• Scott wants to know: What is the literary mainstream?
• In Seattle, the Tiny Ninja Theatre has concocted a plastic toy version of Hamlet.
• Viggo and Cronenberg sitting in a tree.
• Jim Fergus has had enough of personal details about authors. The Rake (and others) have their own thoughts on this question.
• Tod Goldberg takes Writer’s Digest‘s 101 Best Websites for Writers to task.
• What’s your favorite word not in the dictionary? (via Book Ninja)
• And be careful where you order those Amazon used books. A Los Angeles woman found the words “Death to all Muslims” on the inside cover when she received her shipment. (via Moby Lives)

Former Paris Review editor Brigid Hughes (Plimpton’s short-lived successor) will be launching a new magazine. What’s particularly cool is that she’s enlisted Richard Powers (one of my favorite living novelists) and Yiyun Li as contributing editors. Hughes is also reportedly luring away Paris Review contributors for the new venture, which will be called A Public Space. This reporter is certainly curious to see how this will all turn out.

1. Amazing as this may seem, in Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas does recapture the Saturday matinee cliffhanger feel of the IV-VI trilogy. (In fact, characters hang from ledges fairly frequently in this film.)

2. George Lucas has no business writing love scenes. Mr. Lucas grasps intimacy about as well as I grasp Fermat’s theorems. And while said scenes are in short supply in Sith, they are about as egregious as it comes.

3. Obi-Wan rides one of the coolest Star Wars creatures since the Tauntaun.

4. So what the hell, George? What’s with the despicable gender gap in the Star Wars universe? The only chicks we have are Padme (quite literally, a barefoot and pregnant Ophelia archetype) and one token Jedi chick who gets eviscerated in seconds. Further, all the younglings are white and male, supporting my theory that the Republic/Empire represents a strange eugenics-inspired confluence of Nazi Germany and late 20th Century America. (Factor in the Germanic-sounding Vader and it all becomes self-evident.)

5. Jar Jar appears, but does not speak. But he is not flayed alive, as he rightfully should be, during one pivotal massacre.

6. The transformation of Anakin into Vader is very cool and very Return of the King-inspired.

7. I actually enjoyed the gradual black eye shadow applied to Hayden Christensen as the film went on. But while Christensen delivered a less cringe-worthy performance than the last film, he was again very silly and over-the-top near the end. Fortunately, through Ewan McGregor’s sneaky underplaying, the film’s denouement wasn’t completely demolished by Christensen’s histrionics.

8. Believe it or not, there was a minimum of Lucas’ environmental clutter. It was a relief to finally watch a film in which I didn’t have to pay attention to 6,000 CGI elements at once.

9. The traditional Star Wars dissolves weren’t nearly as intrusive as they were in the last two films.

10. The so-called “darkness” wasn’t nearly as “dark” as Lucas made it out to be. Certainly not Empire Strikes Back-dark and certainly not worth a PG-13 rating.

11. I have to ask: Does the Jedi Council just cavalierly sit by as one of its members kills an unarmed man? I mean, call me crazy, but if I were a member of the Jedi Council and some snotty little kid did that on my watch, I’d box his ears. It doesn’t take “the Force” to second-guess an asshole.

12. I’m not sure who was the genius who casually suggested to George that people often use contractions in their speech, but thank fucking god. Contractions go a long way to improving Lucas’ wooden dialogue. (ANAKIN: “I sense Count Dooku.” OBI-WAN: “I sense a trap.”)

13. Wookie Planet! Yes!

14. Yoda’s Jedi moves have improved considerably. He no longer resembles Sonic the Hedgehog, largely because Lucas is wise to keep Yoda’s back flips in long shot.

15. When lightsabers don’t have the allure they once had, what do you do? You have a cool fight scene where one character wields four of them.

16. R2D2 finally has character again! He beeps, he’s active, and he zaps people. I had completely forgotten R2D2’s charm, which hasn’t been seen since the first trilogy.

17. Jimmy Smits, are you going to fall asleep? Jimmy Smits, are you going to fall asleep?

18. Inconsistent is Yoda’s grammar, yes? Put to rest, the tired green guy.

19. Despite wars, revolutions and political upheaval, traffic apparently does not stop in the Star Wars universe. Just another day on the flying car bypass. Move along.

20. Finally, a compelling scene in the Senate chamber! Who knew that the place would be more interesting once the talking stopped?

Three stars. Mabuse says check it out.

The short answer: Good, not great. Far superior to Episodes I and II. Fun, far more imaginative than I expected. A more detailed report to follow. Now: To bed.

British MP George Galloway demonstrated what a politician can and should be doing in response to the shoddy ad decidedly undemocratic groupthink that passes for political discourse in this nation. By comparison, the Donkeys continue to come across as weak-kneed cowards. Nancy Pelosi’s ethical standards is a nice idea, but it still won’t demonstrate to the blank-eyed Little Orphan Annies who voted last November what political action is all about. Galloway is an inspiring yet sad reminder that there was a time when conviction not only meant something, but was absolutely essential to the political process. By my calculations, we are now less than eighteen months from midterm elections. Yet where is the mobilization? Where are the grassroots campaigns? What is the strategy to at least get a house or two back come November 2006?

I see nothing in the cards. Nothing in the way of commitment, nothing in the way of thinking forward, nothing in the way of divergent viewpoints. It’s a sad time indeed to be a principled progressive. Paul Robeson, a ghost playing through my speakers, bellows on repeat.