“Type Club”:
Albeit’s Most Common Secret Society
9/14/2008
Kenneth Burchfiel
In the summer of 1987, a group of five college students got together with a primitive computer and a beat-up keyboard. Behind closed doors, they gave themselves a name—”Type Club—” and a goal: to type more than they could ever have imagined possible.
Decades later, with hundreds of similar groups [...]
An Acquired Taste:
An Overview of the Albeitian Climate
9/12/08
Kenneth Burchfiel
In most towns—even those that consider themselves a cold-weather location—the winter coats only come out from late fall to early spring. In Albeit, however, parkas, jackets and fleeces can be seen on coat hangers and seatbacks year round. Not that the citizens necessarily wear them.
There is one [...]
“Quadrantism” in Albeit
7/17/08
Kenneth Burchfiel
If it’s true that humans instinctively divide themselves, Albeit is a great piece of supporting detail. The residents live in a community divided into four separate Quadrants, each of which contains anywhere from one to five Cantons. If it’s also true that humans instinctively stereotype, Albeit certainly doesn’t defy the status quo.
The [...]
A Coordinate(d) City—2C
6/12/08
Kenneth Burchfiel
For someone to understand any map or overview of Albeit, they must first be familiar with two things. The first is the Canton system; it has been covered in a previous article. The second, perhaps just as important, is the structuring of the city around geographic coordinates.
Albeit was planned and [...]
The Canton system
6/12/08
Kenneth Burchfiel
For one to understand Albeit, it is absolutely imperative that they understand the Canton system that lays at the root of its uniqueness.
In just about all cities, “neighborhoods” are mere shades of the city as a whole; minor deviations in culture and architecture from one region to the next. Boundaries between one [...]
The Albeit Manifesto—2j
5/30/2008
Kenneth Burchfiel
One popular tradition for incoming residents is to write a paragraph or two explaining the reason for their move, then give it to family and friends. These ‘manifestos’ have become popular enough to spawn an off-the-wall memorial: Manifesto Wall in Spengler is a forty foot-long wall of concrete on [...]
The town that set out to be different—2a
5/25/2008
Kenneth Burchfiel
There is a popular story that Albeit’s citizens like to tell those around them. It goes something like this. In 2006, according to an observer’s blog, a man from out of town—Chicago, most people say—walked up to an Albeit resident and asked where the nearest [...]
