RECKONING - Maphead - page 98

profile, like Tolkien's Mirk-wood. I later learned that Renaissance-era popes used the hall
as an anteroom—while waiting for an audience with His Holiness, visitors were meant to
beponderingtheextentofhisearthlyinfluence,aswellashisheavenlyleverage.Theround
orb that traditionally accompanies the scepter and other regalia in a monarch's crown jew-
els is a symbol of the globe, reminding subjects that their king or queen literally holds the
whole world in his or her hands. † In the twentieth century, a newly independent country
would proudly publish its own national atlas as a sign that it had shrugged off the shackles
of colonialism.
Whether you're King Louis XVI or a bewildered modern-day seventh-grader, maps
providethatsamesenseofconfidenceandownership,thatGod's-eyevantageontheworld.
Lilly Gaskin likes playing with maps, but she doesn't really know yet that they represent
places. These kids do know, and that's what sharpens their enthusiasm. “On a map, you
can see the whole expanse, even though you're only in one part of it,” Caitlin Snaring told
me. “You know where you're going next.” Mary Lee Elden has noticed that the best geo-
graphy bee contestants often come from small towns. The kids from Manhattan or L.A. or
Washington already think the world revolves around them; it's the ones from Minocqua,
Wisconsin, or Flagstaff, Arizona, who are so ravenously driven to connect to the faraway
places they see on maps.
At the picnic, the light is almost gone, the cookies are almost gone, and the bee parents
gather up their kids. The last thing I see before I board my bus back to D.C. is William
Johnston and Benjamin Salman, the two architects of imaginary nations, walking together
in the twilight, their heads down, talking seriously and animatedly to each other. I have a
feeling that the game of plonk is about to arrive on the shores of Alambia.
I expect to hear the familiar National Geographic TV trumpet fanfare the next morning
as I walk through the doors of the society's headquarters between L and M Streets. That's
how “National Geographic” the lobby is: big wise yellow rectangles looming above me on
the window glass like the monolith in 2001, a bathysphere and a sculpture of a silverback
gorilla on exhibit to my right, Egyptian hieroglyphics and coral reef photos on the elevator
doors. The hall outside Grosvenor Auditorium, * where the finals will be held, has a ceiling
pricked with artificial stars, re-creating the constellations as they appeared on the night of
January 27, 1888, when the society was founded.
I take a moment to chat with the parents of Eric Yang of Texas, who made an early mis-
takeinBenjaminSalman'sroomduringtheprelimsbutbouncedbacktomakethefinals.A
decadeago,theYangsemigratedfromSingapore,where,Itellthem,myfamilyoncelived.
His mom, Aileen, takes the opportunity to brag about her evidently well-balanced son: he
plays jazz piano, earned a 2200 on his SATs at age thirteen, and made the state swimming
team. He reads cookbooks obsessively, she says, but doesn't like to cook much. He dreams