A screenwriter friend of mine writes:

"I saw 'Revenge of the Sith' and it broke my brain. Actually, I saw it twice and the second time, I took notes (after having bought a lights-in-the-dark pen for this very purpose).

In an attempt to release some of the pent-up pressure inside my skull, I have created a blog: http://surlywriter.blogspot.com."

Go take a look. Entertaining, it will be.

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Triplette is a three-person comedy troupe from Chicago--one of the best I've seen. They're performing at The Upright Citizens' Brigade Theater, 307 W. 26th Street (b/w 8th & 9th Aves.), June 10th, 2005. You should go see them; in the meantime, here's their site.

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...thanks to a chance encounter in a used book store, I've been thinking about Jack the Ripper, specifically the Maybrick Diary, which (depending on which side you're on) definitively solves the case or is a shabby hoax. Check it out at this excellent website.

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A friend of mine was so irritated by the latest entry in the Star Wars franchise that she created a blog to vent. Her right-on-the-money comments are here.

She's threatening to post an entire alternate plot for the first three episodes. I've seen scraps of this and it's great.

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Jon has a funny post over on Tiny Revolution.

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...Mark and Steve O'Donnell in the online edition of The Believer. I know Mark well, and he's one of my favorite comedy people (and teaches a perennially oversubscribed comedy writing seminar at dear ol' Yale). I don't know Steve, but seeing as he and Mark are identical twins, I figure he's probably a lot like Mark. Check it out here.

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...might enjoy this LiveJournal from the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez.

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Friend Anny Gaul pointed me to this primer on barbeque, North Carolina style. As a big fan of the smoky arts, I found it quite interesting.

What's the best barbeque in Chicago, you ask? Kate and I think it's here.

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...should check out a new blog by Larry Fouch. It's intelligent, opinionated, everything you want in a blog about movies. Larry seems to favor old stuff over current Hollywood product, and I can get behind that.

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...was this last weekend at Dottie's Dumpling Dowry, in Madison, Wisconsin. Spectacular.

Two thoughts while watching the new "Hitchhiker's" movie:
1) Douglas Adams was a comic genius;
2) There's definitely something missing there, for me. Kate suggested that the passivity of the characters, combined with the macro-thinking asides ("The Earth is x" or "The entire history of the Universe can be summed up y." totally saps any investment in the story or the characters. I don't know. All I know is, all the lines were tremendously witty and inventive, and I was nonetheless checking my watch.

I am perfectly prepared for this to be a deficiency in ME, not in Hitchhiker's. Also--and I know this is just the type of thing that makes me so annoying on a day-in, day-out basis, the movie didn't look right. It should've been made in 1980, with that kind of film stock; it should've been the long-lost brother to Holy Grail or Time Bandits. So much of the humor is embedded in 1970s British malaise...Ah, well. Better this good movie than that great nonexistent one.

Also: go see "Kung Fu Hustle"!

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