For reasons we needn’t go into, I was thinking about Dusty Springfield. I looked her up on Wikipedia and found this sentence; ‘She enjoyed reading maps and would intentionally get lost to navigate her way out.[11]’ Now there’s a thing.
The footnote directs you to, Kort, Michele (1999). "The Secret Life of Dusty Springfield". The Advocate. Liberation Publications (Thomson Corporation Company). Retrieved 2 July 2012.
In the article you’ll find this, ‘DUSTY SPRINGFIELD LOVED MAPS. She liked to curl up in bed with an atlas and could follow a road map with a navigator's elan. "She was a good person to be lost with," her longtime friend and manager Vicki Wickham has said.’
Do navigators display elan? Not the ones I've met, but let let's not argue, The article continues, ‘Perhaps the certainty of maps, with their solid boundaries and clearly marked destinations, comforted a woman who had to carve her own path through the pop-music jungle for nearly 40 years.’
You see, I don’t think you have to be a psychogeographic theorist to realize that most maps DON’T contains certainties, solid boundaries and clearly marked destinations. Many of them are incredibly inscrutable. That’s one reason why we like them.
And then the Advocate article completely loses its way, ‘But while living in Los Angeles she seemed to misplace her atlas, maps, and all sense of personal geography. America had seemed like a dream to her, but it bred nightmares too.’
I can’t tell you whether Dusty was much of a walker. The pictures scattered around this post suggest she did do a certain amount of walking, in parks, with dogs, on roofs, and it’s worth noting that one album of her greatest hits was called ‘Walk On By’ – make what you will of that.
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