Atom Films is hosting a competition for fan-made films paying tribute to the Star Wars franchise, many of which are actually quite funny. The whole affair is sponsored by Lucasfilms and being judged by George Lucas himself. The New York Times has a slightly unfair article about Lucasfilms’ disqualification of any film from the competition that didn’t conform to its strict rule allowing ‘spoofs and documentaries only.’ In it, Jim Ward, V.P. of marketing at Lucasfilm utters this amazingly anti-fan comment: “...If in fact somebody is using our characters to create a story unto itself, that’s not in the spirit of what we think fandom is about. Fandom is about celebrating the story the way it is.” In other words: watch, listen and obey.

Francis Lam’s db-db is inscrutable, difficult to use, nearly illegible and patience-testing. But it’s also one of the richest and most impressive Flash-based systems around, an intricate world of tiny, pixel-based avatars living in a ‘chat playground’ superimposed on top of better-than-average design portal content. Its latest incarnation is, like the new K10k, packed with even more little widgets than ever, but the holistic effect is far more solid, giving the impression not just of a thousand corners to explore, but also of a database of great depth.

It was so hectic getting this out the door that I completely forgot to post notice of it here. Well, here’s the deal: on Wednesday, Behavior launched the brand new TomJones.com, which we’ve been working on for a few months. I’m pretty proud of it.

Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Topdog/Underdog,” another Pulitzer Prize-winner, is excellent, a bracing two-person play starring the amazing Jeffrey Wright and the surprisingly good Mos Def. I saw it last night at the Ambassador Theater (Paul Newman was in the audience too!) and was riveted to my seat.

Right now I’m halfway through Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” which is the first fiction I’ve read in about a year. A friend gave it to me as a gift two years ago, but I only picked it up recently. It’s a good read and ambitious in scope, if a little over-rated. What makes it so entertaining is the very grown-up eye it turns to the comic book world, a kind of validation of the wide-eyed passion of geeky, power-starved, adolescent boys everywhere.

Skop has an entertaining Flash toy that lets you play deejay with Bruce Lee.

Welcome back to design portal extraordinaire Kaliber10000, whose new design is full of more clever little design widgets than ever.

So, no site to launch today, but check back on Wednesday. In the meantime I’m offering my first new cover in forever, “Funny Pages.”

Behavior was supposed to launch a new site tomorrow, and I was excited to tell everyone about it. Unfortunately, some unexpected cicrumstances have pushed the launch back to next Wednesday. Bummer.

“The Russian Avant-Garde Book” is an exhibit on display right now at the Museum of Modern Art, and also a Web site, exceptionally well-designed by a friend of mine at For Office Use Only.

New York’s Channel 13 has started showing old episodes of Patrick McGoohan’s semi-legendary television show “The Prisoner” late on Sunday nights. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. While the cheesey 60s themes and metaphors are a hoot, the series nevertheless remains absurdly cool, and as worthy as any pop-culture artifact of cult devotion.

Should museums — especially art museums — be putting on exhibits as brazenly commercial as “Star Wars: The Magic of Myth”? Probably not, but I confess to feeling a strong pull towards the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see it. To even things out, I’ll make a trip to see the Whitney Biennial first and get a good dose of ‘real art.’ Kinda the way you’d drink a Diet Coke to balance out a Big Mac.

I thought this was really hilarious.

Late night television hit a new low yesterday when David Letterman had Attorney General John Ashcroft as a guest. (The Late Show’s Web site has a video clip of the segment, though it probably won’t be up there too long). The AG was a good enough sport and I’ll bet that he’s even a charming fellow if one can get past his far-right politics. But his clumsy attempts at playfulness were just maddening and disturbing given his office’s egregious abuses of power earlier that very same day.

The redesigned Wall Street Journal is out and it looks pretty good. It’s still hard to believe that they spent US$232 million on this effort, but I guess they know money. As for the redesign as a possible harbinger of some change in character for this venerable rag… well, if lines like, “Please excuse us if we take a moment to mention our make-over. We figure we’re entitled every 40 years or so,” are any indication, then the Journal’s singular brand of ‘progressive conservative’ smarminess is in no immediate danger.

Lately I’ve been on a New York-on-film kick, inspired by James Sanders’ “Celluloid Skyline,” a hefty survey of Gotham’s cinematic history. Last week I watched “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” which may not hold up as a thrill ride, but it has a certain documentarian charm. Then yesterday I rented “The French Connection.” The last time I watched it I think I was twelve and it had been clumsily butchered up for the Saturday afternoon matinee on Channel 20. Its gritty details went right over my head but I remembered being floored by its brutal, epic sweep. That same feeling hit me with an exponential force this time, crystallized by the pristine DVD print, the ferocity of Gene Hackman’s performance, the gorgeously uncompromising cinematography, and William Friedkin’s pitch-perfect storytelling.

Every time I watch PBS’s “Frontline,” I’m completely impressed. But last night I watched an episode called “Battle for the Holy Land” which includes some amazing behind-the-scenes footage (shot by the BBC) with both Palestinian freedom fighters and Israeli security forces. It was powerful and chilling and probably the most revealing documentation of the conflict that I’ve ever seen.

Iain Lamb and Ethan Diamond thought it was a good idea to create the cleverest Web-based mail application ever. Oddpost is a remarkably fast and clean DHTML-based interface that puts Hotmail,  Yahoo! Mail, et. al. to shame. The only thing is, it won’t work on Macs.

I’m so, so tired this evening, due in no small part to the fact that Behavior is in the final production stages of a site that’ll launch on 20 Apr. Also, I’ve got a big presentation on Thursday for a potential client and I’m excited and worried about it. Sometimes being in start-up mode makes me feel like I could work forever doing the work of ten designers, and sometimes it makes me want to just park my butt in front of the TV with a whole stack of DVDs.