PRELUDE TO CHAOS I remember vividly going to see my first R-rated movie in a theater at age 12. It was 1982, and I had convinced my dad that because I was a devoted reader and collector of the Conan the Barbarian comic book and Howard's short stories, I had to see the first-ever cinematic adaptation of the pulp hero. My parents knew that I had always been impressionable and more sensitive than your average kid. Filmic images seemed to have an express route straight to my amygdala, undoubtedly fostered by growing up in a home of cinephiles (though they weren't the kind that would have known to describe themselves as such). It didn't take much wheedling to convince my dad to let me go, but he definitely wanted to accompany me. My parents weren't heavy-handedly strict in my media consumption, but they were responsible parents and very much believed that certain images, themes, and subject matter were and weren't age appropriate. (For example, when one of my c...
A Tabletop Field Marshal's Campaign Journal