on princely pursuit

“Oh how he pines for me, my Eastern prince,” wrote princess Yahuala in her diary, of which but few pages remain intact. She is referring to Chagatai Khan, son of Genghis Khan, whom she and some of her handmaidens had discovered, bested, and captured. “Always sending gifts this way,” she continues, ”tiny songbirds chirping happily in intricate cages or curious beasts with tails at both front and rear, many of them not surviving the journey up and over the Krukuv pass. Against my better judgement, I keep them, and secretly cherish each one, hoping for his return and pining for the day when his fierce eyes will flash at me and his strong hands will spread me open once more.” On this public forum, the Grigovian Genealogical Society for Discovery and Exploration is loathe to post the rest of the excerpts, but suffice it to say that young Chagatai was quite skilled in the sexual arts and would soon return to cement the bonds between the Mongolian Empire and that of the Yündlennd royal family with a basket full of young cheetahs, a formal Entreaty to Marriage, and fertile loins.

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dispatches from nowhere

Last week, a group of researches working for the Grigovian Historical and Genealogical Society (est. 1844) discovered a cache of documents buried away in the dustier vaults of the Dusty Vaults section of the Great British Genealogical Society's satellite branch, in Sedgwick. Reports indicate that the papers include dispatches from the Yündlennd royal family to other heads of state, finding generated by the now defunct Pan-Grigovian League of Exploration and Discovery, and detailed accounts of societal and economic develpments occuring at the time in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. While all of the documents are sure to generate years of study and outbursts of exuberant wonder, one item – written by eminent explorer Uudyesst T. Muirgon while he was searching for the source of the Congo River – says, simply: “We have found the center of no-where. It is quiet here, and lovely.”

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somewhat-royal honeymoon

Thallandia Yündlennd married Reginald Augustus Steele for a second time this past weekend, in Grig, capital of Grigovia. In this small, Central Asian nation, tradition dictates that bride and groom state in the presence of a witness (of their choosing) to uphold and protect the Life, Liberty, and Property of the other person; once they and the witness have signed the Statement of Loving and Voluntary Partnership, the couple is officially married. (Religious organizations are forbidden from interfering with marriage; it is a secular affair. Either party may leave a marriage at any time and for any reason, but most pairs stay hitched because, according to nearly every twosome interviewed for this story, “we wouldn't have wed in the first place if we didn't plan on sticking together.” Grigovia's court system is staunchly egalitarian – in cases of divorce, children older than 13 years can choose which parent to live with whereas younger offspring go to the more psychologically stable person [with the less stable person receiving visitation rights]; property and debt are split equally. Marriage between couples of the same sex has been legal in Grigovia since 1964.)

After signing the necessary documents, the princess and Mr. Steele drank two beers each, smashing the bottles at the bottom of a concrete staircase behind City Hall (where Statements of Partnership are stored). Then, they bicycled two miles to Grig's main train station and purchased second-class tickets to the western city of Pyltagrad. (The Grigovian royal house has enjoyed only symbolic significance since Thallandia's great-grandfather abdicated in 1912 in order to return the right of self-government to his people.) After a few nights at one of Pyltagrad's many fine vineyards, the couple traveled east, to Gar Nuuzsh, where they stayed for a week with Thallandia's parents. (While there, the not-so-newlyweds set up a website with pictures and videos from their first honeymoon, most of which they spent backpacking through California's Sierra Nevada mountain range.) Upon meeting his son-in-law in person for the first time, King Erdogassdt Yündlennd said, merely, “Hrm.”

The wedding comes at an already joyous time for Grigovia. Unemployment is the lowest it's been in four decades, health-care is universal and efficient, and a new robotic hybrid-electric bus system services even the most secluded hamlet. “The Banoyend [Grigovians' name for themselves] are fair, but they can be brutal,” Reginald Steele said. “Throughout their history, they have expelled foreign usurpers and invading armies alike with legendary ferocity while showing kindness and generosity to neighbors in need. The princess and I plan to use our natural-born abilities to improve the lives of as many Grigovians as we can, she with her engineering skills and I with my art. We are easing our way into society humbly and patiently, so as not to stoke anyone's ire.” As part of the somewhat-royal couple's gift to the Grigovian people and in an effort to promote peaceful trade between peoples, they will spend next Spring clearing land mines sowed by Soviet forces in the mountain passes that lead into Afghanistan. Princess Thallandia is expecting twins.

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on quartering artists

Throughout the ages, Grig has attracted all types of artists. From dreamer and schemer to musician and entertainer, clown and pickpocket to acrobat and whore, visionaries from all walks of life have made this city their home. Some came to gaze upon the towering spires of the Yiptlong massif, others to exploit the skills of local craftsmen, but anyone who was ever here yearns above all else to bask once more in the generosity of the local inhabitants. Glad to share freely of their hearty food and strong czabtyip wine, Grigovians support unfettered artistic expression by participating in a privately-operated lottery. (5% of revenues cover the lottery's operating costs; the rest is used to maintain live-work galleries that for centuries have lined the foothills east of the Yalung River.) Among the artists to have made names for themselves here are Albrecht Dürer, Felix Mendelsohn, Lewis Carrol (who taught briefly at the Academy of Mathematical Computation), Salvador Dali, Earnest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Quwvin Olyast. (In 1914, in Pyltagrad, Quwvin founded a commune for artists and their families. Shortly after the Second World War, he organized and presided over the first Artists' Congress, which provided art-based shell shock treatment to soldiers returning from war and organized the world's first Artists' Support Society [ASS], a group that still provides talented people with the tools they need to be creative.)

In line with the ancient traditions, today's Grigovian artist is painter and sculptor, poet and carpenter, urban survivalist and compassionate philanthropist. He is a Consummate Caleb, not a One Track Jack. He is as comfortable in a graffiti-stained sewer as he is in a fine Parisian salon; his tools are spray-can and chisel, pencil and computer mouse, papier mâché and fluorescent bacteria; he accepts challenges both daunting and laughable, exploring society's weak points by shaking it to its core. His is a world where private behavior is unregulated but the boundaries of public behavior are clearly defined, where the default emotional state is quiet humility, and where few quarrels occur because everyone is armed.

The Nonnia Olyast Work-Live Gallery Block is named for Quwvin's wife, who shortly after her death was declared a national heroine for her efforts to cure homelessness. In addition to funds from the national lottery, the new Block is partly financed by princess-in-exile Thallandia Yündlennd and her fiancé, Reginald Augustus Steele. Now 24 years old, the princess studies mechanical engineering in Los Angeles, at the University of California. On an early-morning bicycle ride from Little Tokyo via Sunset up into Hollywood (i.e. the Ord Run), she met Mr. Steele, who is considered by prudent observers to be somewhat of a loose cannon, although he is a talented artist and good with kids. In an official statement from the Artists' Support Society, Grigovia is now a safe haven for any artist who has ever been abused, neglected, or under-appreciated. Come and all, make beauty wall.

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Grigovian receives Nobel

In a long-anticipated show of support for peaceful co-existence amongst the human races, the Nobel Committee shall award its Peace Prize to her somewhat-royal-highness Thallandia Yündlennd. Granddaughter of King Hyu-Yennd Yündlennd of Grigovia, a full regent who abdicated in the early 1900s at the age of 12 years after signing legislation that ushered in a time of wide-spread egalitarianism, democracy, justice, and liberty, Princess Thallandia carries on her grandparents' tradition of harmonious and environmentally-friendly living and sacrificing oneself for the betterment of mankind. In a written press release, the Committee said its decision rested on her somewhat-royal-highness's work in bringing attention to, and in helping to end, America's more than decade-long occupation of sovereign Afghanistan.

“We made a mistake awarding the Peace Prize to Mr. Obama, an American president who makes war on foreign peoples and restricts the rights of his own constituents, subjugating them with police-state tactics,” said Nobel Committee spokesperson Hana Fiistendun, via telephone from Stockholm, Sweden. “With the selection of Princess Yündlennd, we shall prove to the world that we award Peace Prizes only to persons who actively propagate peace throughout the world, not to those who have neither regard nor respect for the frailty of human liberty.” Miss Thallandia enraged the U.S. Department of Defense when she traveled from one coalition airstrip to the next throughout Eastern and Central Asia, putting her body in harm's way and disrupting the flights of dozens of Hellfire-missile-equipped drones. When asked how she managed to keep gaining access to these highly-secured sites, the Princess stuck out her tongue and flipped everyone the bird as she was loaded, again and again, handcuffed and shackled, into unmarked black sedans, which whisked her away to points unknown.

Somehow managing to avoid being tortured and killed at the hands of America's brutal interrogations specialists, Princess Yündlennd stayed tight-lipped even at trial, preferring rather to take her licks in silence than to speak of the hardships she endured at the blood-stained hands of a once-honorable nation originally founded by individuals who abhorred all types of prisoner abuse. Perhaps her most daring achievements was saving a village full of refugees – mostly women and children – from being shelled by blind-firing Army National Guardsmen, which she accomplished by besting their commanding officer in hand-to-hand combat before blocking the barrel of one of the guns with her own arm. Then, a few months later, she used an inflatable dingy to stall an American naval armada headed for the Straights of Hormuz, thus preventing a shooting war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which claims the Straights as its own. “I want to stop tyranny, to put an end to war, and to sew liberty and justice where there is now strife and discontentment,” Princess Yündlennd said during an interview held at a trailer-park outside Ghent, Switzerland, where she owns a modest single-wide with her husband-to-be, infamous LA scumhound Reginald Augustus Steele. “As long as the United States of America values profit over peace, torture over compassion, materialism over sharing, and the rights of corporations over the dignity of mankind, I shall be out there on the front lines fighting to preserve that to which monetary value cannot be assigned, and to which no price-tags stick.” When last seen, Miss Thallandia was spot-welding the finishing touches on a low-cost, autonomous rover designed to detect and destroy land-mines.

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