He is officially beyond self-parody:

We don’t know who’s behind this, but it’s awesome. As are the comments.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says [Galactic Empire Times]

Tuesday-night update: Sometime after everyone posted this fine creation, NMA yanked the video from its YouTube channel and website. So we’re replacing it with the copy Mediaite uploaded.

Our guest columnists are scholars Joy DeLyria and Sean Michael Robinson.

There are few works of greater scope or structural genius than the series of fiction pieces by Horatio Bucklesby Ogden, collectively known as The Wire; yet for the most part, this Victorian masterpiece has been forgotten and ignored by scholars and popular culture alike. Like his contemporary Charles Dickens, Ogden has, due to the rough and at times lurid nature of his material, been dismissed as a hack, despite significant endorsements of literary critics of the nineteenth century. Unlike the corpus of Dickens, The Wire failed to reach the critical mass of readers necessary to sustain interest over time, and thus runs the risk of falling into the obscurity of academia. We come to you today to right that gross literary injustice.

Read more »

As our friend Karl said of the original, Spielberg plays your heart with a two-by-four. For the sequel, just add nails.

ET-X: Extinction [via Buzzfeed & Benedick]

Google Books has every issue of Spy magazine online. We’ll see you next week.

Spy Archive [via Kottke]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1vpB6h3ek4

While we’re in a good mood — trust us, this won’t last — please enjoy this Charming Kitty Video. As long as there’s a Happy Cat in the world, Encroaching Darkness is set back at least an hour.

[via Sully’s Minions]