An image spread featuring a photograph of J.R.R. Tolkien, William Blake’s ‘The Wood of Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides‘ (c. 1824-1827), and philosopher-biologist Ernst Haeckel’s ‘Pedigree of Man‘ (1879) shown within Peter Nowogrodzski’s ‘The Mythoecology of Middle-earth‘ hosted on Triple Canopy

READING LIST — For those also morbidly curious about the real-life artifacts of science fiction and fantasy blockbusters, Peter Nowogrodzski’s “The Mythoecology of Middle-earth” totally kills it. Focusing on the geek tourism industry and IRL set of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Nowogrodzki’s essay accounts for one of the best I’ve read on Triple Canopy–a tough feat. [Triple Canopy]

– Isla Leaver-Yap pens a fantastic profile on the heretofore lesser known New York-based artist Margaret Salmon for Spike, a Austrian contemporary art quarterly. [Spike]

– Within the New York Times’ Museum Special Section, a few vaguely out-of-touch features are penned, notably this profile on four social networking professionals for major art institutions throughout the US. So that’s who curated that floppy crowd-sourced exhibition for Brooklyn Art Museum. [NY Times]

– Thorough live coverage of Ai Wei Wei’s detainment by the folks over at Hyperallergic. [Hyperallergic]

EVENTS — Josephine Meckseper, whose work is currently showing at the FLAG Foundation in Cheslea, lectures tonight on the work of German artist Hanne Darboven at Dia’s Chelsea space. [Dia]

FROM THE VAULT — A recent conversation with Reading Group No. 1 prompted me to look up Stephen Colbert’s diatribes on and pranks related to “Wikiality,” the concept that Wikipedia represents not the truth about a given encyclopedic entry, but what most people think the truth about that thing is. [Newsvine]