Last modified on Mon 17 May 2021 12.47 EDT
Spring is emphatically here, albeit in somewhat damp form of late; coinciding with the vaccine drive and an incremental lifting of lockdown restrictions has rarely felt like quite such a restorative time of year. Being what they are, the movies can sometimes overstate the romance and renewal of springtime. This year, however, I find myself in the mood for any and all films that give the season its rosy due.
In compiling a streaming playlist of cinema’s best spring stories, my mind went first, of course, to its sweetest, sunniest depictions. Perhaps no film has ever matched 1942’s
A Rare Peek Inside a Semi-Secret âSecret Gardenâ
The 2018 workshop for a possible revival of the lush musical was never meant to be seen by the public, but will now stream as a benefit this weekend.
The cast and crew of âThe Secret Gardenâ commemorate the 2018 workshop with the theater version of a class photo. All the actors had to agree that what was meant to be an industry event could be shown to the public.Credit.via The Secret Garden workshop
May 5, 2021
When Marsha Norman suggested to the producer Jerry Goehring the idea of streaming the 2018 workshop of a stalled Broadway revival of âThe Secret Gardenâ as a benefit, he thought it was a great idea.
Smart lake gardening: Planning your nearshore garden
Extending your lakefront garden into the water opens an exciting new opportunity to enhance your property’s beauty and function.
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” – Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden. Photo by Rebecca Finneran, MSU Extension.
Extending your lakefront garden into the water opens an exciting new opportunity to enhance your property’s beauty and function. Elegant bulrush with pondweeds growing below create interest while providing safe shelter for many of the lakes’ fish, birds and other animals. Placing logs that extend from the shoreline edge out into the lake improves habitat further while also providing an attractive feature from both land and water. The water in front of your shoreline does not need to end your gardening; in fact, it might be one of your most important gardens.
Remembering Anthony Thwaite New Statesman literary editor, who has died at the age of 90. The poet Anthony Thwaite – who was in his day a university lecturer, a radio producer and one of Philip Larkin’s literary executors – has died at the age of 90 in a nursing home in his beloved Norfolk. He was the literary editor of this magazine, from 1967 until 1972, though film, theatre and music were also in his purview. The “back half” pages of the magazine under his tenure remain an excellent read: in one issue alone can be found pieces by Graham Greene, Leonard Woolf and Malcolm Bradbury. Thwaite was, too, a stalwart of the annual
The Scent and the Sound of Roses
It is that time of year when I love to putter about in my garden, which somehow feels simpatico with the creativity of composing music. As a matter of fact, a number of great composers have loved nature’s flora and have responded in music. It would be lovely to explore some flower-inspired compositions, but we should first look at the soil in which they grow, the composers’ working methods.
When you think about it, it is rather remarkable that flowers can somehow translate into music. To paint a picture of flowers is one thing, but it is quite another to transform them into the entirely different medium of sound. Flowers must enter the eyes and nose of the composer and by some alchemy come out as lovely music, with all the delicacy and grace of pink petals. Some composers seem to possess the transformative ability Frances Hodgson Burnett wished for in “The Secret Garden”: “I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enou