Guy mails camera through postal service, guy instructs USPS workers to take pictures. To guy’s surprise, postal workers fulfill their end of a nutty Faustian bargain. There’s even a cameramail schematic to boot if you’d like to try this experiment yourself.

A Private Shack
A Soul Apart
A Ryder Rental
Plimpton’s Enigma
Won’t Sell Out
George is Holding on Line Five
Revue Review
Lit My Fire
Lit Me Darkly
Lit Me Beer Me Seduce Me
Literary Merlot
Tales for George
Tower of Richard Powers
Surrender, Dorothy Parker
Bridgid’s Bitchin’ New Mag
Hughes & Plimpton: Together Again
The Peoria Review
The Paris Review Review
Melt My Tallow
The Disbeliever
The Atlantic’s Remains
Kiss Me, Short Story
Do What You Like
Do Like You Do
Mr. Do’s Literary Castle
Slush Puppy Pile
Form Acceptance Letter
We Put the Ink in Slink
SweecMeeney’s
Quarterly Schmarterly
A Public Bus Shelter
A Public Telephone
A Public Television Pledge Drive
We Pay Writers, They Don’t
Playstory
A Private Cache
A Private Privacy
A Public Privacy
A Public Space

• 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.