Alamo Drafthouse to benefit Multiple Sclerosis Society

I certainly have made it no secret that I am one of approximately 400,000 Americans (2.5 million worldwide) diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society offers perhaps the best overall definition of the disease.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, unpredictable disease of the central nervous system (the brain, optic nerves, and spinal cord). It is thought to be an autoimmune disorder. This means the immune system incorrectly attacks the person's healthy tissue.

MS can cause blurred vision, loss of balance, poor coordination, slurred speech, tremors, numbness, extreme fatigue, problems with memory and concentration, paralysis, and blindness and more. These problems may be permanent or may come and go.

Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, although individuals as young as 2 and as old as 75 have developed it. MS is not considered a fatal disease as the vast majority of people with it live a normal life-span. But they may struggle to live as productively as they desire, often facing increasing limitations.

The NMSS does far more than define MS. They provide news, education, and material support for MS sufferers (I received my first cane through them). The group spearheads research efforts, offering grants and the like. The non-profit organization relies completely on donations to fund their philanthropic endeavors. Along these lines, the MS sponsors several annual fundraising events, most notably the regional Walk MS and Bike MS.

The 150 mile two-day ride from Houston to Austin (the MS 150) has become a staple April cycling event with thousands of regional participants. The only downside to the riders is the contacting your friends to beg for money. Worthy cause or not, it sucks.

Tim League, founder of the extraordinary Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, came up with this unique solution.

This year I am riding the MS150 with a group of friends. All of us agreed that we hate cold-calling our friends for money. So instead of traditional fundraising, our team is raising money for MS by hosting an awesome evening with a movie, a 4 course French meal and plenty of wine.

Please join us on Saturday, April 3rd at my house for an outdoor screening of the modern cycling classic The Triplets of Belleville. Executive chef John Bullington will be preparing a four course French meal to compliment the film and we will not be stingy with the wine.



Tickets for this event are $90, and all proceeds will be donated to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Donating to charity has never been this tasty.

It's that kind of creative thinking that placed the Alamo Drafthouse at #1 on Entertainment Weekly's 2005 list of "10 Theaters doing it right." And yet another reason that the Alamo Drafthouse is my favorite movie theater.

To order tickets or learn more about this event, visit the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

Campaign Manager 2008: The Review

Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard, designers of the 1960: The Making of the President boardgame, have just released Campaign Manager 2008 (through Z-Man Games).

Besides being about politics and having a bit of an area control idea, Campaign Manager doesn't have a whole lot in common with the earlier game. It sacrifices depth for speed: where 1960 might take 90 minutes to 2 hours to complete, Campaign Manager will probably finish in 30 minutes once the players are familiar with the rules. 1960, even though vastly simplified from Matthews' earlier award-winning Cold War CDG Twilight Struggle (designed with Ananda Gupta), still shows some American war game roots through the tight historical basis of its cards and the "chrome" of its debate sequence and endorsement rules. In contrast, Campaign Manager is more of a euro-style game, whose theme happens to be politics. Superficially, it reminded me a bit of Reiner Knizia's Battle Line, which hides its gin rummy roots behind a ancient battles theme.

The central conceit of Campaign Manager 2008 is contained in the title. In the weeks before the election, the contest has narrowed to 20 battleground states which each candidate must win to push his total past 270 electoral votes. The states, represented by nice thick placards, contain information on its number of electoral votes, the two dominant demographics in the states--for example, Clinton Democrats versus Jewish Conservatives--and where the state stands in connection to the two issues the candidates will fight over, the economy and defense. As states are won (rather than election day itself, think of a campaign reaching the point where it concedes the state and pulls its workers and advertising out) and new states come into play, you have to decide where you will place your resources. Each state begins with Red, Blue, and Undecided voters on each of the two issues. The campaigns are working to gain all the voters on the dominant side of an issue. If the dominant issue in a state is defense, for example, once one of the campaigns is able to shift all the voters concerned with that issue to his side, the state falls in his column.

Broadly speaking, the rules are simple enough. The Obama and McCain players each have separate decks of 45 cards each. They each have 10 of the 20 battleground states apiece. The game begins with the players going through their decks, pulling three cards and keeping one, to create a smaller deck of 15 cards they will cycle through over and over again. The cards obviously have different effects so you can try and fashion the deck according to your style of play or how you think the game tends to go. For example, the McCain deck has a card titled "Back To Baghdad," which allows him to gain support in the Defense issue in a single state and then draw another card. A first play or even a quick thumb through the card set makes clear that defense is McCain's dominant issue. But you have to balance your deck so that you aren't totally devoid of choices on the economy side. And vice versa for the Obama player. Once the game begins, each player's choice is to draw a card (you have a beginning hand of three) or play a card. There are 4 states on the board at any one time. When states are won, the winning player gets to decide which of his 10 states to bring out next. There is also a chaos-causing "Breaking News" mechanic that occurs when the new state comes in: you flip over a card with a cute little "ZNN" logo and implement its effect, usually in the just played state. For example, the Obama player could have happily just won New Mexico and decided to put Pennsylvania out as the new state, flip over the ZNN and bark out a curse as "Reverend Wright Resurfaces" causes all undecided voters in the new state to become Red Voters.

So there are a few more twists and turns in the rules, but that's honestly pretty much it. Since you only have the 15 cards in your deck, once you get going--unless you suffer badly from analysis paralysis--the choices should be made pretty quickly, again making for a 30 minute playtime. Another potential roadblock to speedy enjoyment is the player who can't see a picture, say of Sarah Palin or a mention of Afghanistan without treating you to a 30-minute dissertation of their view on the subject--if you're playing with that guy, add two hours to the playtime. Although I think I enjoy Campaign Manager 2008 more than 1960, Mr. or Ms. NPR is less likely to eyerollingly hold forth on Quemoy and Matsu, which is certainly a point for the earlier game.

The so-so depression : I review Mr. Shivers

My review of Robert Jackson Bennett’s Mr. Shivers appears in the Feb 3rd San Antonio Current.

In Robert Jackson Bennett’s lackluster debut novel, Mr. Shivers, Marcus Connelly rides the rails seeking vengeance for the murder of his daughter. Joining up with similarly driven individuals, Connelly searches Depression-era America for a killer, the mysterious title character recognizable by distinctive facial scars. To further denigrate his already cliché-ridden tale, Bennett adds a fallen preacher, hobos with hearts of gold, a carnival fortune teller, and a corrupt small town sheriff to the mix.

As you probably gathered I didn't think too highly of Mr. Bennet's effort. Though...

Not all of it is terrible. There are flashes on panache as Bennett skillfully produces several exciting action sequences. He even manages to insert a surprise or two in the otherwise largely by-the-numbers story.

Visit the San Antonio Current site to check out what else I had to say about Mr. Shivers.

Graphic Novels for Beginners

The latest "Nexus Graphica" hearkens back to my "Geeks With Books" days as I provide a guide to which graphic novels a neophyte should attempt first.

While I rank Watchmen among the great sequential works, its success depends heavily on readers who understand the tropes of traditional super-hero comics. Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons expertly used the well-established storytelling methods of the time (1986). By revitalizing and reinventing the superhero genre, then entering its 50th year, the duo influenced an entire generation of writers, artists, and filmmakers. For a reader new to the form, Watchmen may as well be written in Greek.

The first volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman (Preludes and Nocturnes) assumes a working knowledge of the long-running DC continuity, and, much like Watchmen, is not a good selection for the novice. The second volume (actually collected first) The Doll's House, works within the series' own mythos, which makes it much more accessible to neophytes.

Maus presents a conundrum for the pretentious "literature crowd." It uses funny animals and illustrations to tell its story, but it won a Pulitzer Prize. Surely the acclaimed Maus cannot be a comic book! Upon its publication, bookstores typically shelved Maus in Judaica rather than with the rest of the graphic novels, which for a time were all kept in humor. Masterfully employing sequential art techniques, Art Spiegleman's extraordinary Holocaust tale provides a perfect gateway for the new comics reader.

I go on to discuss several other graphic novels-- good and bad for new readers-- such as Sin City, Persepolis, Asterios Polyp, Bone, and V for Vendetta.

Check out the whole column at Sf Site.

Kirby designs Julius Caesar

The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center recently posted The King's designs from a theater production of Julius Caesar.

In 1969, Sheldon Feldner contacted Marvel Comics, asking if one of Marvel's artists would be interested in designing costumes for a production of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar by the University Theatre Company at Santa Cruz at the newly-built Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

As luck would have it, the Kirby family had recently moved to California, and Stan Lee recommended that Feldner contact Jack Kirby.

The article showcases several examples of Kirby's designs plus more history of the Cowell College play, color photos of the actors in Kirby-designed costumes, and even a .pdf of a piece from a Santa Cruz area newspaper Sunday supplement.

All in all a very interesting overview of Kirby history that I was previously unaware.

(Thanks to Scott Edelman)

Something weird this way comes

As part of the San Antonio Current's decade recap, I provided an overview of the 21st century's first new literary movement, New Weird.

Early in the aughts, a new creative force emerged. Worldwide political events, crystallized by the 1999 Seattle WTO protests and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, energized a self-aware readership that embraced New Weird, the 21st century’s first major new literary movement. Books such as China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station (2000), Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen (2001), Paul Di Filippo’s A Year in a Linear City (2002), K. G. Bishop’s The Etched City (2003), and Steph Swainston’s The Year of Our War (2004) birthed a revolutionary, real-world, postmodern literature that often included surreal elements found in urban fantasy, horror, science fiction, and political thrillers.

Of course the earliest New Weird authors began working in the style well before it was acknowledged as a movement. Miéville and VanderMeer, often seen as leaders of the movement, produced works containing New Weird concepts for smaller presses throughout the ’90s. The development of a moniker provided a marketable identity for publishers, which resulted in much larger venues for the work. Both authors’ careers benefited from the increased exposure, much like those later identified with the movement, most notably Jeffrey Ford and Jay Lake.

Check it all out in the current San Antonio Current.

Eerily Reminiscent

Book People honcho Steve Bercu's comments to the New York Times regarding book theft are eerily reminiscent to something I wrote shortly after being laid off by Book People, where Bercu was my immediate supervisor.


From the December 16, 2009 NYT piece:

At BookPeople in Austin, Tex., the rate of theft has increased to approximately one book per hour. I asked Steve Bercu, BookPeople’s owner, what the most frequently stolen title was.

“The Bible,” he said, without pausing.

Apparently the thieves have not yet read the “Thou shalt not steal” part — or maybe they believe that Bibles don’t need to be paid for. “Some people think the word of God should be free,” Bercu said.

And from my 2002 "Geeks with Books" essay "The Five Finger Discount" (later reprinted in my 2003 book Geek Confidential):

There is a whole other class of bible thief: the one who believes the word of God should be free for all to experience. I want to get these folks bumper stickers that say "The word of God, not just for terrorists anymore." What these fools don't realize is that the price covers paper, binding, the bookstore rent, employees and a zillion other expenses.

(I added the emphasis.)

Perhaps this is just a coincidence. Bercu could have read my piece when I wrote it and the phrasing stuck in his subconscious. I know while I was working there, Bercu was a regular reader of my column. I have no idea if he continued the practice after I left.