Notes: Ephemeral States Update

BACK IN JANUARY, I wrote an essay for this magazine called “Ephemeral States.” It concerned imaginary countries that ordinary people have attempted to establish, for one reason or another. At the end of my essay I noted that, prompted by a comment from an official at the State Department, I had decided to start a country of my own. I claimed sovereignty over the sun, which I renamed the Solar Atlantic Empire, and declared myself its Lord High Suzerain. And I mentioned that I would be interested in hearing from potential citizens.

Since then I have been if not deluged then at least well moistened by the response. As a result, the population of what I have taken to calling “my vast empire” has swelled. I have been able to name appointees to the offices of Chief of Police, Exalted Prime Minister, Miss Milky Way, and Minister of Defense, among others. I have received international recognition in the form of a letter from a man in British Columbia, who now serves not only as Canadian Ambassador to the Solar Atlantic Empire but also as Solar Atlantic Imperial Ambassador to Canada. I have also granted citizenship to Mrs. Goss’s fourth-grade class at Lindbergh Elementary School, in Kenmore, New York. (Mrs. Goss is the SAE’s Minister of Education.)

The first of Mrs. Goss’s students to get in touch with me was Matt Roberts. “I was wondering if I could have Saturn, and Pluto?” he wrote. “I would keep Saturn for our class, and Pluto would go to Disney World.” Roberts now serves the SAE as Most Honorable Minister of Saturnian and Plutonian Affairs. Like the rest of Mrs. Goss’s class, he was studying the sun in science. “I am taking your advice and using my power wisely,” he wrote in another letter. He would like to be a lawyer.

Joshua Gibbons, a classmate of Roberts’s, also wrote. “We enjoyed reading your article. ‘We, meaning Mrs. Goss’s fourth grade class.’ We would like to be part of your solar committe. Would you please tell us what the flag looks like. Would you like some ideis?” Gibbons, now the SAE’s Chairman of the Committe on Ideis, is at work on a flag.

Most of Mrs. Goss’s other students have requested and received government appointments, except Louis Reboy, who wrote, “Right now I am writing laws. Oh yeah, can I be the president of Solar Atlantic Empire?” No, Louis, you may not. But you may be a disgruntled colonel in my army and attempt to overthrow me. (Reboy is not easy to please. When I sent him and his classmates a copy of a book I had written, he responded, “Thank you for the book and I hope we like it. Maybe you might change Solar Atlantic Empire to Empire of america.”)

On my suggestion, Mrs. Goss’s students have formed a country of their own. It is called Catskill Island. According to one of Mrs. Goss’s students, Jodie May, Catskill Island was named for a Siamese cat who visits the class and “docs some pretty weird things.” Catskill Island’s flag was designed by Angela Ruslander (whom I have also named governor of my new solar province of Rusland). Ruslander’s flag is a secret. “I stapled two pieces of paper together so no one will see it,” she wrote.

The SAE’s Pacific Correspondent, as he has asked to be called, is Oren Matthew Swain, a student at the University of California at Los Angeles. Swrain signs his name (Oren) Matt(hew) Swain. “I shall emediately begin a citizenship drive,” he promised in his first letter, “but for the protection of your Lordship’s sanity I will not advocate letter writing except to the most interested potential citizens.” In closing, Swain described himself as “one who is glad to have found a pertinant cause other than Nuclear Disarmerment, the Donation of Blood, and the Fighting of Drug Hysteria in America.” As is evident from the letters of Gibbons and Swain, the Solar Atlantic Empire’s official language is a variant of English in which certain orthographic improvements have been made. Aspiring citizens should note these improvements and incorporate them into their own writing emediately.

Kyle Hoepner, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the SAE’s Imperial Composer, a title that neatly encompasses both his avocation (writing music) and his vocation (setting type). Hoepner pointed out that “any great and glorious empire should have a suitable anthem and ceremonial music to serve as the outward and visible (or, in this case, audible) trappings of its rightful authority.” He has kindly provided these. I like to play my anthem in the evening, while I march around the house. Hoepner is a graduate student in music and a winner of both the New England Conservatory’s George Whitefield Chadwick Medal and the SAE’s Order of Incomprehensibly Stupendous Musical Merit.

Although I thoroughly enjoy my great authority, my correspondence with Mrs. Goss’s fourth graders and others is becoming an enormous drain on my time and resources. Here, for example, is an excerpt from the latest missive from Chairman Gibbons:

Where were you born? When and where do you get your idas? When did you decide to become a writer? Were you a good student in school? Is writing easy for you? Is there any one thing you need to become a writer? What gives you the most satisfaction about waiting? Are you the only one in the lord high suzerain of the sun scandall? How do you write when you give your article to your editor?

Pacific Correspondent Swain, who apparently prefers a career as planetary correspondent to that of a grind, has been untiringly helpful on the epistolary front. But the burden of sovereignty is still too heavy. For this reason I am most eager to appoint a Postmaster General, whom I would empower to conduct the official correspondence of my vast empire. Any takers?

—David Owen