Last night I fell into a mirror under the nose deep sleep and woke up at 10:15. Gracie woke me up earlier wanting to join me on the couch, and from next door I heard sawing and hammering, but neither was enough to keep me awake. When I went to get the papers, the sun was shining. It is already hot and humid. I need to go to Agway, and that’s it for the day.
Gracie was sick this morning. She wouldn’t even take a piece of chicken, a bad sign. I immediately gave her a pill to settle her stomach. About a half hour later she ate her breakfast, and she seems fine.
I’m watching a really bad movie, The Green Slime released in 1968. The slime, a space remnant unknowingly brought onto a space station, produces creatures with one eye in the middle of what I presume are their faces. They have octopus like arms they flail about as they walk. They each have two legs, real legs badly disguised. The movie was made in Japan but has no Japanese actors. It takes place on a space station. The women in it, nurses and a doctor, scream, put their hands in front of their mouths in horror and are frozen to the spot when the creatures get closer. The electronics are primitive, mostly levers, buttons and lights. The crew is about to destroy the space station hoping to kill the creatures who have multiplied and are now so many that they cover almost the whole outside of the station. This movie is so bad I’m going to buy it for next summer’s movies on the deck.
When I was a kid, I loved all the science fiction movies filled with space ships, monsters, giant insects and aliens but when I was ten, space became real. Sputnik was launched. I remember the scare about the Soviets launching bombs at us from outer space. Duck and cover wouldn’t save us any more. All of a sudden we were in a space race and we were losing.
Science fiction didn’t fade away after the advent of real space travel. It got more sophisticated and complex. There were still monsters of a sort, think Alien, and computers like Hal, and space ships, filled with realistic controls, and there was exploration of space, of trips to Mars. It seemed real, within reach and filled with possibilities. It was my childhood imaginings come to life. It was a wonder.
