Everything, everywhere, is suddenly alive. It only takes a week for the world to turn green. It almost feels as if it's been holding back for a while and can restrain itself no longer - the colors burst from every limb, every branch.

I've tried to write the next sentence three times, and nothing quite sums it up. Attempt #1

It's the best time of the year, along with the beautiful days of fall and the first holiday snowfalls.

Nah. True, but banal. Undercuts the point, unless you compound it with a long series of equally beautiful things. BORING. Attempt #2:

You smile and think we made it again.

Nah. True, but banal, and also overly dramatic. It's not as if we were huddled in a cave keeping warm by burning the last square foot of peat that Pa left before he went out for food and never came back. Attempt #3:

You also think: better start killing weeds, or they'll get the best of the yard.

Nah. Man, nothing's working today. Well, let's just get to work on the lawn, and see if any inspiration comes from the labors for which I am so very, very ill-suited. First job: digging out the dog-pee brown spots, scarifying the soil, and putting down patch. I have no patch. Off to Home Depot, then. My heart sags when I go there, to be honest. Home Depot for me is like a library for an illiterate. You figure you'll probably find a picture book, so it's not a totally wasted trip, but it's just not my world. I go there with the Giant Swede, he picks up PVC tubing and electrical boxes and tools and such. I get some batteries. But I knew what I wanted: this new weed killer I saw advertised online. Kills weeds so fast they practically die right before your eyes. It's like Thanos for Spurge. I found it. Big letters on the bottle: NOT SUITABLE FOR LAWNS.

Okay then kinda wish the ads said that. Got the usual jugs of death, picked up some granuated weedkiller, some dog-spot patch, and went home. My layabout disposition is saying "That's enough. Procurement is a chore by itself. Take the rest of the afternoon off and sit outside, reading in the calm clear sun of spring."

No. It's the weekend! WORK! Let the sound of the whip-crack from the Blazing Saddles theme song echo in your head!

Patched, replaced lightbulbs in the gazebo, walked the entire lawn spraying the weeds, sawed a spare fence plank in half and nailed it crosswise to fix a possible dog-escape route, dragged six heavy pots out of the shed for wife to fill. Loaded up the Onanizer with the weedkiller, only to discover it didn't work. It is a motorized seed-strewer, unfortunately named the Wiz. Batteries probably dead. Opened up the compartment, taking great care not to lose the tiny screw; immediately lost the tiny screw. Go downstairs for the electrical tape, cut off a length. Get new batteries. Fit them in, close lid, hit START

Nothing. Are the new batteries dead? No, the expiration date is 2034. I will probably run out of juice before they do. I examine the interior of the battery compartment, and find one of the connectors, or terminals, or whatever, has corroded and broken. Thank you China. Feel sudden desire for punitive tariffs. Call the Giant Swede to see if I can borrow his, and I can. It's a manual. He's one of those guys who'll be cranking out the fertilizer after the grid collapses or the EMP hits, and the rest of us are cursing our useless electronic devices.

Would an EMP knock out the battery-powered Onanizer Wiz, though? I'd better sit down and google that. No, on second thought, don't, because I'll get a stupid AI summary. Just ask Grok.

Why Grok? Because I'm trying it out. I like the chatty female voice more than the earnest dude on Gemini. I forgot to turn it off after I was done with the last chat, and it suddenly said:

"Dad jokes? You want to hear some good ones?"

I had no idea what it was talking about, until I realized I had, in fact, just uttered the word "gadzooks" when reacting to something that the OpenAI graphic-generating service had created.

So I said no, I wasn't talking about dad jokes, I was said Gadzooks. It wanted to know if I meant Dad Jokes?

"NO. Gadzooks. G-A-D-Z-O-O-K-S, an expression of surprise or dismay."

"Okay! Got it! Gadzooks. G-A-D-Z-O-O-K-S. I'll keep that in mind for next time!"

I thanked it and killed the program in case I said ZOUNDS and had to explain its bloody religious origins. Then, for fun,or not, I asked it to describe famous StarTribune writers. It called up some minor figures and some modern ones, and when it eventually got around to me it misprounced my name. I corrected it. I wonder if it'll take, and someone on the other side of the planet ever has cause to ask Grok about me, and it will say my name correctly because I trained it.

Oh, and according to Grok, my wide-ranging topics and comments on pop culture, mixed with nostalgia, have made me beloved or something. I may bookmark that conversation and replay it when I need some up-bucking, because there's farg-all of that at the office.

The trademarks of a 100 years ago is our theme this year.

I wonder if he got royalties.

No, I don't think he did.

From the LoC collection, the Fall of the House of Usher!

In 12 minutes!

When I searched for reviews, I was confused: the 1928 Fall of The House was listed at 90 minutes or so. It was praised for its surreal quality, a true work of modern art. I went on YouTube to find the rest . . . and discovered there were two surrealistic Usher movies made in the same year. The Falls of the Houses of Usher, I guess.

The movie abounds with interesting images that now look like standard late 20s surreal / experimental movies. Seen in that context, it’s interesting, because you know the audience was seeing something truly new.

Man approaches gloomy spiky . . . something

The residual Ushers live in a big empty set that looks like something from the original Star Trek:

Wife or sister, in this case we can’t tell -

You'd think wife, given the symbolism of the framing and images. I mean:

She is afraid of dinner! Or the black-handed man who delivers it.

She is afraid in a very specific way of being alarmed in a 1920s German movie!

Then she has visions of stairs.

It goes on like that to little effect. But it was startling at the time, if anyone saw it.

I can just imagine an audience of well-meaning but somewhat baffled moviegoers watching this:

I found a review! From a 1928 paper, in Rochester NY:

The photoplay, "The Fall of the House of Usher, made by Dr. Sibley Watson received its first public showing Tuesday evening at Kilbourn Hall before members of the Cinema Club, and was so enthusiastically received that an immediate reshowing was made.

The film is based on the Edgar Allan Poe short-story and represents many months of endeavor on the part of Dr. Watson and Melville Weber, who assisted in the production.

Photographically, It is beautiful and startling, tricks of the camera being employed to heighten the effects of horror which Poe co compellingly depicted.

Building the action around the incident of the abnormality of the strange neurotic creature who buries his sister alive and then falls prey to a guilty conscience, Dr. Watson has forsaken realism for the purely impressionistic.

The hammer strokes on the casket, the long rows of steps, the failure to find relief from reliving those moments of murder are so brilliantly suggested as to be even more arresting in the second showing than the first view.

It was shown at the local cinema club, where all the cine-nerds thrilled to its bold experimentation, and regarded themselves as freethinkers who were watching the dawn of a new form of art. And they were probably right about all that. But.

Don’t think it got wide circulation. Folks wanted Charlie.

That will do. Matchbooks, of course, and Substack up around eleven. See you around.