The weekend approacheth. Here’s some neat new stuff from around the Web.

I recently posted photos from my visit to the New Orleans shrine and cemetery dedicated to a medieval saint. Last weekend, the Times-Picayune ran a piece about how the St. Roch neighborhood is doing.

Eternally Cool points out the impending return of chariot racing to Rome. (Put me in a gigantic Asterix helmet and I am so there.)

Steven Hart wants to see more Tamil pulp fiction.

Frank Wilson reviews a new Longfellow biography.

Some authors and bloggers are being sued. Contribute to their legal defense fund here.

D.C. now has a free litmag featuring excerpts from new books. The dissatisfied lawyer who founded Bit o’ Lit was recently profiled in the Washington Post. 

Ephemeral in New York digs up a curious phenomenon of yesteryear: Manhattan baby exhibitions.

“Clovis, Poitiers, Charles-the-Great, / Vikings, Verdun, papal state…” Apparently keen on producing a pre-modern version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” Carl at Got Medieval wants you to summarize the Middle Ages in seven words or less.

Action figures of Pope Innocent III are on sale: two for $4.99. (”I’m telling you, son, he was the Optimus Prime of the early 13th century. Now stop crying and blow out the candles.”)

Finally, I enjoyed this letter in the June 28th-July 4th issue of The Economist, which hints at the cultural connections between the East and the medieval West:

SIR – I am a musician by profession and it was profoundly gratifying to see that, of all the possible images you could have chosen for your cover on progress in Iraq, you went for a photo of an Iraqi luthier fixing an oud, the Arabic ancestor of all Western lutes (June 14th). I exhort each and every one of your readers to take up the oud, or at least buy one from an Iraqi luthier. All political disagreements notwithstanding, the one thing the people of Iraq will need most critically in the years to come is a clientele, and not only in the oil trade.

Victor Kioulaphides
New York

Kioulaphides has composed a piece solely for instruments in the mandolin family; his solo compositions include “El Malecón” and “Variations on a Basque Melody.” His home page is here.

Whether you’re spending the weekend oud-shopping, sunbathing, or lost in a book: enjoy!