Numbers can be used to justify most anything. And if more is better, the sixosix open house was an unqualified success. And the upcoming July events look even better.

At the beginning of June, 250 of Chicago's best – or most out-of-work, depending on your point of view – writers, designers and photographers did a round-robin with the magazine's staff, getting the spiel on sixosix, showing their portfolios/samples and generally listening until the staff had simply talked ourselves out.

Things I learned:

• People are excited about joining a project, about putting their creative skills to use and getting themselves out there to make some sort of an impact;
• The there's much more support for an undertaking as big as a magazine than I initially thought; and
• People network much better when boozing.

Since a project like this is built on boozing out of necessity, I'm glad everyone could cut back and have a good time. This issue marks number seven for the sixosix staff and, after the open house and the magazine's subsequent events – co-hosting the Garden of Eden and Collaboraction's prom party during June – we're entering a new era. It's now as plain as white toast that there are millions of untold stories waiting to be tapped in the Chicagoland area.

But what if people hadn't come to the open house? Think back to all those missed connections you've had on the bus, buying milk or waiting in line at the theater. Let's just make our own little sixosix personal, hypothetically posted to Craigslist.org:

Reply to: sixosix@craigslist.org
Date: 2004-07-01, 3:47PM CDT

To the city of Chicago: As I walked around not noticing what was going on around me, I suddenly stopped, amazed by your beauty and intellect. You had me from hello. Please, please drop me a line. I want to tell your stories.

Alas, my missed connection.

this is in or around Chicago all the time
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Enjoy the issue.

Photo courtesy of Saverio Truglia, to see more visit www.saveriotruglia.com

To see more of Saverio’s pictures from PROM, visit :
http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=saverio&gallery_id=75743