“Being thus prepared for us in all ways, and made beautiful, and good for food, and for building, and for instruments of our hands, this race of plants, deserving boundless affection and admiration from us, becomes, in proportion to their obtaining it, a nearly perfect test of our being in right temper of mind and way of life; so that no one can be far wrong in either who loves trees enough, and everyone is assuredly wrong in both who does not love them, if his life has brought them in his way.”

– John Ruskin, 1819-1900, Modern Painters VI

 

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The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
 
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
 
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

 

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“As the poet said, ‘only God can make a tree,’ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.” – Woody Allen
 

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A reader sends us top five “movies with killer trees”:
 
1. Sleepy Hollow (1999)
2. Poltergeist (1982)
3. Lord of the Rings (2001-03)
4. Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966) — yup, look it up.
5. Brothers Grimm (2005)
 
And let’s not forget the X-Files episode “Darkness Falls” (1994)

 

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“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.” – William Blake

 

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I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.

 

– Ogden Nash, Song of the Open Road, 1933

 

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How Harry Became a Tree (2001)

 

Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963)

 

Cold Sassy Tree (1989)

 

The Devil’s Apple Tree (1929)

 

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“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.” – Willa Cather, O Pioneers 1913

 

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The opening shot of The Sacrifice

Is a man and boy watering a tree.

(The fool is someone else and dies.)

It has no roots, its sap is dry.

(The fool is someone else and dies.)

 

Kept upright in a mound of stones

On a hill above the inlet, it waits

Always for an incredible change to happen,

While the television’s fighter-jets

Channel-drift to the eschaton.

 

The director knows that if you leave

The camera’s black technologies

Running on this scene long enough,

A miracle will happen. It does.

A voice says: You must change your life,

 

You think — for the man, believing that,

Burns down his house to save you all

And is carted off for being mad

Just as the credits start to roll.

(The fool was someone else and died.)

 

from The ‘O’o’a’a Bird, Carcanet Press, UK. Buy it here:

 

 

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Trees are the longest living organisms on earth.

 

Trees renew our air supply by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.

 

One of the tallest soft wood trees is the General Sherman, a giant redwood sequoia of California. General Sherman is about 275 ft or 84 m high with a girth of 25 ft or 8 m.

 

The 236 ft or 72 m high Ada Tree of Australia has a 50 ft or 15.4 m girth and a root system that takes up more than an acre.

 

The world’s tallest tree is a coast redwood in California, measuring more than 360 ft or 110 m.

 

The world’s oldest trees are 4,600 year old Bristlecone pines in the USA.

 

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“If a tree dies, plant another in its place.” – Linnaeus

 

 

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Climbing the world’s tallest tree:

 

 

Bear Falls from Tree:

 

 

Tree Hugger TV — Environmental Information:

 

 

Big Wave Surfing at Ghost Trees:

 

 

Madea’s People are Trees monologue:

 

Cold Chisel — Flame Trees

 

 

Screaming Trees — Nearly Lost You

 

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“For those who look on the arts as a kind of celestial sports competition, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is up there with Bertolt Brecht for the title of German Poet of the 20th Century”:

 

 

“Videoconferencing has been around for years in business, medicine and education. Now more and more arts organizations are using it for long-distance classes”:

 

 

Are There Words That Just Shouldn’t Be Used In Theatre?

 

 

“College writing programs are booming. Instructors who long felt tethered in English departments, and relegated to teaching freshman comp or remedial writing, are increasingly running their own programs — and watching the numbers of majors skyrocket”:

 

 

Restaurant Bloggers Become A Force:

 

 

Why Southern Singers Dominate “American Idol”:

 

 

 

“Salvador Dal