• Music: "One Last Summer," Oliver Boyd & the Remembralls

A few items that didn't fit in other posts...

* R.I.P., Mary Stewart (17 September, 1916 – 9 May, 2014), best known for her Merlin series of Arthurian fantasy novels: Mythopoeic Award winners The Crystal Cave (1970) and The Hollow Hills (1973), followed by The Last Enchantment. Read more from The New York Times: "Mary Stewart, British Writer Who Spanned Genres, Dies at 97."

* Is Tolkien's translation of Beowulf better than Seamus Heaney's? From Katy Waldman at Slate: "The Don’s Don: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf translation finally arrives."

* I should mention again that scholar Michael Drout has written a most enlightening blog post clarifying his work with Tolkien's Beowulf papers, etc.: "Tolkien's Beowulf: The Real Story."


And here's some amazing street art, a tribute to The Professionals.