Here in D.C., soggy July makes gargoyles all fall silent—but let these links from clever humans kindle your conditioned air.

“365 Sonnets” chronicles “a Canadian teenager’s love affair with iambic poetry.” He’s up to #363. (Hat tip: Steven.)

“You’re the top / You’re Michele Obama…” Dylan at The Crystal Tambourine drags Cole Porter into 2011.

Dylan also rewrites pop songs in the voices of famous poets, asking questions dear to my heart, such as: How would Smiths lyrics sound from the pen of Gerard Manley Hopkins?

For years, I’ve read and linked to the blog of writer and historical reenactor Will McLean without knowing he was the fellow whose cartoons added vital levity to the first Dungeons & Dragons books. (“Papers & Paychecks,” anyone?)

At Open Letters Monthly, Steve Donoghue reviews a new book, The Last Vikings.

Also at OLM, Rohan Maitzen finds the voice of I, Claudius “very nearly without anything identifiable as a personal style.”

The Book Haven marks the “Orwell Watch” with several sad cliches.

As a Linguist listens to the Breton language.

Ephemeral New York sees a face over West 15th.

Hats & Rabbits ponders technology and life’s little (and not-so-little) tradeoffs.

Steve Mulhberger posts “tear-gas poems” from the streets of Egypt.

Jake Seliger thinks about Harry Potter and sophistication.

James Gurney asks: Do Parrish paintings boost your melatonin?

Ductor possum ad extremum tolerare! On Facebook, Julius Caesar kicks off his 2012 presidential campaign.

Here in the U.S., Fourth of July weekend is winding quietly down. While we groan over leftovers, sweep up carbonized fuses, and sew our blown-off fingers back on, here’s a sparkling assortment of links at once literary and linguistic, poetic and pontificatory, academic and amateur, medievalist and modern. Light ’em up and enjoy.

As a Linguist wonders where common nautical terms come from and ponders the literal meaning of freedom at Normandy Beach.

At University Diaries, Margaret Soltan marked Independence Day by discussing her Righthaven lawsuit.

At the always-eloquent Hats & Rabbits, Chris rides a roller coaster arabesque.

The Cranky Professor shows you how the Transformers are helping renovate the duomo in Milan.

Open Letters Monthly finds a secret magic library in New York.

The Washington Independent Review interviews “Professor X,” author of In the Basement of the Ivory Tower.

Monstrous Beauty spotlights a reliquary for St. Thomas Becket.

My fantasy-writing friend Anna Tambour charts a parrot confidence course.

Classical Bookworm discovers a forgotten Hungarian polyglot. Sixteen languages?

At A Momentary Taste, Stephen is in summer-reading mode with Gil’s All Fright Diner.

Prof Mondo reads Gardner’s On Moral Fiction in light of young-adult lit.

First Known When Lost reads Edwin Muir’s poem “The Interrogation” and thinks things got good when Philip Larkin looked into Thomas Hardy.

The New York Times tells Gothamites: Read Cavafy!

“I can’t see you, but I know you’re here”: Ephemeral New York finds the sad cemetery angels of Brooklyn.

He’s not really “the last of the rhyming poets,” but here’s a nice profile of Richard Wilbur.

Some say Jack Kent was the best cartoonist and children’s book illustrator you’ve forgotten.

I love the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay, but the fellow who loved Millay herself wrote poems worth reading as well.

Fly, my pixelated minion! In the 1980s, who among the Colecovision set didn’t long to master “George Plimpton’s Video Falconry”?

It’s Friday; I’ve got links for you.

Mandy Brett pens a nice defense of the professional editor.

Alex Carnevale contemplates “the macabre unpleasantness of Roald Dahl.”

Alan Jacobs wonders why writers make writing sound awful.

Cynthia Haven hears Orwell when public figures “take full responsibility”—and when she looks at book-blurbs.

The “100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School” blog is up to reason #61, “unstructured time.”

Reviewing In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, Jake Seliger highlights a useful term: “dispossessed of context.”

Interested in medieval jousting? Historian Steve Muhlberger has a $100 book for you.

Katy Perry sings a poignant cover of the Fountains of Wayne song “Hackensack.”

I like this: a blog devoted to parodies of “American Gothic.”

Ephemeral New York sees the strange and scary faces of Chelsea.

Lingwë looks at a Hogwarts professor’s curious name.

First Known When Lost marks the start of cruise-ship season with Philip Larkin.

A Momentary Taste of Being reads The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham.

Hats & Rabbits hears what kids say about their parents.

If you have a background in Greek, Latin, and French, speak at least one additional language (Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, or Japanese), love drama and the arts, can teach philosophy while helping sail a yacht, and have mastered at least one martial art and you exist outside of a J.D. Salinger novella or Dos Equis commercial, then Gwyneth Paltrow would like you to tutor her kids.

The Chronicle of Higher Education sees “students who are full of it.”

To a ninth-century monk at Salzburg, June was a month for plowing. When your own labors leave you weary, drive deep the furrows of your mind with these sharp and spiffy links.

Michael Livingston shows you what it’s like to edit a medieval text. (He continues his lesson in part two.)

Christopher Abram, who blogs at Old Norse News, has just published the very cool-looking Myths of the Pagan North.

Because “people don’t ‘get’ Czeslaw Milosz,” Cynthia Haven suggests taking authors on their own ground.

What do a Pakistani-American fourth-grader and Isaac Bashevis Singer have in common? Anecdotal Evidence tells you.

Steve Donoghue discovers My Robin, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1912 tribute to a backyard bird.

Lingwë digs for Tolkien’s worms.

Jake Seliger ponders writing in terms of computer programming.

Frank Wilson argues that “thank you” is harder than it sounds.

Nicole reads Chinua Achebe reading Joseph Conrad.

First Known When Lost presents “The New House” by Edward Thomas.

Looking up, Ephemeral New York spots tradesmen on a 41st Street building.

Hats & Rabbits tells a parable of marathon.

I’m not on many e-mail lists, but this one I like: Poetry News in Review.

SpokenVerse recites “Nude Descending a Staircase” by X.J. Kennedy.

If ignorance is the sinus infection of the mind, then spiffy links are surely antibiotics. Temporarily deprived of my own voice by just such a bug, I’m happy to point you to people with neat things to say.

Remember when Fabio got hit in the nose by a goose? In this event, says Hats & Rabbits, “lies all of the profundity of the questions of fate and Creation.”

“When the Poles throw a party–they don’t settle for half-measures,” says Cynthia Haven, who’s celebrating the Czesław Miłosz centenary in Krakow.

Do you have “the one-body problem”? The “100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School” blog is up to #58.

“First, who would have thought to compare Williams and Faulkner?” A Momentary Taste of Being re-thinks William Carlos Williams.

“The literature of the Holocaust is so vast that newcomers to the subject are disheartened from beginning,” says D.G. Myers, who offers an annotated list.

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, the Conan Movie Blog analyzes the trailer for the forthcoming CGI-fest.

“But above all, One Who Walked Alone is brave.” The Silver Key reviews Novalyne Price’s memoir about Robert E. Howard.

“You can’t imagine how thrilling it is for mid-list authors to discover that our out-of-print books, something that we believe had no monetary value, are suddenly worth tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars,” says Hollywood writer Lee Goldberg, who nonetheless qualifies the e-book gold rush.

“English has become the universal language if you spend your life in airports and international hotels. It’s not the lingua franca of humanity. It’s a fairy tale we tell ourselves.” The president of the MLA calls for bilingual high-school grads.

“Or you could use some Elvish words as a signal to your friend that the guy hitting on you at the bar is creeping you out.” As a Linguist ponders constructed languages.

“‘That original color–brown, tan, beige, whatever you want to call it–must have been designed by an alien,’ he said.” Yes, the Commodore 64 is back.

“I happen to be a kind of word whore. I will read anything from Racine to a nurse romance, if it’s a good nurse romance. Many people just aren’t like that.” Jake Seliger reads the Paris Review interview with editor Robert Gottlieb.

“Nothing good can happen for these people who, we know, have decades of bleakness ahead.” Bibliographing reads Underground, Antanas Sileika’s novel about Baltic partisans after World War II.

“We got the grant!” Anglo-Saxonist Michael Drout gets funding for lexomics, and explains what lexomics is.

Ephemeral New York finds stonemason grotesques in Clinton Hill “reminding passers-by that constructing gorgeous architecture takes skilled hands.”

“There was an interest in everything Nordic because Emperor Wilhelm spent most of his summer holidays in Norway.” And that, says Gabriele at the Lost Fort, is why there’s a modern stave church in Germany.

“… some people have complained that although when you check in at Lufthansa online ‘you can choose between Herr/Frau, Dr, Prof, Prof Dr, you cannot choose Prof Dr Dr.'” University Diaries notes another German politician accused of plagiarism.

“Some lawyer in Boston sent me a letter—this man, this adult, had gone to the trouble to write in great big letters: stop writing about geology.” John Hawks likes John McPhee’s thoughts on writing about science.

“Whether deserved or not, R. S. Thomas has a reputation for not being the life of the party.” First Known When Lost reads Thomas’s poem “Abersoch.”

“One side will have to go.” On YouTube, Tom O’Bedlam recites “Aubade” by Philip Larkin.

“I love a rainy night,” Walahfrid Strabo mused in A.D. 838 in a verse epistle to his friend Gottschalk. “It’s such a beautiful sight: I love to feel the rain on my face, taste the rain on my lips in the moonlight shadow.” Here in D.C., we’re too weary of rain to share Walahfrid’s glee—but in with the bluster come bright, blooming links.

Anecdotal Evidence chats up a neighbor with “nothing to think, and little to say.”

First Known When Lost goes home across the shires with a poem by W.S. Graham.

Life is better than art, but Hats & Rabbits knows we tell ourselves otherwise.

Cynthia Haven considers the “bland endeavor” of National Poetry Month.

Dame Eleanor Hull ponders introversion, professorhood, and bonding with students.

Lingwë reads reactions to “Goblin Feet,” an early Tolkien poem.

The Silver Key notes fantasy-based befuddlement from critics who don’t know the genre.

Julie K. Rose posts a beautiful painting: Girl Reading by Peter Vilhelm Ilsted.

Open Letters Monthly has books you can walk on or sleep in.

Dame Nora plays The Sims Medieval.

Jesse Freedman likes the academic novel Stoner.

Ferule and Fescue asks why there isn’t more Protestantism on American television.

Bill Blackbeard, comic-strip archivist extraordinaire, has died.

Ephemeral New York notes the photography of Saul Leiter.

If you’re into royal weddings, the World of Royalty blog is all over it.

Lost Fort visits Norway, with characteristically lovely photos.

As a Linguist remembers expat life in Istanbul.

If you’ve visited Iceland, you’ll recognize the view from this Reykjavik webcam.

Life intervenes, as it must, but here’s a drizzle of neat Friday links.

My favorite linguist throws a wet blanket on two babbling babies.

Ruff Notes shows you what Washington National Cathedral almost looked like.

“Inside,” says Hats and Rabbits, “we are all great pipe organs waiting for the right wind to bring us alive. But it seems to me that, often, the delicate pipes go unused until they rust and fall into disrepair.”

Too few of us know what bioethics commissions do.

The Book Haven remembers how the United States saved Russians from starvation.

Anecdotal Evidence walks Chaucerian among the dogwood.

National Poetry Month is kind of silly, but The Economist digs up a nice quip about poetic clothing from John Ashbery.

Paul Laurence Dunbar would have liked this recitation of his poem “Sympathy.”

Edwin Arlington Robinson would have liked this recitation of “Miniver Cheevy.”

Bibliographing reads All Things Shining.

Interpolations reads The Easter Parade.

Don’t let publishers mislead you! Write Better Book Titles.

Here’s the world’s greatest bluegrass cover of “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

“April,” said Edna St. Vincent Millay, “comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” Although winter has yet to step aside, please accept this florilegium of links.

It’s not too late to enjoy this: Peter S. Beagle celebrated his 70th birthday, and 50 years as an author, by writing a new poem or song every week for 52 weeks. (Beagle, by the way, just published a neat new collection of stories.)

As a Linguist contemplates the noun “palimpsest” and the verb “salsify.” (She also has a blog that pairs her photos taken on vintage cameras with extremely short stories.)

Ephemeral New York finds ships and sea creatures in lower Manhattan.

Open Letters Monthly looks at the literary history of Tarzan.

How do you know your dinner party has flopped? When Polish poets question each other’s patriotism.

A sentence I never imagined I’d write: Scientists have inscribed a James Joyce quotation on the genome of a synthetic goat parasite. (Hat tip: Steven.)

If you enjoy German poetry, spend A Year with Rilke. (In my experience, Rilke draws you in for far longer than one year.)

Tor Books posts an obituary for fantasy novelist Diana Wynne Jones.

At First Known When Lost, Stephen reads Philip Larkin’s poem “Solar.”

I don’t know how I missed this, but The Economist has a books-and-arts blog, “Prospero.”

Hats and Rabbits ponders those who ponder Millennium Falcons.

The Oxford English Dictionary finds a use of “OMG” in…1917?

James “Dinotopia” Gurney dissects one of his own watercolors.

For a little folk whimsy, here’s “Monster’s Lullaby” by Meg Davis.

The Queen song “One Vision” is catchy, but context is everything, especially when you translate it into German.

And so February ends with a work-weary sigh. Thanks for checking in! If life doesn’t continue to intervene, expect posts in March about barbarian poets, the medievalism of World War II—and, of course, a few more gargoyles.

Until then, find ye here some spiffy links.

If you love Njal’s Saga, why not take a scholarly tour of saga country on horseback?

If you haven’t yet read the first part of Adam Golaski’s funky new translation of “Sir Gawain,” what are you waiting for?

E-book publishing for medievalists might get easier with the debut of Witan Publishing.

Writer Beware helps make sense of the Borders bankruptcy filing.

Book Haven thinks about, like, the culture of vagueness and stuff.

Kevin at Interpolations reads a famous Whitman line in context.

Welcome to the Web, Washington Independent Review of Books.

Is Washington “death city” for one novelist?

Historians writing for non-scholars will dig the new Electrum Magazine.

Chris at Hats & Rabbits wins me over by explaining, mirable visu, why he doesn’t blog about the news.

Flavia contemplates grief, mourning, and the elusiveness of “closure.”

Inimitable fantasist Anna Tambour invites you to read her new book.

Tolkien fans await Verlyn Flieger’s collected essays.

The Silver Key kicks around nihilism in fantasy.

Jake Seliger offers a bevy of book-related links.

Castle Dragonscar remembers 1970s fantasy art.

“You ask if I love you,” Charlemagne famously wrote to Queen Fastrada from the Avar front. “What can I say? You know that I do, and that this is just one of those games that we play.” The occasion for that letter was Valentimes, a little-known Frankish observance held on February 13 to honor a Roman citizen whose martyrdom in the jaws of a vicious bear was, historians now believe, a case of mistaken identity. Although little is known about Valentime, the Vatican recently named him the patron saint of supermodels and the illiterate, and the memory of his martyrdom lingers in a centuries-old custom by which undemonstrative men send costumed toy bears to their lovers as tokens of affection.

Those of us who harbor a passion for historical accuracy will observe Valentimes Day with ursine solemnity. However, because the spirit of Valentime demands that we tolerate misguided readers who venerate saints of far more dubious provenance, we offer this bouquet of music videos about love and romance to get you through a highly emotional Monday.

The great Louis Jordan loved Caldonia in spite of himself.

Neil Finn could have told him: she will have her way.

Boleslaus II may have fought for his people’s independence, but in the 1970s we recognized only one macaronic Polish prince: Moja droga, jacie kocham…

Roger Miller at his best: “Leavin’s Not the Only Way to Go.”

The year was 1985, and Kid Creole couldn’t answer a simple question: “Why can’t you be like Endicott?”

To my knowledge, there’s only country-western song about the effect of faster-than-light space travel on a long-distance relationship: “Benson, Arizona.”

What do you get when you filter an English nursery rhyme, the inexpressibility topos, and mid-1980s progressive rock through the liver of a disheveled Scotsman? “Lavender.”

Jersey guy Pat DiNizio puts a sober Smithereens spin on “Well All Right” by Buddy Holly.

Got halitosis before that big Valentimes date? Take a handful of Mighty Lemon Drops.

Guys, today isn’t the day to drunk-dial the girl you lost to cocaine.

John Waite, of all people, gives us a heartfelt cover of “Girl From the North Country.”

I didn’t think much of the Sting song “Fields of Gold.” Then I heard the late Eva Cassidy perform it.