Life on the edge

This is a piece I made out of an old map. I bought it for Jenny at the antique market because she likes maps, but then I realized it was one of those America-centered maps, which she hates. These days the politically and geographically appropriate cut-off point is the Bering Straight, with the Americas on the left/West and Eurasia on the right/East. You almost never see Eurasia in the center, so I thought that would be fun to create. I accomplished this by taking an exacto straight down the 95th meridian, slicing just between the words "Kansas" and "City" (hence the labels).

A few things I like about this map:

• It makes Kansas City the effective end of the Earth (which some people refer to it as anyway)

• "Kansas" falls off into the Western U.S. while "City" is lumped in with the East Coast capitals. Politically, it works as well, with "Kansas" on the right and "City" on the left.

• The Soviet Union appears on the reconstructed map as the "Sovioviet Union."

If anyone would like a copy in postcard form, I'd be happy to send. If anyone wants the actual map, you've got 5 days to claim it before it goes out in the recycling bin. Which, in the end, is probably for the best. This Earth could stand to be recycled.

Ree Yees In case you didn't see these two open for the Lightning Bolt last month at the Jackpot

That is my brother James and his brother Eric

If you were born in the nineteen eighties like me, you have every excuse for not originally giving Cher the credit she is due. But after hearing her version of my favorite Dylan mix-tape staple (and seeing the pantomime with the late great Sonny B), I felt the need to share this with my friends. I first heard it at a bookstore in Oxford, MS and plucked it from the Zamboni Soundtracks comp that includes timely songs like this.

It's with me wherever I go

Hello friends and let me be the first to wish you a happy August. I hired the band Love to play this introduction to my first post in a long while. Right now it's all that I know.