After Christmas, winter just gets mean. Here are some spiffy links to get you through the mid-week shivers.
Scott Nokes watched the horrible new Decameron-inspired movie so you don’t have to bother. Thanks, man!
Adrian Murdoch notes that the adventures of Asterix and Obelix have sold 250,000 copies in Plattdeutsch translation. (Bitte, was heißt “becoming Charlemagne” auf Plattdeutsch?)
The Economist visits pilgrimage sites in the Rhineland, an experience one commenter calls “redolent as all get out.” (I don’t know what that means either.)
Victoria Strauss shows you how not to e-publish.
Eternally Cool reports that the Forum is getting a makeover and shines light on the Ara Pacis.
Lingwë notes the pending release of an unpublished Tolkien poem, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun.
Lex Fajardo unveils the cover art for Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland. (Note the prominence of Abul Abaz—and Charlemagne’s mustache.)
Via Books, Inq., comes a poem about bad, bad spelling: “The Ruba’iyat of the Maison Des Girrafes.”
Nothing escapes the notice of the Internet: Wikipedia has an entire page on television’s “unseen characters.”
American novelist Olen Steinhauer lives in Novi Sad, Serbia, which had its heat shut off on Christmas.
Ephemeral New York reminds us that once, the Bronx Zoo exhibited a human being.