The site’s been quiet for a few days because I’ve been down in Decatur, Illinois visiting with my family down there: My great-aunt and great-uncle and a clan of second cousins. They’re like immediate family to me and I love them dearly. We had a wonderful time, although I discovered that my bowling skills have sadly rusted over from disuse.

While I was there, the subject of heritage and lineage and genealogy came up. This led my great-aunt Jean to relate the following story of my great-grandfather (on my father’s mother’s side):

When America first joined the Great War in Europe – what we would later come to call World War I – my great-grandfather was just barely too old to be caught by the draft. But, as the war dragged on, the nation’s need for brave young men grew. So, inevitably, the draft age was raised and raised and raised again.

But somehow my great-grandfather always stayed just a little ahead of it. Or, rather, he stayed ahead of it for awhile, because his lead was shrinking: At first he was a few years beyond the maximum. Then only a year. Then a few months. A few days. And, in the end, the draft caught up with him.

So my great-grandfather boarded a train and left the Midwest, bound for New York City. And when he reached New York City he was put onto a ship, and the ship was sent out into the Atlantic. Soon he would be in the trenches in France, and then God alone knew what might happen to him.

But when that ship was halfway ‘cross the ocean, the Germans surrendered. Just like that the Great War was over. So that ship turned right back around and came back to New York Harbor. They got back just in time for the ticker-tape parades, and in one of those ironic twists of fate that you couldn’t put into a novel (because no one would believe it) they – and others like them – made up the majority of those who were feted as returning heroes.

Forever after, whenever he was asked about the Armistice which ended World War I, my great-grandfather would say: “Well, when the Kaiser heard I was comin’…”

…

Tomorrow, or possibly the next day, we’ll have a more substantive update (at last!).

I simply have to declare my inexplicable passion for The Arcade Fire. For the last two weeks I have been constantly listening to their single “Rebellion” over and over and over again. I don’t know why, but every time the song comes to an end I feel compelled to flip back over to WinAmp and hit “play” again. Every. Single. Time.

Props to Questionable Content for bringing this musical epiphany into my life.

On the 4th of July this year, I was frustrated in my attempt to attend the fireworks at the Stone Arch Bridge by the failure of my girlfriend’s alarm; the questionable quality of my car; and the first symptoms of a rather virulent flu. Stranded at home, I was nevertheless in a patriotic mood, so I grabbed my copy of 1776 and stuck it in the machine.

I really love that musical. I’ve loved it ever since I first listened to it in the 8th grade. I have since come to understand that the delegates of the Second Continental Congress did not, in fact, spontaneously break into song, but it still stands as a stirring testament to the strength, principles, and sheer intelligence of those extraordinary men who we have come to call the Founding Fathers. It also reminds us that the United States of America was not a nation whose fate was assured: Its existence and its character, as defined now in the twin pillars of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, rested upon the thinnest reeds of chance, and were forced into being only through the determination and ability of truly remarkable men. In my opinion, it is this generation, and this generation alone, which can truly be described as the Greatest Generation. They not only gave birth to a nation, they possessed a singular vision which shone a beacon upon the world.

Shortly after discovering 1776 on my own, I was introduced by my U.S. History teacher to Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1776, a book by Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier. If I loved 1776, then I was enraptured with Decision in Philadelphia. This phenomenal volume takes up the Constitutional Convention of 1776 — the birthplace of our nation — and presents it with page-turning intensity.

It would be trite to say that it makes the material accessible, because that would understate the authors’ real ability to present the complex political issues of the Convention as a compelling drama without losing any of the depth and detail which make this book a true jewel. Without any pretense or conceit, they place you right onto the Convention floor and insinuate you into backroom bargains — allowing you to watch, first-hand, as the greatest assembly of political philosophers (in that or any age) create the greatest government the world has ever known.

In a very real sense, this book represents the birthplace of my political beliefs. Of course, in many ways, it did so at a remove: In reality, its the political philosophy of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, Roger Sherman, and George Mason that captured my attention (and later led me to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, among others). But the Colliers are so cogent and clear in their presentation that the book serves not only as a brilliant piece of history, but as a valuable political primer.

If you truly want to understand the American government – the manner of its conception; the theory of its function; the brilliant compromises which give it endurance — then I strongly encourage you to hunt down a copy of Decision in Philadelphia. You won’t regret it.

I saw the new War of the Worlds yesterday. Cruise gives us his typical intensity. Dakota Fanning gives a surprisingly nuanced and subtle performance. Spielberg delivers a breathtaking vision and beautifully-crafted cinematography.

I won’t say that the movie is an unqualified success, but I will say that it sets a new and impressive standard for alien-invasion flicks. (I hesitate to say that, because I’ve seen some people mouthing the opinion that this movie somehow spells the death of Independence Day. I don’t see how this conclusion can possibly be drawn, given the fact that War of the Worlds and Independence Day exist at almost opposite ends of the spectrum: One doesn’t truly take itself seriously. The other is firmly rooted in reality.)

This post isn’t really meant to be a review, however. What I’m really aiming to do is comment on the stunning stupidity of audience members. There seems to be a sizable number of people who need to have everything spoon-fed to them: If a filmmaker asks them to give the slightest thought to the film; to provide the slightest bit of closure; to ponder the most immaterial of mysteries… these morons are lost at sea.

This is not surprising to me. What is surprising, however, is the willingness for these mindless fools to trumpet their lack of mental faculties far and wide. Apparently they are truly incapable of distinguishing the difference between a shortcoming in themselves and a shortcoming in the filmmaker.

With a certain degree of synchronicity, I first started to notice this trend with Cruise’s Mission Impossible. I thought the movie was clever, stylistic, and very well done.

I was shocked to discover, a few days later, that apparently there were many people who were incapable of following the film’s plot. In fact, I’ve never been able to truly comprehend what, exactly, baffles these people. But, apparently, it has something to do with the false-flashback sequence used to show Cruise’s character piecing together the truth of the catastrophe that befell him early in the film.

I remember watching Jay Leno make fun of the movie’s “incomprehensible” plot in his monologue and thought to myself: “If we ever wonder why Hollywood thrillers are so utterly simplistic, this is the reason why.”

In War of the Worlds, Spielberg quite intentionally leaves the true motivations and machinations of the aliens a mystery: The protagonists aren’t in a position to know such things and neither are we. From what we see of the aliens’ actions, intuitions can be drawn. But true answers are not to be found. In fact, we even see the characters in the film itself struggle to find the truth behind the invasion. Some of their answers are insightful. Others are simply absurdities.

For many audience members, however, this is simply beyond their ken. Somehow their minds leap directly from “Spielberg has not given us an answer engraved upon tablets of stone” to “this movie doesn’t make sense” before making a slight detour into the cul-de-sac of “this movie sucks”. Perhaps most amusing to me are those who accept the paranoiac rantings of a red-neck survivalist driven to near-insanity as gospel truth. They are apparently able to recognize the fact that these rantings are nonsensical, but are apparently incapable of grasping that this is entirely intentional on the part of the filmmakers.

So the next time you find yourself wondering why Hollywood produces so much simplistic crap, stop and reflect upon those who are baffled by the subtle intricacies of “complex” film like Mission Impossible and War of the Worlds. They get what they deserve. Unfortunately, we’re taken along for the ride.

Welcome to the Alexandrian, the homepage of Justin Alexander. By trade I’m a freelance writer, and this is to become not only a site of news and updates, but also a repository. Here you’ll be able to find my reviews, my politics, my stories, and my thoughts. Over the next few months you’ll see this page begin to fill up with a lot archival material.

To get things started, let’s start at the beginning. The seeds of my professional career as a freelance writer were laid in the summer of 1996. I had been out of the loop when it came to roleplaying games for a couple of years. But that summer I was stuck in Mankato, MN and was bored out of my mind. Seeking some social contact, I returned to my old Usenet haunts of rec.games.frp.misc and rec.games.frp.dnd. There I heard about a nifty new game called Feng Shui. Intrigued, I hopped on my bike and rode down to the local hobby store. There I not only found a copy of Feng Shui, but I also noticed Heavy Gear from Dream Pod 9. It was, without a doubt, the absolutely stunning artwork of Ghislain Barbe which drew me to the latter. And if it hadn’t… well, then my life would be different.

To see the ball really start rolling, we need to fast forward a bit to the Spring of 1998 when I submitted a review of The Paxton Gambit, a Heavy Gear supplement, to RPGNet. The review was originally written for and posted to the Heavy Gear Mailing List. RPGNet had been around for a couple of years at that point, but the site was just beginning to get noticed by the larger RPG community. One of the people who noticed was Phillippe Boulle, who — at the time — was an editor at Dream Pod 9. He, in turn, posted a message to the Heavy Gear Mailing List asking that fans of the game go to RPGNet and post reviews of their favorite Dream Pod 9 products. When I saw Phillippe’s message, I took the review I had already written, popped over to RPGNet, and posted it.

That was a lot of fun. So the next week I wrote up a review of Amber Diceless Roleplaying and posted that, too. After that, momentum took over and, before I knew it, I had a couple dozen reviews and had become firmly ensconced. The quality of my reviews (if I may speak immodestly for a moment) had garnered me a reputation in my niche.

But the niche was growing. RPGNet itself was becoming well-known in the roleplaying industry and community, it’s reputation burnished by the hundreds of reviews being posted by enthusiastic amateurs. And among the horde of enthusiastic amateurs there were a dozen or so of us who contributed a constant stream of detailed, high-quality reviews.

By the end of 1998 I was able to flip my newfound, and quite unexpected, name recognition in industry circles into a couple of freelance contracts. Ironically, the first of these was with Dream Pod 9: I sent a query letter to Phillippe Boulle with a half dozen carefully thought-out and cleverly presented ideas for Heavy Gear supplements.

He hated all of them.

But, fortunately, just before sending the letter I had jotted down a random thought:  “After reading the half-page of information in the Terra Novan Sourcebook on Saragossa and the Saragossa People’s Front for Independence I was fascinated. Wouldn’t it be great to explore the political structure of Saragossa, as well as diving into the past of the Saragossa Conclave? Such a book should definitely include the design for a series of adventures with the SPFI conflict as a backdrop.”

He liked that one. And hired me to write it. In another bout of supreme irony, that book never saw publication (although some of the material was eventually rewritten for Storm on the Horizon, the fourth Heavy Gear storyline). The Paxton Gambit had apparently flopped and the format, which served as the basis for the SPFI supplement, was cancelled. But by the time that happened, I’d already flipped my unpublished professional credit — along with my growing rep as an RPGNet reviewer — to pick up a few more contracts.

So that’s how I got started: RPGnet. Heavy Gear. And my reviews.

But if you go to RPGNet today, you won’t find any of my reviews there. What happened? Well, that’s another story for another day.