Accordingly, here from yesteryear is comedian Anna Russell singing "O How I Love the Spring" (an English folk song of the nymphs and shepherds style), plus a Russian song, "Da, Nyet, Da, Nyet" thrown in for good measure (6:37). She continued her musical journey through the vocal genres with a German lied ("Schlumpf") and a French art song ("Je N'ai Pas La Plume de ma Tante") (5:50).
...which phrase from French I class brings us at last to Belle et la bête, or how I spent my birthday.
Belle et la bête, you know, Beauty and the Beast.
Not the new motion picture that has certain sections of the population upset over the introduction of homosexual attraction into the world of children's fairy tales. No, indeed. I'm speaking instead of the stage musical based on the Disney cartoon version of a few years back as performed by the school my granddaughter attends.
My granddaughter had the role of Babette the Feather Duster. Here she is with Lumiere:
...and after the show with her biggest fans:
In other news of note, our older Alabama grandson attended his senior prom and also played a French horn solo at the All-District Band concert. Not at the same time. On consecutive days.
...and our younger Alabama grandson, his brother, who is ranked first on his school's golf team, won his first match of the season. That's him, er, he second from the right in the group photo:
...and our oldest grandson of all helped his college baseball team, currently ranked #5 in the nation among Division III schools, beat the #3 school, Emory University, by a score of 9 to 4:
Here he is with his proud brother:
Finally, Babette's older brother flew in from North Carolina (and boy, are his arms tired) just to see his sister on stage but since we managed to attend different performances we don't have a photograph of him except for this one from a couple of years back:
A bientôt.
