The Friday... 40?

Wine? Yes.
U? No.
JB

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Gymnation

January is a time of resolutions and new beginnings and starting overs. In contrast, February is a time of trying to make those resolutions and beginnings and starting overs actually stick. But what of March? In our youth, March was the month of spring break. In our Chicago adulthood, it is a month much like any other winter one—cold, wet, and not even remotely springy.

Tired of long, dark wintery days spent hunched over computers at JBB World HQ and convinced they were becoming old and shrunken before their time, Trusty Editors Croftie and Oline roused themselves to action and did what every impoverished post-collegiate, pre-professional twenty-something would do— they joined a gym.

And because Trusty Editors who join gyms are supposed to share their sufferings and small personal victories with the world, that is precisely what they’re going to do.

“Ladies, Saddle your Ponies”
In Which Our Trusty Editors Find Their Dancing Queen


Remember when you were a twelve-year-old girl and there was that completely unattainable, unspeakably gorgeous guy who gave you the flutters every time he passed by in the school hallway? The guy you would gaze at in unadulterated pre-teen lust from across the room. The guy who would occasionally deign to speak to you, an action so profound, so sacred, that you would be reduced to an hour of giggles and gasps and sighs of “HE spoke TO ME!” and then frantically record every detail of the encounter in your journal.

Now that they are post-collegiate, pre-professional twenty-somethings, Trusty Editors Croftie and Oline were quite sure their twelve-year-old girl days had passed. They were quite sure they could no longer flutter as they once did. So it was with elation that, upon doing something so grown up as joining a gym, they realized they were in the wrong. Flutter they can. Flutter they do.

His name is Brantley. Croftie and Oline are in love.

Brantley teaches step class at the Trusty Editors’ gym every Tuesday afternoon. He is beautiful and he is largely the reason that the Trusty Editors have pursued their gymning with such vigor. They may punk out on other days of the week, but never ever Tuesday.

The Trusty Editors have uncovered certain truths about their beloved:

1) He is a Southern boy.
2) “Dancing Queen” is his theme song.
3) He has a bit of a complex about his obliques.
4) He is performing in some theatrical that involves dancing shirtless.
5) He is beautiful.

Like all obsessive twelve-year-old girls, Croftie and Oline have burned each Brantley encounter into their brains, imbuing them with far more meaning than they should rightfully hold.

There was the time Brantley shook Croftie’s hand (though, in retrospect, Croftie feels that perhaps he was making an effete gesture she overeagerly misinterpreted as the instigation of a handshake). The time Brantley squeezed Oline’s arm and said, Good job today! The time Brantley soulfully caressed Croftie’s rosy cheek. The time Brantley caught Oline singing “Proud Mary” in the midst of freeze-knees and shouted, You go, girl!

Croftie and Oline are quite certain that their dancing queen is unattainable. But that flutter of twelve-year-old girl hope is a wily vixen. It makes the workday bearable. It keeps them going back. To see Brantley. Sigh.

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Gather Ye Paints

What could possibly be more Revolutionary than developing great works of art during one's working hours? In celebration of this productivity-sapping pastime, Jack Black's Body is honoured/delighted/pleased to unveil for the first time ever in the world (at least that we're aware of) the time-killing, Microsoft Paint masterworks of 1st Degree Birns.





Hard Partying Spiny Blowfish


Hippogiraffasheep


Lumps With Mumps


Mr. Cloudhead


Bond's Eye Tree


Crocodog!


Hammerhead Mark


Fire-breathing Serpents Over Calgary

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And Now... A Word From Our Sponsors

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The Friday... Roxette?

Dude.
At last! A man who has the balls to style his hair like Liz Taylor.
JB

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Woodpigeon's Songbook

A Quick Look By Miss Fitz
As I sit in the dark surrounded by muffled whispers, the anticipation rises. A group of musical miscreants assembles in the shadows with guitars, accordions, and flutes to form… an orchestra?

You never know what to expect at the concert of a new indie band. Sometimes, you luck out and get a surprise—an unforgettable performance.

With a small but strong following, Woodpigeon has exploded into one of Canada’s biggest indie music hopefuls. Fronted by Mark Hamilton, this sunny sounding group has just signed with Universal and seems poised to become the next nabob of the Canadian indie music scene.

The group’s new album, Songbook, has the sexy undertones of what real up-and-coming Canadian music should be. The songs have titles like, “A Sad Country Ballad for a Tired Super Hero,” “Death by Ninja,” and “Home as a Romanticized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always and Forever.”

While their lyrics should leave you sarcastically melancholy, it’s hard to resist the temptation to tap your foot along with the tambourine and peppy handclaps. If argyle had a soundtrack, this would be it.

Woodpigeon’s Songbook is an album of edgy lyrics wrapped in the romantic, lighthearted ponapoly of sweet pop rock. Even a virgin listener would be hard-pressed to denounce this album’s subtle cavity-inducing excellence.


Woodpigeon can now be heard on CBC radio 3, and seen in The R3 30 Charts next to big names like The Arcade Fire and Buck 65.

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A JBB To Do

Featuring Jack Black's Bombshell!

Rogue 8- Issue #3

Rogue Theater Company
5123 N. Clark St.
Chicago, Illinois
773-561-5893

Fridays & Saturdays, thru March 10, 2007
11 p.m.
$8

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Dear Chicago

Photographs by The Germanatrix

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Fashion Forward

Tips From The Fashionista
Commandment #4:
Icons of Style

We recently had Fashion Week here in New York, and at this time of year with who knows what walking down the runways, it’s especially salient to refer back to those I consider Icons of Style. As we discussed last time, imitating any particular person always results in a look that’s more costume than outfit, and is highly inadvisable. So I give you these icons not to suggest that we transform ourselves into their likenesses, but to provide examples of truly gifted individuals who really have contributed something extraordinary to the world of Fashion—and to the very definition of Style.

Without further ado, my Icons.

Sienna Miller
You may have noticed already, but I love this girl. I can’t say it enough—she just pulls it all together. And with friends like Stella McCartney and Kate Moss, couldn’t you, too? Sienna’s a beautiful girl who’s not afraid to take risks, whether it’s a short haircut or slouchy boots, and she knows that a sexy man is a girl’s hottest accessory. Her whimsical, cheeky British sensibility on this month’s cover of Nylon magazine is an inspiration to us all.

Marcello Mastroianni
Yes, I’m aware that he’s dead. But gentlemen, if you want a lesson on looking good, watch La Dolce Vita. Black suit, white shirt, black tie, dark sunglasses. Handsome Italian men still rock this look nearly 50 years after the movie came out. And Marcello wasn’t just well-dressed in character—I saw a photo of him from the 1970s, leaving a club in Paris with Catherine Deneuve (at 7:30 a.m., well done!), and he was rocking some sweet flare pants and a blazer. He could pull it off. And that is why we love him.

Ralph Lauren
Say what you will about the Polo Empire—I personally don’t care to match the walls of my kitchen to my t-shirts—but Ralph Lauren has defined American Style. Sure, the spawn of Polo has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, but for good reason. Ralph Lauren started out designing and manufacturing neckties, and selling them himself on Seventh Avenue. And now the ubiquitous horsie prances across everything from bath towels to $7500 silk gowns. But look at Ralph himself—he exudes casual elegance, as comfortable in jeans and a polo as he is in a tuxedo. He has given Americans something to believe in. And he’s given the rest of the world something to aspire to—and to purchase in mass quantities. Go Ralph!

Daniel Craig
He is the best-dressed man on the planet. Jeans that fit. T-shirt that fits even better. Expensive, appropriately aged leather jacket. That’s all you need, people. And then he takes it all off. I have nothing more to say.

Beck
Reinvention is essential, and Beck works it like none other. Yeah, 10 years ago he was wearing his t-shirts over long-sleeve thermals, just like the rest of us, and we were all cool like that. He was also singing about two turntables and a microphone. Today, he’s rocking a sharp suit and hat (props for bringing back the hat) and the songs are about earthquake weather. The man can dance, too. There’s nothing more stylish than skills.

Jane Birkin
They named a handbag after her, that’s how cool she was. And you can’t even buy it—you have to be on a waiting list for years. The Birkin bag is possibly the most coveted accessory in the world and Jane Birkin is the perfect example of how style attracts style and then begets style (she mated with Serge Gainsbourg, and their offspring, Charlotte Gainsbourg, could well merit her own spot on this list). Jane Birkin was young, fresh, and sexy as hell. If you have any doubts, download “Je t’aime…Moi non plus.” Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. Money cannot buy enough handbags to make you that cool.

Wes Anderson
Here we have a man who wears awkward glasses, high-water pants, jackets that expose too much shirt cuff, and Stan Smiths. Why is he stylish? Because he does it on purpose. You have to believe that what you’re wearing is right for you, and then others will, too. If you’re going to rock your own personalized style, you have to be confident about it. Wes, let’s get married. Please.

Sofia Coppola
Ok, her best friend is Marc Jacobs, I get it. Sofia Coppola has never lacked for anything—she even has a sparkling wine named after her—and she especially has never lacked for style. Going to the Oscars but your feet aren’t feeling so great? Wear flats! Looking for the perfect shade of lip gloss? Have Three Custom Color create it for you! Other kids say your nose is funny looking? Screw them! Oh, would that we could all be Sofia.

Diane von Furstenberg
A funny thing happened in the past half-century or so. Women once wore only dresses. Then we had a sexual revolution and women wore pants. Women wore ugly pants, women wore baggy pants, women wore whatever pants they could find just to prove they could wear pants. Then Diane von Furstenberg came along and designed an amazing little wrap dress in silk knit prints that flattered everyone, and women went back to wearing dresses again, because they looked so damn sexy. I have DVF dresses that belonged to my mother, back in the day, and I have DVF dresses I’ve bought for myself. I even met Diane earlier this year, and she was wearing one of her signature creations in plum-colored suede…divine!

Maggie Gyllenhaal
I don’t particularly like actresses; I find them over-styled and over-hyped, and highly foolish to boot. But I love my Maggie. Tall and statuesque, apple-cheeked and bright-eyed, smart and quirky, she’s that girl you’d hang out with if only she’d let you. She can wear couture as well as she can wear thrift store finds, and she doesn’t value one over the other, either.

Bjork
Swan dress aside, you have to admit that Bjork is pretty fantastic. She’ll never be caught at Whole Foods in a pair of baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt that reads “World’s Greatest Mom,” that’s for sure. Iceland, I can imagine, is one of those places where one has a lot of time to learn to sew, compose music, and try on outfits in front of a three-way mirror, and Bjork definitely capitalized on her opportunities. What if Bjork and Beck mated? Groovy.

Remember, people: This is just one girl’s opinion. I’m sure you have your own Icons of Style. Discuss.

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And Now... A Word From Our Sponsors

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The Friday... New Kids?

Oh Kids!
If I were a girl, I wouldn't go. But alas...
XOOxoxOXoxxOxOXOXXOXoXoxoxOxoXXOx,
Jables

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Meet The Bonny Lass

The Bonny Lass (\’boh-knee\’lah-sss\!) is a post-collegiate pre-professional twenty-something writer and production editor living and working in Chicago. A graduate of Western Illinois University, she is JBB’s resident expert on all things writerly. She’s got a razor wit and knows how to use it. She likes novels, photography, Ireland, and The Office. She whips up a mean PS form. The Bonny Lass dislikes being called “Deedra,” because that is not her name.

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When You Went Silent

My Dearest Grace,

It's been so long I can barely remember your face. Isn't that pathetic? This old man's mind can't even remember how the window to his heart looked when it left. Thank God I still have the pictures of you.

I miss you dear, you have no idea how much. Your memory sticks with me like tits on a bull or flies on shit or whatever you prefer. You see? I can't even control my crudeness without you. Can't do much of anything, come to think of it.

Remember when we met? The year doesn't matter, but the music does. I could never understand these people who know what happened in a certain year. The music is how I remember things. Benny Goodman. That's who I remember most when I think of our first dates. It might not even be right, but in my mind it is. Maybe we listened to Sinatra. I guess it don't matter none.

Well, you were just about the prettiest darn thing I ever did see. You had a red ribbon in that dark hair of yours. The dance hall lights just shone and shone like starlight off your glasses. You hated them, I know. But I thought they were beautiful. It was like the brightness of your eyes was shooting out of the pieces of glass at the end of your nose. If you tilted your head a certain way, I could see the light fixtures above the dance hall.

And your hair, oh Lord, long dark brown. You were perfect, and even as you slouched, ringing your hands in front of you, I knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life with you. Well, the rest of your life, I guess.

I don't want to talk about how I tripped and fell right down at your feet. But I will tell you that I saw right up that blue dress of yours, and there's a reason I chose to stay safely on the ground. I don't think I ever told you that. You surely would get a kick out of it.

It's amazing that I had the nerve to even go over to you at that dance in Detroit. I was never one with the ladies. All I knew was that I had to talk to you. So we talked all that night, neither of us really noticing the problems that the other had. You surely thought that your condition was practically stamped on your forehead. And I truly did believe that my limp was preventing me from life. And that all the people who I met immediately assumed something. That I was weak, mostly. Ah, well, the point is we were the only ones who obsessed over that shit- I'm sorry, Gracie, those "problems."

I never noticed that night, really. Well one thing stood out. "Do you want any punch?" I asked.

"I want your blood, I mean - Yes, that would be nice." Your eyes were suddenly huge as a cornered rabbit's, and I saw tears welling up through your thick glasses.

"Ok, I won't spit in it, I promise," I said.

I ignored the weird thing you had just said, but I don't know why. Maybe it was because I finally opened that door to the true Grace, and I didn't want you to retreat to the slumping, shy person again. Or maybe it was because you looked so scared. You were so terrified that I was going to respond poorly. So I ignored it, and when I limped back with the punch, you were better.

"Purple whore. Purple whore." How could I forget that? It was after you called my mother a purple whore at Thanksgiving that you finally told me about the "problem" you had. I have to tell you Gracie, I'm laughing so hard I'm crying right now. My condescending, pretentious mother, barraging you with personal and intruding questions. It wasn't until she asked you if you really could wear a white wedding dress when the time came, that "Purple whore, purple whore" spewed out of your lovely lips. She bought that dress at Derman's downtown, ironed it and ironed it and tried it on every other day. She loved it, probably more than me, but certainly not more than her Caddy, in a similar shade of purple puke. Anyway, I could tell you were distressed at the non-stop questions, but your brow was unfurrowed and your color came back when you called my mother a purple whore.

The room became silent. The peas Bill had been stuffing into his mouth fell to the tablecloth. With a smile, I stood up, grabbed your hand and we ran to my car. That was probably the best night of my life. I rented that seedy motel room, and we talked for two hours. You told me everything. Your quiet voice was barely audible over the people banging in the next room, but you told me. And I remember every word.

"I have a problem. If I try to hold down my need to twitch and speak, it just comes out worse. The feelings well up in me and I have to release them, just like other people but mine come out absurd. Like that night at the dance, you were so sweet and so cute, I kept thinking how I just wanted to eat you up. Like I could just, you know, inhale you. I fell in love with you that fast. No one was ever that nice to me. Anyway, I knew I was going to have a scene, so I tried to hold it down, and I ended up telling you I wanted your blood. I guess it could have been worse. But your mom, Roger, I'm so sorry."

"It's ok. She is a purple whore," and with that, we started laughing again.

We laughed until we couldn't breathe, and the horny people next door told us to shut up, and we did. I looked into your eyes and I saw love. I saw love itself. I don't know how to describe it, but that's what I saw. Wordlessly, I took off your glasses. You gently stroked my face. We kissed and kissed. Our tongues touching, our mouths sucking. Hands leaving, and wandering, unbuttoning, squeezing, making us naked as fast as we could be. My hand wandered in between your legs, and the look on your face was enough to keep it there. Yours ended up on the bulge between my own legs, and just like on that dance floor in Detroit, it was difficult to hide. Soon, I was in you. Our eyes never left each other's as we made love. And we did, many times that night. I woke you up three times, and you woke me up once as well, wanting more. Wanting each other's blood and skin and warmth once more.

We were so young back then, but we had carried crosses all our lives. It wasn't until we found each other that we could put them down. I didn't care if you called the Queen of England a red-coated whore, and you didn't care that I was a little gimpy. Some people, they fall in and out of love. Not us, right, honey? That was 50 years ago. You died on a Sunday, five years ago today. I kind of wish we had some kids, now that I'm alone. But when you were here, all we needed was each other. I'm 68 years old now. Don't do much of anything. I limp to the grocery store about every day, I guess. The people that work there roll their eyes. They don't think I see it, but I do. They mouth to each other "Oh, God," and then shout "Hi! How are you today!?" as if I couldn't hear their bullshit greeting even if I tried. Live on welfare, mostly. I have a little apartment in the Juckson neighborhood. Not great, but it's ok. I keep it clean. But I sure do miss you Grace. Don't know how I'm gonna make it too much longer without you. I'll leave this letter in the box of your things, I guess. I hope I see you soon.

Love always,
Roger

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Macintosh

By Bernanation, The Verisificator

The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead
Reanimated for the resurrection
let the red flow
in tear tracks down your tan and tired cheeks.

The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead
whose nerve endings flair when he is near
and animate the limbs
rising from rest to roam reality.

The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead
her eyes never close on the sunset
and her lids never open for the rise
that he gets out of hurting her.

The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead
tells her he loves her and melts away
leaves her supine and surprised in the melted clay
buried dead in foreign soil.

The man in the macintosh loves a lady who is dead
takes away her bell cord
cause she ain’t a dead ringer
for the easy fools he’s killed before.

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Meet Joygerale

Joygerale (\’joi\’ger-ayle\!) is a post-collegiate pre-professional twenty-something artist/writer living and working in Jackson, Mississippi. A graduate of Mississippi State University, she is JBB’s resident expert on The Mom Voice. She likes birds, tabloids, and cooking things that don't demand chopping. Her cookies are to die for.

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The Mom Voice

A HistoryBy Joygerale
When a girl experiences a life-changing event, an event that so thoroughly alters her being that she can never again go back to being the girl she once was, one would think that she might at least remember said event. One would think that a girl in this situation would write the event down in her diary, especially if the girl was inclined to always writing down the minutiae of her existence.

With that said, I sadly admit that I did not document and cannot remember the first time that I used what would come to be known as The Mom Voice (TMV). I have vague memories of it escaping from my mouth at infrequent intervals in my younger days—mainly when I was babysitting. But somewhere along the line, I started using the voice enough for it to warrant the name The Mom Voice—although I wasn’t a mother at the time.

But now I am. And TMV has really taken hold.

Mind you, I’m not a biological mother; I’m a stepmother, which means that whatever I do, I must wield TMV softly and with great care so as to avoid the terrible and iconic affixing of “wicked” to my stepmother designation.

I must admit that I use the voice a lot. A lot. And I use it in conjunction with lectures. Seriously, the other night I linked childhood bath-taking to buying a house as an adult. I found myself actually saying:

Joy: Taking baths is part of learning responsibility. You have to do things like taking baths when you’re young so that you’ll know how to be responsible when you’re older so that you can hold down a job and buy a house. If you want to buy a house, you have to work every day, blah blah blah, lecture lecture, blahhhh.

Stepdaughter: Yeah, but nobody’s making you work.

TMV then prompted me to tell her that we could live in a ramshackle hut down by the river if her dad and I chose not to work. But I resisted and let the subject drop after I informed her that I wasn’t put on this earth to argue with seven-year-olds. Ah, TMV! Such a master of witty repartée.

I’m not sure that I can fully describe or define TMV. Half of the voice’s power comes from the speaker’s tone. It must be terse, pointed, and either shrill or guttural, depending on the situation. The actual words are not always of great import. For instance, I often hear parents use TMV in the grocery store to yell “No, SIR!” and “No, MA’AM!” to their children, as if giving them such mature titles would suddenly make them shape up. Not that I’m in a position to criticize. My own TMV expressions are often painfully clichéd. I’m all about telling my stepdaughter to “chill out” and “be cool.”

But the other half of TMV is somewhat magical. When I use TMV, I suddenly become privy to a wealth of knowledge concerning bedtimes, meal times, bath times, and all sorts of other times. I somehow know exactly how many cookies children should eat after dinner, which is strange given the fact that I can rarely figure out how many cookies I should eat after dinner.

TMV is my secret weapon. TMV makes me the omniscient oracle of all things orderly. Unfortunately, this omniscience does not spill over into my twenty-something life. Sometimes I wish that I could use TMV to direct my life path or something—to tell me that I shouldn’t sass a coworker or throw money away on tabloids. I’d like TMV to tell me when I’ve had enough to drink. But I don’t want to push my luck. Truthfully, I’m a little afraid of TMV. The voice is more powerful than I am. It rises from my subconscious and, at times, I feel that I’m not using TMV so much as it is using me to achieve its insidious child-rearing plan.

I am at internal war with TMV, especially when I’m telling my stepdaughter to do things that I think I should be telling her to do, even though I don’t know why. I employ quite an abhorrent level of practicality with TMV. I know that I’m fully justified in telling my stepdaughter that yes, she has to take a bath because she hasn’t had one in three days and come on isn’t it about time. And although I couch my practical moments with references to Sonic Youth or The National, I often feel like TMV sabotages the wacky and disorganized person that I know myself to be.

My big problem is, on the one hand, that I want my stepdaughter to have the basic training that she needs in order to be self-sufficient. I want her to have perfect manners and good hygiene. But on the other hand, I want her to let her hair down and have a good time. I want her to disregard TMV (gasp! shock!) when it behooves her to disregard it. When my back is turned, I want her to feed the dog from the dinner table and to make faces at me. Doing that shit is what childhood is all about! Even so, the voice rises again and again from my depths, and lo, it often punishes.

I am left, then, with the Herculean task of taming TMV so that I can use its full force at the appropriate times (as in the previously mentioned bath time situation) without letting it rule my life. I must learn to turn off the voice of my own mother! I must learn to overcome!

And I must remember to use chocolate as an incentive. For even TMV understands that a little chocolate-flavored bribery goes a long, long way.

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The Friday...Cannibals?

Dear Mr. Fine Young,
I'm all for weird and I was all for Croftie's suggestion to start casting my net larger and looking for my one true man love among the men with less abundant hair- but you're kind of very scary. The way you keep looking at me. All intense and shy. It's making me uncomfortable. I just need to not look at you right now.
JB

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Constructive Criticism

I know that I don't say it nearly enough, but my trusty editors are freaking awesome. They have helped me mount the Revolution unfunded, guerrilla style. They do their trusty editing, mind my Body, fetch my dry-cleaning, and make many a romantic feast for me and my hot wife. They do all this while leading alternate non-JBB, post-collegiate, pre-professional twenty-something lives.

They are a pair of clever minx and I love them so.

So I was 100% behind my trusty editors when they strutted up to me the other day and suggested that we post an ad on Craigslist, because the Body needed a new infusion of life, fresh talent. Craigslist sounded anti-establishment enough to work. Plus, Croftie was looking so hot in her leopard heels and Oline in her yellow stilettos left me weak in the knees. How could I refuse such a simple favor in the presence of such attractions?

And it was only Craigslist. It wasn't as though the delicate emotions of my trusty editors would be in any way endangered.

So off Croftie scampered in her kitten heels, to compose an advertisement of such eloquence, such JBB joie de vieve, that the resumés of the literarily talented masses would soon be flooding the HQ. The air sizzled with excitement.

And then...



We were flagged and removed.

My Body—glorious and incandescent in its circumference and breadth—was unceremoniously lumped and scrapped along with the good-for-nothing ads for foot fetishists and baby-merchants. It was inexplicable. It was tragic.

Croftie made epic lips of disapproval. Oline stomped her yellow heel on the marble floor with an intensity that would've done Michael Flatly proud. But those girls, they're intrepid. They sought a solution. They e-mailed Craiglist. They posted on the forum seeking an answer. Seeking understanding and justification.

Instead, they got a plebeian response.



But don't be alarmed, my Revolteers. Although we’ve been banished from Craigslist, insulted by the anonymous powers-that-be, and consigned to the 98th percentile for incredible lameity, we shall prevail. Though misunderstood and underappreciated, the Revolution lives on. The hope endures. The dream shall never die.

But it shall never advertise on Craigslist again.

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The Room Without A Country

Osutein-Sensei Uses His Imagination (And Guns)

My International Relations textbooks defined nation-states as "imaginary entities," in the sense that they exist only because we all agree that they exist. This makes me sad. I have been left out of these planet-wide meetings for my entire life. I've always wanted to sit around with billions of other people and then, at the prompting of some mysterious voice, agree that "Yes, we would still like to have Canada around. It will be big, and snowy, and a little too obsessed with hockey. And their bacon will be different."

Those meetings sound like a lot of fun.

Of course, imagination has its drawbacks. The British and French were a little too creative with the Middle East in the early twentieth century, inventing countries that they probably shouldn't have, like Iraq. The Iraqis seem to think they were three countries, but the British had the guns, and sadly, guns beat imagination. It's like rock-paper-scissors, but with atrocities. And nothing beats guns.

A country is seen differently by different groups of people. Tsushima, the island I lived on in Japan, is a place where cultures meld and nationalities overlap. Closer to Korea than to Japan, Tsushima is definitely Japanese in culture and persuasion, but there are little traces of the Korean influence here and there. You’ll find a scattering of words in the local dialect and the ruins of a 1,400-year-old Korean castle deep in the woods.

Embassies and consulates also complicate the otherwise tidy imagination, since they are technically little pieces of one nation-state in another nation-state's imaginary territory. I work for the Japanese consulate here in Chicago, which means that every morning I wake up in the United States, then commute to Japan. So, don't talk to me about your commute time. I don't wanna hear it.

Oddly enough, the consulate's sovereign Japanese soil is not restricted to its two floors in the Olympia Center, but extends to the three cars it owns. According to international law, the interiors of those cars are part of Japan. With all the consulate and embassy cars around the world, if you were to look at a political map of the earth you would see thousands of tiny foreign countries moving around inside each other's borders. Since the cars enjoy diplomatic immunity, most of these tiny countries are probably moving at excessive speeds or parked in front of fire hydrants.

Yet, even the most vivid national imagination can't account for the inevitable spaces in-between—hence the endless squabbling over international waters. But not all of these gaps are wide as oceans. Some are about the size of closets—like “the airlock.”

To get to my office I have to swipe my card to unlock two doors. Between the doors is a small space we jokingly call "the airlock." It's completely empty except for the keypad for the second door. The question is: If what lies behind the first door is America and what’s beyond the second door is the consulate (and thus sovereign Japanese territory), then what is the airlock? It lies outside of all national territories and jurisdictions, a 5' x 6' No Man's Land.

It's a limbo inside of which anything is legally possible, because for those brief moments when both doors are closed, a person in the airlock is untouchable. The most heinous of crimes could be committed in the airlock with impunity: murder, drug trafficking, cutting the tags off mattresses.

Until recently, that is. As of last week, the airlock is no longer a space between countries. It is a country. After taping my flag up on one of its walls, the airlock has become the Empire of Osutein, a sovereign territory populated and ruled with an iron fist by yours truly.

Before you protest or declare war, remember that it's only fair. After all those years of not being invited to the official nation-state imagination meetings, I decided that I'll have to do it on my own. You see—anything is possible if you just use your imagination... and guns.

Really, really big guns.

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Horrorscopes

What will the upcoming month (give or take some weeks and days) hold? Because Jack Black's Bombshell was busy taking a star-turn in various freaking awesome plays, JBB asked 1st Degree Burns to get out her amulets and peek into the future for us. Here are the horrors she saw...

Aries-
You will probably grow an extra appendage this month. Let's hope it's a retractable arm because boy, some things are just too far away to reach!

Taurus-
You will be able to fit exactly 17 marshmallows in your mouth. No more, no less. Take my word for it and do not try this at home because did I tell you they were poisonous marshmallows?

Gemini-
You're alright, actually. Hell, I'd do ya.

Cancer-
You'll have an axe to grind when suddenly you find yourself in possession of an axe. And an axe grinder.

Leo-
Your boredom will continue until you go to the Rocky mountains where you will get drunk, wear an offensive t-shirt, and risk personal injury doing something well-beyond your physical capabilites. Idiot.

Virgo-
You're going to lose your sense of humour. Oh wait, you never had one. Nevermind.

Libra-
Libra rhymes with Zebra.....Uh oh. I feel a hard rhyming session coming on... Thanks Libra!

Scorpio-
Scorpio! Scorpio! Wherefore art thou Scorpio? Scratch that- I know where you are. You're at home. Watching porn. With your mother.

Saggitarius-
The planet of Neptune feels left out because he wasn't asked to play 80's Trivia Pursuit with the other planets. So, he invents a new board game for losers with no friends. As a result, you will experience fierce cravings for peanut butter every second Wednesday in the coming weeks.

Capricorn-
I'm not sharing your horrorscope with you until you apologize. You should know what I'm talkin' bout.

Aquarius-
Stop stealing peoples' lawn furniture you assholes. And wipe those smirks off your faces. And....go Edmonton Oilers!

Pisces-
Cheer up, Pisces. Your life isn't as bad as it seems. Of course, I'm excluding those Pisceans enduring circumstances of genocide, slavery, famine, disaster, and poverty. Soooo...really this horrorscope seems only to be applicable to whining well-nourished people in living mostly in wealthy western countries.

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