Islands affect the human mind perhaps more than any other geographical formation. There is something simultaneously liberating and oppressive about being surrounded by water on all sides. Islands mess with our senses of possibility and connectedness, occasionally giving us delusions of grandeur and impunity. They give some people places to play out their fantasies, and other societies shields to protect their traditions from the flattening forces of mass culture. And yet, because of the wealth patterns left behind by our species’ seafaring past, they are also often the skyscraper-dotted engines of cultural hegemony itself.

Last Exit is now created on two of these vertical, urban islands separated by a half-turn of the Earth: Manhattan and Abu Dhabi. So in some ways the “islands” theme of our fifth issue became a way for us to deal with the new arrangement, to find similarity where we feared there might be too much difference to proceed.

Yet, as usual, the theme really came from our contributors, who traveled quite literally around the globe to bring us dispatches from such far-flung islands as Pohnpei, Micronesia; Lokrum, Croatia; and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. In some cases, the islands were metaphorical or cultural, such as Austin’s island of liberal hip in the vast red-state expanses of Texas, or Burma’s island-like isolation from the international community. In others, such as in William Bryk’s forceful history of self-made kings, they were often verging on imaginary. Each writer draws something different from the islands’ isolation:

On the tiny Micronesian island of Pohnpei, Walmsley Apricot discovers a whole culture built around the bitter inebriant sakau, which is cheaper than beer, often paralyzing and essential for marking every important milestone in Pohnpeian life.

Becoming king of your own country is not as hard as it sounds when you’re just about the only one in it. William Bryk traces the history of those adventurers who claimed island kingdoms for themselves, from a lesser-known Trinidad off the coast of Brazil to the modern-day kingdom of Redonda.

In his account of his failed adolescent attempt to destroy the sanctity of Martha’s Vineyard by convincing his fellow islanders they needed a McDonald’s, Byran Joiner explains how growing up on an island makes the rest of the world a lot more interesting.

More than 15 years after war forced her family to leave their native Croatia Vesna Jaksic returns to Lokrum, a tiny island near her hometown, to enjoy the Adriatic from a rocky vantage no tourist would dare.

South by Southwest is a thing unto itself, a mass of coastal hipsters descending on Austin for a week of unabashed music worshipping. Teresa Herrmann muses on what a red-state music festival can teach Brooklyn scenesters about cool. With photos by Ana Monroe.

Myanmar has been cut off from the world since 1988. As revolutionary rumblings grew louder there last year, Danny Gold attempted to cross the border to get a peek at the potential end of the country’s isolation. Instead, he got a good look at the face of fascism.

In case anyone wonders how she’s doing, Keach Hagey is writing about her new life in Abu Dhabi on her blog, Sandpaper. She offers Last Exit tales of her latest adventures in mall hopping and hotel bar hanging.

- The Editors