User:DevOhm/sandbox

Alexander Franklin "Xander" Lenc, born April 7, 1989, is a geographer and posadist based in Berkeley, California. A connoisseur of iconoclastic film and all-around great dude, Xander is widely beloved for his self-deprecating good humor, sharp structural analysis, and strikingly good listening skills.

Early life and education
Xander was raised in Carlsbad, CA, and after a youth presumably spent engaged in urban exploration of the decaying landscapes of suburban southern California he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where in addition to his studies he served as a campaign volunteer for Barack Obama. Around this time he became friends with Catherine Conroy, and was probably introduced to Devon Peterson, but accounts of this period are fragmentary.

Academic Career
Against all odds, Xander seems to be making a very solid go of getting a Ph.D in geography at UC Berkeley, with a research focused on carceral spaces. Many commentators have suggested that this is a natural focus of inquiry, given Xander's unselfconscious ability to relate to and engage with heavily marginalized groups in society, and his preternatural ability to promulgate abstract or heady critical analysis while not sounding like a complete blowhard asshole. His thesis is expected to be released no later than 2025 or 2030, and is highly anticipated.

Friendship with Devon Peterson
Devon Peterson has said of Xander:

"Honestly, I feel so lucky to know this guy. In a lot of ways, he's one of the voices I trust most outside my own head. During my breakup Xander was incredibly helpful not just as a supportive friend, but as someone who knew how to give explicit advice when it was called for – advice that ended up being extremely good and correct each time. There's something very special about someone who can tell you what they think you should do, but who never sounds pushy or arrogant. Plus, I can always count on him to have a well-argued counter to some bullshit position-of-the-week I've adopted. Wouldn't trade him for the world."

Sacramento
While Xander and Devon may have met as undergraduates at Cal, the real beginning of their friendship dates back to an anti-fascist action they undertook together, along with Catherine Conroy, Alfred Twu, and around 300 other anti-fascists opposed to a planned rally of the Traditionalist Workers Party on June 26th, 2016. Though the action soon became violent, the small group of comrades was able to stay safe, and assist their fellow anti-fascists in shutting down the TWP rally, wrapping up the day with snow ice in the Sacramento suburbs. Devon credits Xander's measured critique of his statements regarding the legitimacy of the police presence as a critical moment in his turn towards anarchist politics.

Sumo
Xander and Devon simultaneously became fans of professional sumo one evening in March 2017 in the garage at Pinkhouse. Trading poorly-remembered facts about the ancient combat sport, Xander recommended Devon search Youtube for videos of Hakuho bouts. This led to the discovery of Jason's All-Sumo channel, where the pair watched an excellent Hakuho vs. Harumafuji bout. This rather obscure beginning led to a genuine passion for the sport on the part of both friends, including multiple rounds of fantasy sumo, and endless discussion about the politics of the Japan Sumo Association and the future of the sport. Xander is a noted fan of Enhō Akira, the Miyagino wunderkind, at one point remarking that he considered the wrestler "a genuine inspiration".

The breakup and beyond
Xander was the first person Devon called at the very sudden beginning of the end of his relationship with Catherine. More than rising to the occasion (to help a friend with whom he wasn't all that close at the time), Xander provided invaluable advice, perspective, and comfort as Devon negotiated the uncertainty and anxiety of the moment. This marked a a new stage in their relationship, one which has persisted to the present.

Shortly after the breakup, Xander introduced Devon to Brittany Young, who he was dating at the time. The overall outcome of this introduction was the initiation of a new long-term friendship and cooking pact that would grow to include Hillary Knouse and others, marked also by board games, New Year's celebrations, and offers of mutual aid amid the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. The friendship remains of Devon's most valued, and is one for which he is regularly made quite grateful.

Posadism
A militant member of the Fourth International (Posadist), Xander is an enthusiast of both Ufology and the possibility of interspecies comradeship with dolphins. Eschewing Posadas' catastrophism, Xander seeks a more optimistic, less destructive path to alien-assisted liberation from the shackles of capitalism.

Controversies
Xander is known as a collector of dead and preserved insect and animal specimens. As someone with somewhat idiosyncratic organizational style, he is reported to have for some time kept a desiccated toad in a mason jar on his dresser.

Xander is accused of co-opting Brittany's cat, and displacing her in the affections of the beast.

Xander briefly believed in the potential success of Michael Bloomberg's disastrous 2020 presidential run.