Spring is about to “sprung.”

Here is the first dandelion:

The word “Dandelion’ derives from the French “dent-de-lion” meaning lion’s tooth, and as you can see the flower has many not particularly ferocious teeth — but they are a bright yellow. Every part of the dent-de-lion is edible. The wild flower also has herbal uses, which is probably why it received free passage on the Mayflower with the pilgrims to the new world. Bees love dandelions — the blooms are some of the first sources of pollen to the buzzing bands of insects in the awakening spring. To the USA lawn culture aficionados, the dandelion is often viewed as a weed. The bright, welcoming little flowers are so much more; and the yellow teeth make a very passable and memorable dandelion wine. You must try a glass when you are out visiting the countryside in the new spring.

Today, we stand over the little flower and wave a welcome farewell to winter. Yes, I had the flu twice — in October and again in February. And, yes, February was the wettest month ever in the meteorological history of Texas. We had fourteen inches of rain the last two weeks of the month. Two days from now, we may hit 80 degrees Fahrenheit (about 27 Celsius). Stuff is getting better everyday. With the receding rain and ascending sun, we now approach the budding, blooming and bursting time of our young year. Spring is very welcome, very welcome indeed.

Stuff is getting better.

On Thursdays, I attend an early-morning men’s study group. I watch, talk and listen. There is one among us who has a natural gift for words. I don’t think he knows this, but he does. He drops lines as flowers drop petals. They are little gifts. Today, it was: “You KNOW where to go back to.” A budding of universal truth in a few consonants and vowels. We all do KNOW where we have found the calm joy of remembrance. Sometimes it helps to do just that and go back to where we know and remember.

And sometimes it helps to study just that together: to be part of a company and to study ourselves and what we are doing from the inside so that we can document and savor the calm joy of the remembrance of what we did, saw and experienced later. . . . That is ethnofamilymovieography, the just emerging branching of ethnography that we are now doing and have been doing for 60 movies together — with you reading reports of some of those films here on this website.

EthnoFamilyMovieOgraphy is a family of viewers watching and studying themselves and the Best Pictures together from the inside and reporting out the results to a broader audience and to themselves.

Now we are up to the 60th Best Picture awarded the Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. We started two years ago and we will next be viewing “The Last Emperor,” the  winner for 1987. From 1928 to 1987, members of our company have joined together to squint through the dark at the moving pictures, cogitate their meanings and our reactions, survey the results in the rising house lights, and wander home wondering what we did, are doing and will do. That’s ethnofamilymoviegraphy at work.

“The Shape of Water” won the 90th Oscar for Best Picture among the movies released in 2017. That is our target, our finish point, to have viewed and reviewed the first 90 Best Pictures. We are two-thirds of the way to that goal.

The last two movies in the seriatim were #58 “Out of Africa” (1985) and #59 “Platoon” (1986). For our study, “Out of Africa” ranked #33 of the first 58 Best Pictures; and “Platoon” ranked fourth from the bottom of the first 59 Best Pictures. That’s not the whole story. It’s just the beginning. We hope to move on and learn more. Tonight is #60 “The Last Emperor” (1987). That’s where we are.

There is a simple joy in knowing and remembering where we were and knowing we can go back there.

Next time, we will go back and share a simple snapshot of the top and bottom of our survey results for the first 60 Best Pictures.

It is one thing we can do, fleeting like the first wildflower. It may have little meaning in itself, but perhaps it does herald something more to come. It is somewhere we know we can go back to.

As we hope you do with us at the next post.

Thank you,

Grandpa Jim