Grigovia gives thanks

Adopting traditions made popular abroad, the people of the Glorious Republic of Grigovia today express their gratitude. They're thankful for food and bicycles, health-care and archery, rainbows and chocolate cake; they celebrate by sharing food with needy neighbors; they visit one another to say their thank-yous; they contribute to food pantries and charities, and assemble care packages that they then send to refugees of imperialistic overreach living in Turkey, Palestine, Europe, and North Africa. But unlike in the West, where wage slaves must show up at their jobs on a day called Thanksgiving or lose them, in Grigovia only emergency service personnel are allowed to work. Huzzah, then, for the gracious Banoyend, and let thankfulness reign.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

all accounts settled

For the fifteenth time since its self-liberation from the Union of Soviet Socialist States in 1988, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia balanced its national budget and imported exactly as much as it exported. “We consume no more than we make, our economy is modernizing rapidly, and our population is swelled with 20,000 refugees fleeing the crises in Syria,“ said Dr. Eleyina Uourendt, chief economist at the Grigovian Foreign Trade Council, a think-tank. “We are in a good spot, I think.” Researchers estimate that measures designed to dial back the nation's political and regulatory systems to levels conducive to the full exercise of Liberty have spilled over already into the economic sector, with a free market determining supply and demand in this Central Asian nation of some 4 million souls. “It is a lucrative and an efficient time to be doing business in Grigovia,” said Henri Rousseau-Riyennd, a French-Grigovian professor of macroeconomics at Pylta the Terrible University in Pyltagrad. “To us who call the Yiptlong home, the Global Recession is merely hypothetical.”

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

extra pocket invented

Building on the success of his Second Pouch line of sew-on sweatshirt additions, local inventor and entrepreneur Eugene B. Hsu recently patented the X-Tra Pocket. Critics denounce X-Tra Pocket a just a rectangular piece of cloth with a zipper sewn into one end that consumers buy and then sew onto the pair of pants of their choosing, and that if these seamstresses are already sewing bits of other cloth onto their clothes they can just as fucking well include their own zipper for a tenth of the cost, of which Mr. Hsu was having none. “We use only the finest zippers made using the highest quality materials,” the man said while typing away furiously on a battered laptop. “Plus, our zipper is configured to provide the consumer with efficient and noiseless access to the contents of her new pocket, therefore cutting down on the number of bags she has to carry and making her life more simple.” As part of a demonstration, the inventor yelled at a girl sitting at a sewing machine nearby in a language other than English. The girl shed a single tear and then quickly affixed using green thread an orange-colored X-Tra Pocket (complete with aggressively-styled logo and a prominently-placed copyright symbol) to a pair of maroon corduroy pants. Not wanting to further upset the visibly irate Mr. Hsu further, all in attendance clapped politely.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

greatly grounded Grigovia

From the marshes in the West down to the sands of eastern borders we of old and ancient blood do treasure all our soils. Rich in traces rare and true, mountain-ranges high and blue do hide the vastness of our wealth, we who share with all who need it, we whose skills are speed and stealth. Every sifting pans a mint now, every spadeful yields a trove, liquefied or still in nuggets, all are gifts from Yennd above. Now our mines do sing with labor, now they form a deadly tomb, years of toil wrought in iron, plentiful the earthen womb. Soil loamy, filled with promise, crops that leap to skies above, rich and endless is the feasting, livestock fattens in the stables, rain-soaked patterns paint the dirt. Oh fair Mother, endless giver, take this paltry offering, drink of blood and tears and sunshine, think of us when next you quiver, shaking mountain, bluff, and plain. Yours is mercy, rot and ruin, yours is fame and quick delight, you we praise now, Earthly mistress, see us through this one last night. Soon enough our bones we'll give you, soon enough we'll turn to ash, feeding then the creeping critters, we all merge with you at last. Keep us humble, founded, giddy, hold us when the skies turn gray, slay our doubts and ancient troubles, guide us on the smoothest way.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on mu'untha bright

Long she rises short she rides, she whose face now wax now wanes whom we all hope will sail again through inky even blackness. Here her face deep red does shine, there it sports an orange hue, as her cheeks with steady glowing through the shadows gladly pierce. Crisp the contours of her chin that one can follow with a glass, tracing patterns, mare to mare, from impact spot to ancient sea that surely she once cherished. Bright in day as through the night she trumps in power ocher Sol, shining always down upon us, never resting, never dull. How she does it we know neither, how her surface keeps on shining when her back is to the sun, how she does it in square rhythm, none can fathom, not a one. Cease with vexing thoughts and patterns and lay back to watch her work, spy her ferry shipwrecked souls straight back to harbors whence they came. In her glory she surpasses all the other bodies bright, for her tugging keeps our oceans and our rivers running right, oh elusive mu'untha darling, in your clockwork course of old, shelter with us hopeful mortals, silver-faced and always watching, never late and never due, always shining, always new.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

organic gardens grow

From Pyltagrad to Gar Nuuzsh, from Pryaghdoyest to Iysh, Grigovia blossoms and blooms. In the dead of winter, through the fiercest of wind, when the sun is barely shining, somehow the babushkas of the Banoyend coax life from the dark and the loamy soils. They eschew chemical fertilizers, using instead rotted leaves and manure; they do not weed but use ground cover, preferring to stop unwanted plants from growing instead of killing them after they have already sprouted. They are industrious and shrewd, resourceful and clever, humble and conscientious. If there is a better way to celebrate the Second Day of National Independence than by feeding oneself from one's own blessed soil, we have yet to discover it. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

white Nazi rapists

In an apparent effort to clear his own name and that of the NFL franchise he owns, Daniel Snyder announced plans to change the name of his Washington D.C.-based team to the White Nazi Rapists. “Polling shows that the new name is just about as unacceptable as its predecessor – the Redskins – which some indigenous tribes said offended them to the extent that the word nigger offends the black,” he said openly and without visible dismay at a press conference earlier this afternoon. “It is my hope that, as a Jewish person, using the word Nazi to describe the team I own will show my impartiality to racial slurs, and my general lack of racialist tendencies – it's OK to be racially insensitive so long as you're doing it against your own race, right? Furthermore, I wish to own a team called the Rapists, a term and a concept hated universally.” “This whole thing just went from bad to worse,” said Ray Halbritter, spokesperson for the Oneida Nation, which filed the objections that led to the current conversation about the use of objectionable names by professional organizations. “Not only do sports team continuously slander us and our fellow First Peoples by using names such as Chief or Brave or Indian, the ur-dick owner of a certain local team now appears to be doubling down on his absurdly senseless offensiveness.” During the press conference Mr. Snyder revealed a preliminary sketch of the logo for his newly renamed team, which shows a slack-jawed Caucasian man in a swastika armband holding a length of rope in one hand and a pipe-wrench in the other whose pants are straining to contain his visibly swollen member. “People freaked when a pretty girl kissed a nerdy boy in a commercial during the Superbowl last year,” said Kandace Franko-Jaice, spokeswoman for Protect American Values in Sports, a media-in-professional-sports watchdog group. “I can hardly wait to see what happens when they hear about the, uh, the Washington White Nah... until they hear about Mr. Snyder's plan to rebrand his team.”

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

yoga institute opens

Six months after officially declaring that access to yoga instruction is an essential right of Grigovian citizenship, the first dedicated yoga institute opened this week, in Grig. Built around the notion that persons who practice yoga properly tend to lead healthier, happier, and more productive lives, the Grigovian Institute of Yogic Studies (grinyost) is dedicated to training yogis from around the world to teach this ancient art to the Banoyend. Housed in refurbished warehouse space adjacent to the Yalung River and mere blocks from the newly refurbished Liberty Illuminating the World, grinyost offers a dozen large rooms for classes up to fifty people, smaller rooms for groups of up to fifteen, and private quarters for one-on-one training. The organization's main meeting hall can seat five hundred persons and accommodate well over two hundred fifty yoga practicing yogis. All rooms have wooden floors and access to fresh air and sunlight. The building is certified environmentally friendly, with the majority of its electricity coming from roof-mounted solar panels and wind turbines; it has a full acre of rooftop gardening space, an osmotic wastewater treatment plant in the basement, and in-house laundry service. The top-most floors have been converted into short-term, dormitory-style living areas for traveling yogis, and its location in Grig's main backpacking quarter means that visitors can access affordable lodging and lively entertainment without traveling more than a few blocks. As part of its incentive plan to attract skilled yoga instructors from around the world, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia is offering a year's worth of room, board, and airfare into and out of the country to the first one hundred qualified individuals to sign up the grinyost website. Thank you for reading, and huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

local caves reopened

Shuttered in the final days of Communist rule by bureaucrats fearful of looting, the Douyriyest Aandt cave system in eastern Grigovia reopened this weekend. Refurbished by a group of investors with financial help and guidance from the National Artifact and Treasure Restoration Loan Society (NATRLS), the caves are once again open to the public. Featuring many sights including the Wizard's Spire, a 50-foot-high stalagmite that glitters in the beam of a bright flashlight, Douyriyest Aandt is on this year's short list for the Treasures of the Banoyend, a regional list of protected landmarks, an its inclusion into the UNESCO system of World Treasures is pending approval with that body. “Although we do not have any of the size or sheer volume of, say, Karlsbad Caverns, in New Mexico USA, our caves are rumored to be the prettiest and most glittery in all of Central Asia,” said John Ulloyest-Randall, one of the businesspersons directly involved in the project. “The Douyriyest Aandt cave system is less than an hour drive south-east of Gar Nuuzsh; it and the Great Dune Sea make for excellent road trip opportunities.” For tickets to see the caves, please visit the website for Grigovair, Grigovia's regional airlines. Flights leave daily from Tehran, Tashkent, Damascus, Kabul, and Islamabad.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

eighth veil pierced

Following a centuries-old Grigovian tradition of feting any person who successfully locates and masters all eight Challenges of Skill & Mastery, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia today celebrated Yuoyest Uouiyind, aged 14, of Pryaghdoyest. Located each year at different spots around this landlocked Central Asian nation, each Challenge of Skill & Mastery can be reached only on foot or horseback, and participants have from All Hallow's Eve until Second National Independence Day on November 20th to locate and beat them. The final act of each Challenge is to symbolically pierce a veil, which in times past meant using a sword or dirk to cut a hole in a piece of hanging cloth but which today involves not cutting but hacking into one of several websites listed at the individual locations. Ms. Uouiyind is the youngest contestant ever to win the title of Skilled Mistress of Challenges; she studies neurobiology and mathematics at the Che Guevara Secondary School for Biology in her hometown in southern Grigovia. Reports speak of impromptu parades across Grigovia in the young lady's honor, although the state parade is scheduled for noon on this coming Saturday along the Avenue of the Victims of Imperialistic Oppression in beautiful downtown Grig.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

regional relationships reinforced

As part of a yearly tradition of walking mountain passes before winter snows set in, a group of Grigovian luminaries and elected officials visited its main border crossings. At the main border crossing into Turkmenistan, they met with delegates of that country's tribes-people and religious leaders, and shared in a great feast under canvas tents. At the main border crossing into Afghanistan, they were greeted by their Afghani neighbors with great kindness, and after another joyful feast exchanged gifts of silver and gold. And at the main border crossing into Iran they met with imam and Revolutionary Guardsman, scientist and scholar, some of the brightest and wisest of Iranian society. Long into the night, the neighbors discussed events in their region and around the world, pledging to bring their findings before their legislative bodies and stand strong in the face of Ynki imperialism. Talk turned to creating a common currency, and to strengthening cultural ties and jointly improving regional roads to facilitate regional trade. May the gods bless the Banoyend and their generous and peace-loving neighbors. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

new flag planned

Following the recent re-valuation of its currency and its improved opinion in the hearts of men the Glorious Republic of Grigovia announced it is seeking a new flag. Members of the public are invited to submit their own designs. The Grigovian Historical Society – for nearly 200 years the organization tasked officially with recording cultural variations in clothing trends and building styles and native methods of song and dance – has compiled a brief list of guidelines, saying that one should design a version of the flag after having pondered deeply the following words: crevasse, height, defile, dawn, meadow, tunnel, liberty, justice, resistance, defiance, joy, grace, alertness, pride, humility, impenetrable, shimmer, bronco, adapt, beauty, simplicity. To allow time for redesign and feedback, the finalists for new flag will be announced a week before Grigovian Second Independence, on 20 November. Please participate.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥