Brad King

Main Event: Geeks Just Wanna Have Fun
Familiar with Ultima, MUDs, Doom, PMS?

BRAD KING is, and he wants you to be, too. These are just a few of the gaming phenomena he explores with John Borland in their new book, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture From Geek to Chic.

The story opens with -- and loosely centers on -- gaming pioneer Richard Garriott, tracing his beginnings as the underachieving son of an astronaut to his status as the creator of the first successful multi-player online game, Ultima, and beyond. Along the way, King and Borland make pit stops at various gaming developments over the past 30 years, from the early purveyors of Dungeons & Dragons to the current mainstream success of ultra-interactive games like Doom and Quake.

Yet, despite gaming's rapidly rising profile, a stigma persists.

Brad King's book, Dingeons and Dreamers

"Even today people are reticent to say, 'Oh yeah, I'm totally a gamer,' " says King, a Cincinnati native now living in Austin, Texas. "Even though people are spending millions of dollars on games, there is this stigma to them and there's this tremendous lack of understanding about what games can do and why people are attracted to them. So we really wanted to sit down and tell a story about what the digital world is like -- it's about how we live our lives and it's about people using technology to find other people."

And find other people they did.

"Technology afforded them a way to sort of get rid of that shell, which is what we judge everybody by, and really get into this world where they can be whatever they want to be," King says. "It was almost like they moved to another neighborhood. And they got a chance to reinvent themselves. Only the neighborhood was online, and they weren't judged by the same societal rules. One of the big misunderstood things about geek culture is that these are good-souled people like everybody else who just want to have friends and meet people who 'get it,' who understand each other."

Brad King discusses Dungeons and Dreamers from 2-4 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble in Deerfield Township and 6-8 p.m. at Kaldi's Coffeehouse in Over-the-Rhine. 513-683-5599 or 513-241-3070. (See Literary.) -- JASON GARGANO

Hayden Christensen in Shattered Glass

THURSDAY 20
Guaranteed to enchant and disturb, the CHIDLAW GALLERY (951 Eden Park Drive) is hosting an opening reception for The Sky Above, The Mud Below, an exhibition of photographs by Cara Cole, from 5-7 p.m. Thursday. Cole's work rests within her desire to explore cultural differences within the impact of time on earthbound and celestial bodies. "Humans and beast have a finite arc of time to contrast to the relative eternity of the cosmos," Cole says. Embrace the opportunity to see the literal inside of the beast and explore the mysteries surrounding life, death and what remains that often words are unable to deliver justice. 513-562-8777. (See Art.) -- JACQUELYN VAUGHN

THURSDAY 20
Things have a tendency to get drawn out, particularly if they're proper fodder for editorial cartoons. JEFF STAHLER, The Cincinnati Post's masked man behind the pen since 1985, sketches out his latest collection of work, Stahler: Inkslinger. The name has a certain superhero ring to it, doesn't it? If feats of strength include works appearing in USA Today, Newsweek and The New York Times, then a superhero he shall be. Stahler appears, minus his skintight bodysuit and cape, at 7 p.m. Thursday to discuss and sign his work. No word yet on a superhero pen-and-ink smackdown between Stahler and Jim Borgman. 513-396-8960. (See Literary.) -- BRANDON BRADY

It's up, it's good: Jackass wins an award at the 2002 CEAs.

FRIDAY 21
Writer-director Billy Ray's feature directing debut SHATTERED GLASS recalls the delicate fabrications of Ron Howard's Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind. While Steven Glass (Hayden Christensen) might not be clinically unstable like Mind's genius John Nash, he can't stop spinning his web of deceit, even when confronted by Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard), his new editor at The New Republic. As Christensen's Glass shatters under close scrutiny, Sarsgaard picks up the pieces and gives audiences something to reflect on. (See Film.) -- TT CLINKSCALES

FRIDAY 21
Join the MILLER GALLERY (2715 Erie Ave., Hyde Park) for an evening of tradition and be one of the first to preview Objects of Desire XII. From 6-8 p.m. Friday, these "treats, treasures and small pleasures" will be available at a variety of prices. More than 20 artists are featured, including miniature paintings by Amy Giust, ceramics by Richard Cohen and figurative sculpture by Campbell Paxton to name a few. Much of the work featured was created exclusively for this show, which continues through New Year's Eve. Don't miss this eclectic annual event. 513-871-4420. (See Art.) -- JACQUELYN VAUGHN

The Rapture

SATURDAY 22
Rather than dwelling on the past, contemporary art tends to keep it on the backburner as a means to press on -- a concept that hasn't been this prevalent at the CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER in some time. Two new exhibits open Saturday, Crimes and Misdemean-ors: Politics in the U.S. Art of the 1980s and Moshekwa Langa. Both revisit political/scandalous ideas in the visual world of days not so long ago. Crimes breaks down the time warp into four categories -- "Having/Not," "Identity/Constructs," "Institutional/Critiques" and "Sex/Kills" -- featuring 55 artists; South African Langa transforms his own accounts of segregation/globalization into more universal drawings and installations. Even if you, like many of us, are challenged to understand "modern art," go see these for a lesson in history. 513-345-8415. (See Art.) -- JESSICA TURNER

MONDAY 24
The waiting's over: It's time to hand out the CINCINNATI ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS at Old St. George (42 Calhoun St., next to UC). At 7:30 p.m. we'll start naming the best in local music and theater. There will be a special appearance by Over The Rhine, this year's music inductees into the CEA Hall of Fame, and recognition of CCM theater professor Michael Burnham. The evening's always a lively mix: At first they eye one another like different species, but before it's over, actors are rocking and musicians are admiring the stage talent. On Thursday at 5:30 p.m., you can meet CEA theater nominees at Arnold's Bar & Grill downtown in a benefit for the League of Cincinnati Theatres. CEA tickets are available at citybeat. com/cea. 513-665-4700. (See Events.) -- RICK PENDER

TUESDAY 25
After their debut EP, The Mirror, and their first full length for Sub Pop, Out of the Races and Onto the Track, the SoCal band THE RAPTURE pulled up stakes and relocated to New York to broaden their horizons. Brooklyn-based producers DFA saw the band during an uncharacteristically disastrous club date but chose to take them on as a recording project. After hearing what the producers had in mind, The Rapture (playing the Southgate House on Tuesday) warmed to the idea of presenting their indie energy in a dance context, which led to the recording of the 12-inch single "House of Jealous Lovers," a dissonant Gang-of-Four-meets-The-Cure styled House groove. Their first post-DFA album, Echoes, has managed to snare both Indie Rock and Dance audiences, successfully navigating the choppy waters between the two disparate camps. 859-431-2201. (See Music.) -- BRIAN BAKER