“So I’ll sing you a new song…”

“You say I’m a dreamer; we’re two of a kind,” Charlemagne’s adviser Angilbert wrote to the king’s daughter Berta in A.D. 798, “both of us searching for some perfect world we know we’ll never find.” Angilbert and Berta went on to have children together, and Angilbert’s education ensured his prominence an abbot, administrator, ambassador, and poet in an otherwise imperfect world. Were Angilbert alive today, he’d likely endorse these interesting links.

Dame Nora wraps up “quince week” with some quince history, thoughts on quince marmalade, and a recipe. She also invents her own haggisy sausage.

The Cloisters blog nibbles on real plants in the unicorn tapestries.

Gabriele makes sense of the development of Roman helmets.

Ephemeral New York sights grotesques in Manhattan and shows you the long-shuttered City Hall station.

Steve Muhlberger reads the investigation of a modern jouster’s death. (Incidentally, Steve’s book about chivalric combat in the late Middle Ages just garnered some praise.)

Here’s a creepy fantasy tale about girldom: “Ponies.”

A philosopher-in-training meets an owl.

The Book Haven considers the kitchification of Vietnam and Joseph Brodsky and Egypt.

Just how is James Franco’s short-story collection?

Mark Athitakis peels back myths about J.D. Salinger’s crankiness.

Nicole at Bibliographing re-reads Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Debate time! James Gurney (whom I like) versus Frank Gehry (whom I don’t).

Jason unveils a new anthology of Tolkien source criticism.

Why not buy recordings of Old English poems? (I have ’em; they’re good.)

Leslie gives advice to the MFA-curious.

The “100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School” blog serves up reason #43: changing attitudes.

Pete notes the dearth of fiction about finance.

Jake ponders imaginative career paths.