Midweek in Links (The Dead Shall Be Raised Edition)

I hate to sound like I have no sense of humor, because in a vacuum this really is actually pretty funny, but given events of the last year or seven, I hate even more to see people joking about looting museums as the logical response to unrest and strife. Couldn't they have just presented these as the best zombie-defense tools at the Met without suggesting that looting the place would be the best course of action in case of zombie invasion?

The Top Four Zombie Defense Tools at the Met

The funniest, most lyrical theme park review I've ever read: "'Dickens-loving flume-ride-enthusiasts' seems like a small, sad demographic." Humor aside, the review segues into a tackling of some serious questions about the relationship between authors and literature, and the history of literary tourism:

The World of Charles Dickens, Compete with a Pizza Hut

Two videos, one new this week and one not (but catchy, lovable and destined to be a classic), about Mesopotamians, just for a little variety:

Crash Course on World History: Mesopotamia

The Mesopotamians

There's a theme taking shape here, and martyrs fit into it very nicely, so, happy slightly belated Valentine's Day to all, with love from the middle ages, via the Cornell medieval studies list:

Two Letters from Margery Brews, 1477

ArtStor Blog: Valentine's Day

and NPR:

The Dark Origins of Valentine's Day

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Bonus Themed Postscript: Writerly Transgressions

I know that the blog to which I am linking below belongs to someone who is an established senior scholar and well-respected in the Hispanic studies blogosphere, and the follwoing post has helped me further delineate an explicit *ahem* set of guidelines for myself with respect to the ways in which I will and won't use blogging as a tool. There will, for example, be no topless photos of academics here. Ever. Least of all me. Under any circumstances. Not even if human lives and the fate of nations hinge upon it. Not even if I were trying to be entertaining or humorous. (Not in the rain. Not in the dark. Not on a train. Not in a car. Not in a tree. Not in a house. Not in a box. Not with a mouse. Not with a fox, and not even with apologies to Dr. Seuss.) This was so not what I wanted or expected to see when I woke up on Tuesday morning and went to read the latest tips about writing productively on a blog with which I am now finished as a lurking reader:

Muscling Through It

A transgression of a truly different magnitude (though infinitely more read-about-able):

A Plagiarist's Tale

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And finally, for some really excellent news: The full runs of the journals Ginzei Qedem and Pe'amim have been digitized!