OK, am I the only one who didn't know that there is a real place called "Rexville" somewhere in the USA? I googled the term recently and I really didn't expect the first result to be a map of a town in upstate New York which is, ironically, not too far from where Michael Sharp, aka "Rex Parker" lives.
Rexville, as the legions of followers of this blog know, is what I and others call the on-line community which has formed around the blog "Rex Parker Does the NY Times Crossword Puzzle". And those loyal followers also know that there has been trouble in Rexville lately, an incident (I don't know all the details yet) involving the community bully, Evil Doug, and it's most beloved citizen, Andrea Carla Michaels (nee Eisenberg) (ACME). The turmoil in Rexville has caused me more distress than it ought to, considering it's just a blog for Chrissake. But, irrational though it may be, I am truly distressed by recent events there, probably because I have gotten to know one of the participants, that being ACME of course, and I will miss her greatly if she sticks to her resolve to abandon Rexville.
I have written about Rexville here before and the recent events caused me to go back to those posts to see if my comments from "syndicationland" (5 weeks in the past) could have in any way influenced the situation in "real time", where Andrea and Evil Doug live. As it turns out, maybe they did - see my recent post "Well now I feel just terrible". Indirect, sure; inadvertent, positively - but I still feel bad that something that I intended to be an upbeat, positive tribute to someone I admire turned out to be the spark that ignited the wildfire in Rexville.
I only wish that Evil Doug had googled himself, because one of the top results would have lead him to my post calling him out for the behavior that lead to the incident and maybe, just maybe, he would have rethought his conduct in Rexville and the whole ugly mess could have been avoided. Or at least maybe he would have been pissed enough to direct his vitriol against me instead of Andrea and the result would have been wholly different because, frankly, I don't give a damn what he thinks or says.
So there is a real-world place called Rexville and I'm sure it's a lovely place. But I'll bet it's no where near as nice as the virtual Rexville is - or was, until a bully came into the community and chased away its crowning jewel.
I'm not ready to let this go, so stay tuned for further updates.
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