sacred monkey totem is exploited and toys, media, books, movies and more that is focus on children use the monkey mascot to guide the process of learning or diversion. The reasons behind this are obscure, but it is clear by my reading that the sacred monkey totem is sometimes found interacting with small children.

Excerpted from Sako Ma: A Look at the Sacred Monkey Totem by Matomah Alesha. Published by MATAM Press, Tuscon, Arizona, 2004.

photographed in Salem, Massachusetts on October 30, 2010

The Custom House which looks down at Derby Wharf awakes from its drowsy idleness to record the entries of a few lumber-laden schooners from Nova Scotia. Built in 1819, when the tide of Salem commerce had begun to ebb, its classic and pillared bulk recalls the comment of its most famous officer, Nathaniel Hawthorne: “It was intended to accommodate a hoped-for increase in the commercial prosperity of the place, hopes destined never to be realized, and was built a world too large for any necessary purpose.”

Yet in the records left by these vanished generations of seamen; in the aspect of the stately mansions built from the fortunes won from their ships; in the atmosphere of the old wharves and streets there has been preserved, as if caught in amber, the finished story of one of the most romantic and high-hearted periods of American achievement.

Excerpted from ‘Old Salem Ships and Sailors’ by Ralph D. Paine. Appearing in Outing magazine, published January 1908 by the Wheelman Company, Boston.

photographed in Subway Connecting Tunnels, New York, New York on November 12, 2010

As I conducted my research, I started to realize that New York City had its own unique set of challenges that made its subway system impossible to accurately and clearly map using just a diagrammatic method, as other cities like London, Paris, and Tokyo had done. It was also clear that a pure topographic mapping approach wouldn’t work, either; New York’s unique geography and its gridiron street system both have an impact on mapping its subway system …

Consider the L line in Brooklyn. As a passenger on the train, you’re jostled around as you travel and you don’t really noticed that the line is curving or turning corners along major streets and intersections. But when you get out at the Graham Avenue station, for instance, it’s obvious that Metropolitan Avenue and Bushwick Avenue are two major thoroughfares that intersect each other at a right angle. Why wouldn’t that show up on the map? If you didn’t know how the streets intersected and you just saw a sign for one or the other as you came out of the subway, it would be very difficult to figure out what was going on.

Excerpted from ‘Mapping Information: Redesigning the New York City Subway Map’ by Eddie Jabbour, as told to Julie Steele. Appearing in Beautiful Visualization: Looking at Data Through the Eyes of Experts, edited by Julie Steele and Noah Iliinsky. Published by O’Reilly Media, Sebastopol, California, 2010.

photographed in Brooklyn, New York on July 3, 2010

There are about a billion reasons that prompted me to prepare a second edition of this book. Specifically, about a billion CDs are sold every year, and the number is still climbing. Exceeding the expectations of even its most ardent supporters (like me), the compact disc has become one of the most successful consumer electronics products ever introduced. The eager worldwide marketplace has encouraged rapid development of CD technology and spawned entirely new applications for the dimpled disc. If you read a magazine article or two on CD a few years back, and you think you’re up to speed on the disc, you’re sadly mistaken …

Finally I should note that I am increasingly encouraged by the conversations I overhear in record stores these days. Hardly anyone still confuses CDs with LPs, partly because consumers are more knowledgeable of digital audio technology and partly because LPs have all but vanished. Of course, I would never take schadenfreude delight in analog technology’s quick demise, heh, heh.

Excerpted from The Compact Disc Handbook, 2nd Edition, by Ken C. Pohlmann. Published by A-R Editions, Inc., Madison, Wisconsin, 1992.

photographed in Salem, Massachusetts on October 30, 2010

There were pumpkins in Mombi’s corn-fields, lying golden red among the rows of green stalks; and these had been planted and carefully tended that the four-horned cow might eat of them in the winter time. But one day, after the corn had all been cut and stacked, and Tip was carrying the pumpkins to the stable, he took a notion to make a “Jack Lantern” and try to give the old woman a fright with it.

So he selected a fine, big pumpkin — one with a lustrous, orange-red color — and began carving it. With the point of his knife he made two round eyes, a three-cornered nose, and a mouth shaped like a new moon. The face, when completed, could not have been considered strictly beautiful; but it wore a smile so big and broad, and was so jolly in expression, that even Tip laughed as he looked admiringly at his work.

Excerpted from The Land of Oz, the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman by L. Frank Baum. Published by the Reilly & Lee Company, Chicago, 1904.

photographed at the Hofbräuhaus München on September 29, 2009

As early as the Fifteenth century the brewers assumed an important position among the tradespeople of the town. In the year 1500 there were already twelve beer breweries in Munich. In 1800 a consumption of 50,000 kilderkins was calculated for the summer months alone, and for the year 150,000 kilderkins, according to which it averaged three kilderkins a head, for the population at that time of 40,500. The “Einbeck” beer, called later “Bock” and brewed only by the Hof, was sold for two months beginning on Ascension Day 300 years ago. The Hofbrauhaus, as I said, is the most frequented beer house in Munich, and the beer is regarded as the best, but the old primitive placed has been renewed and and looks most respectable, the Hobrauhaus rebuilt and brought somewhat to date. The rooms, however, are still furnished in the style of the time of its foundation, and are decorated with paintings. Deer’s head adorn the antechamber in the first story. Passing through this room we come to the large hall with a vaulted roof and Gothic windows, allegories and mottoes on the walls between the windows, and at the ends symbolical mural paintings. From the roof are suspended chandeliers with electric light. In the entresol there is a richly decorated “Trinkstube,” and everywhere one meets an air of mediaeval grace with modern comfort.

Excerpted from The Mixer and Server, Official Journal of the Hotel and Restaurant Employes’ [sic] International Alliance, volume XX, edited by Jere L. Sullivan. Published by Roessler Brothers, Cincinnati, 1911.

photographed in Greenwich, Connecticut on September 25, 2010

The Golden Eagle, although a permanent resident in the United States, is of rare occurrence, it being seldom that one sees more than a pair or two in the course of a year, unless he be an inhabitant of the mountains, or of the large plains spread out at their base. I have seen a few of them on the wing along the shores of the Hudson, others on the upper parts of the Mississippi, some along the Alleghenies, and a pair in the State of Maine. At Labrador we saw an individual sailing, at the height of a few yards, over the moss-covered surface of the dreary rocks.

Although possessed of a powerful flight it has not the speed of many Hawks, nor even the White-headed Eagle. It cannot, like the latter, pursue and seize on the wing the prey it longs for, but is obliged to glide down through the air for a certain height to insure the success of its enterprise. The keenness of its eye, however, makes up for this defect, and enables it to spy, at a great distance, the objects on which it preys; and it seldom misses its aim, as it falls with the swiftness of a meteor towards the spot on which they are concealed. When at a great height in the air, its gyrations are uncommonly beautiful, being slow and of wide circuit, and becoming the majesty of the king of the birds. It often continues them for hours at a time, with apparently the greatest ease.

Excerpted from The Birds of America from Drawings Made in the United States, Volume I, by John James Audubon. Published by J.J. Audubon, New York, 1840.