Anything worked, from didactic fables to absurdist novels (my favourite part in Saltykov-Schehdrin's Tale of a Town features a mayor who has a hurdy gurdy for a brain).
Later on, a few of us drove about an hour up the coast towards Lubo (a small town featuring a statue of its founder, a slave-trader from Sierra Leone called Maximiliano Jones).
Their designs, for a Prattsville that is 3, 5 or 10 years away, evoked a modern, flood-resistant, tourist-friendly town featuring a village green, a recreation complex and attractive new homes and businesses — built above the flood plain.
Two years ago, CPAC was the hottest ticket in town, featuring a cattle call of Republican presidential hopefuls.
Our Twitter tipsters spotted ads plastered around town featuring a denim, studded burka.
This week's Goings On About Town features a shot from a New York favorite: Nightmare, held each year at the Clemente Solo Vélez Center, on the Lower East Side.
In 1970, Talk of the Town featured a contribution from a self-appointed "Christmas Consultant," who was full of unsolicited advice about how Christmas might be improved.
Octoberfest brings four weekends of wine tours, music and food, and in December, the town features a traditional German Christmas market.
The Killers' last album, Sam's Town, featured a trailer-trash beauty queen on its cover, shot by Anton Corbijn, the director of the award-winning Ian Curtis biopic, Control, and countless music videos for U2, Nirvana and Coldplay.
By April 1903, the permanent population had reached 600, and the town featured a two-storey school and four hotels.
