Revising Humbead’s Revised Map of the World: Taking a Virtual Folk Music World Into Virtual Reality

Authors

Michael Kramer, SUNY Brockport

Document Type

Research Abstract

Abstract

Humbead’s Revised Map of the World reimagines the globe from the perspective of the West Coast folk scene and merging hippie counterculture. First printed in 1968, with subsequent iterations produced in 1969 and 1970, it was created by Rick Shubb and Earl Crabb, two Bay Area folk music aficionados. Like Saul Steinberg’s famous New Yorker magazine cover View of the World from 9th Avenue, published in 1976, Humbead’s is meant to be a funny artifact that cartographically distorts Euclidean space and Mercator projection in order to suggest a more accurate “mattering map.” It presents a folk pangea in which centers of the folk revival border each other while the “rest of the world” is a tiny island off to the side. Numerous other gags and in-jokes appear on the map. Around its edges, it also contains over 800 names in its “population,” some expected, others quite surprising, some famous, others obscure.

Recommended Citation

Kramer, Michael (2021) "Revising Humbead’s Revised Map of the World: Taking a Virtual Folk Music World Into Virtual Reality," Frameless: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 16.
Available at: https://repository.rit.edu/frameless/vol4/iss1/16