Tip of the week Regular watering and mulching can help prevent blossom-end rot on tomatoes and peppers. Prevalent during periods of high humidity, blossom-end rot is revealed in small, sunken black areas near the end of the fruit. Are you stuck with bushels of tomatoes and peppers? How about making salsa? One of my favorite […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts & Culture
Movie Reviews
Open Range More than once the death of the Western has been greatly exaggerated. Whenever critics are ready to hammer the final nail in the genre’s coffin, someone comes along to remind us of why it is the most American of movie types. The Western has always served as a reflective template for whatever social […]
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Only for the summer
Tip of the week If your petunias, impatiens, or other annuals are starting to look straggly and have few flowers, cut them back 6 to 8 inches after flowers have decreased to encourage compact growth and promote a second flowering. Also water and fertilize. It’s never to early to start planning for next year’s garden. […]
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Backstage pass
Some shows keep coming back every few summers–Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, Peter Pan. This summer it’s The Wizard of Oz at the Springfield Muni, opening this weekend and running through August 17. Directed by Leigh Ann Smith, this Oz is based on the 1988 version produced by London’s Royal Shakespeare Company–it’s close to the […]
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Movies
What other critics are saying . . . Edited by Imran Siddiquee American Wedding A comic weekend wedding, complete with bachelor party. “The grossest, least funny–and, here’s hoping, the last–installment in the American Pie series.” (Manhola Dargis, Los Angeles Times) “Awkward and mythic in its humor, the American Pie movies have accomplished a unique position […]
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Knoepfle 8-7-03
the lord possessed me do you have a name my little one what shall we call you drop of rain on the window blossom so unassuming it hides in clover quick thought escaping even before memory trace of honey drift of snow skipped beat small heart © John Knoepfle 2003
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Bards of the Sangamo 8-7-03
The Vision Holds The Vision holds Its ancient face Takes time to remember This wrinkled place And all that yet The twinkle remains In Springfield’s eyes The Artists’ domain. –Anita Stienstra Local poets were writing about contemporary events in the Sangamo Journal as early as the 1830s. People’s Poetry wants you to share your thoughts […]
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Bards of the Sangamo 7-31-03
TRINITY ‘Neath faille skirt of zealous genuflect, gold stare by pious eye, valley city sweat goth despair that cloudless cursed July. ‘Round coo-still Capitol dome pigeon bird shallow panted. While from burb to bowery home, fan whirred–summer recanted with each ragweed sneeze each rale each weeze on fallow grist. Stampeding stale through settler’s swath, wild […]
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W-e-e-d
Tip of the week To view the best free garden display in central Illinois, drive through the Illinois State Fairgrounds in the next couple of days. The other day I almost lost my one-year-old daughter–she had walked into the garden where the weeds were tall. I had to face up to the chore I’d put […]
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Movies
Seabiscuit The story of champion racehorse Seabiscuit and the three men who shaped his destiny sounds like the worst sort of Hollywood hokum. Tragedies affect all of the characters and seem designed to pull at our heartstrings. Yet the story behind the Laura Hillenbrand best-seller and this fine adaptation by director Gary Ross is true. […]
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Knoepfle 7-31-03
dialogue with cheks chek chek chek chek chek chek chek chek-chek-chek-chek-chek-chek-chek-chek chekachekachekachekachekachekchek chekchekchekchekchekchekaaakkkkkkkkkk what is all this sprinkler do we need this sprinkler grass does can’t you write something else chek chek chek chek chek © John Knoepfle 2003
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Bards of the Sangamo 7-24-03
The Lost Prairie–Lake II Covering the land of my youth I hear the laughing lake filling behind a massive concrete dam. Its fingers flood little hollows, cover brown cattails and purple violets. Sangamo history is hidden beneath the mirrored surface where names are etched on a gray stone bridge humped over the county road once […]
