Enchanted April is a charming film in the Merchant-Ivory, E.M. Forster style, only it’s not a Merchant-Ivory production and the source novel is by Elizabeth von Armin. Mike Newell directed this little gem that was released in 1992. It was released on VHS in 1994 but a DVD version wasn’t released until just this month. (original 1992 N.Y. Times review by Janet Maslin)

The Broadway revival of “West Side Story” includes an authentically uniformed Officer Krupke thanks to the persistent research of assistant costume designer, Michael Zecker. He sought help from four different institutions before a fifth produced the only thing that satisfied his boss, costume designer David C. Woolard: the 1956 edition of “The Rules and Procedures of the NYPD.” The chief librarian at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice had a copy. Chapter 25 gave Zecker and Woolard the details they needed to put Office Krupke in a “regulation blue military shirt with 24 ligne removable brass buttons” with “black tie, tie clasp and black belt with dark buckle, preferably gun metal.” In the comments of the blog post describing the research someone signed “Crritic” says “Really? This is considered difficult research? Unbelievable.” To which someone signed “Michael Zecker” responds “To paraphrase Stephen Sondheim, ‘Hey, Crrranky Crrritic, Krup you!'”

Pluto was named by an 11-year-old girl from England whose grandfather knew the professor of astronomy at Oxford. Venetia Phair (her married name) wasn’t too bothered when Pluto lost its planet designation, but she definitely did not like it when people assumed she named the planet after the Disney dog. Her grandfather’s brother had named the Mars moons Phobos and Deimos. Phair died on April 30th at the age of 90.

Just a couple years ago there were only two federally licensed distilleries in the state of Washington. The number of liquor makers has risen with a new law allowing distilleries that produce up to 20,000 gallons a year to register as “craft distilleries.” These small distilleries can open tasting rooms and small amounts of liquor on site. Five of the new craft distillery licenses have been granted and 13 are pending. Pacific Distillery obtained a regular license last year and is now producing Pacifique abinsthe. Pacific couldn’t take advantage of the craft license because their primary ingredients come from out of state (grain spirits from Kentucky and fennel from Florence, Italy) but they are benefiting from the repeal of the U.S. ban on absinthe.

Last year, a New York City mother duck and ducklings exited from Central Park into Park Avenue traffic and were aided by a taxi driver. This year, a nest of ducklings in a center strip on Park Avenue decided to find better digs and were chaperoned into Central Park by park rangers. Happy Mother’s Day, duckies!

All three of Corby Kummer’s James Beard award-winning articles are online at The Atlantic: “A Papaya Grows in Holyoke,” “Beyond the McIntosh,” and “Half a Loaf“. (links to even more winning writing are at Slashfood)

Paul Gauguin’s painting “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” is on loan to Japan from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and “Japanese embraced it with a kind of fanaticism usually reserved for their baseball players.”

Baby Bradypus Sloth at a sanctuary in Costa Rica (on Zooborns). Cute.

For April Fools Day this year, The New Philharmonia Orchestra in Massachusetts received, courtesy of principal second violinist David Pesetsky, a handy translation guide for the German markings in Mahler’s Symphony #1. It becomes rather obvious that the orchestra had been consistently playing too fast. Which means all markings could have instead been translated as “watch!” or the infamous 2-little-circles-joined-to-make-eyeglasses symbol. (original PDF version) (via The Rest is Noise)

Two bits of Seattle restaurant news: Chef William Belickis has signed a lease for Mistral Kitchen with plans to open by this fall. The multi-faceted restaurant will have a main dining room, fine dining room (with the tasting menus the old Mistral was famous for), a chef’s table and a private lounge. And coming soon to the streets, a Korean-Hawaiian taco truck to give Seattle its own version of Kogi BBQ that has foodies in L.A. raving.