Posted tagged ‘The Green Slime’

”When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.”

September 26, 2017

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.

“Another one of them new worlds. No beer, no women, no pool parlors, nothin’. Nothin’ to do but throw rocks at tin cans, and we gotta bring our own tin cans.”

January 12, 2017

Where did all the snow go? Two days ago it covered everything. Then it rained. Now, only a small pile or two left by the plows exists on corners. My yard is completely clear. The steps are safe again.

We’re in the middle of a January thaw. It was over 50˚ yesterday and will be even warmer today. The wind was fiercely blowing earlier this morning. I could hear the chimes singing from the trees in the backyard. The wind has since become a breeze.

Maddie, Gracie and I are headed to the vet’s. Both of them need their nails clipped. Gracie slid on the stairs this morning, but I was there to grab her before she fell. I think it was because of the nails on her back feet. Maddie hates it when I check her nails. She pulls her paws right out of my hand. If she’d let me, I could spare her the anguish of a car ride and a nail clipping, but she won’t have it.

Yesterday I was in B-movie heaven. TCM turned me into a couch potato. It intermingled good science fiction with bad to keep me interested. I watched Forbidden Planet one of the good ones, maybe even a great one. After that came another good one, The Thing From Another World. The final one meant to keep me on the couch was 2001: A Space Odyssey. I didn’t move. Figuring I was caught, TCM then rolled out the other movies. First up was Satellite in the Sky. It was made in 1956, the same year as Forbidden Planet. That I would never have guessed. I had to chuckle when the first orbital vehicle is left unguarded so a newspaper woman can sneak in and hide in a cabinet on the spaceship. She is discovered after the launch. Where did her pocketbook go? How did she find a flight suit her size? Where did those flat shoes come from and how about that classy scarf around her neck? Next was Countdown starring such luminaries as Robert Duvall and James Caan. Ted Knight is also part of the cast. The movie pitted the US against the USSR in the space race, sound familiar? Last was my favorite, The Green Slime. It turns men into monsters. That was fine with me as I didn’t know a single person in the cast. Let them be monsters.

Nothing got accomplished yesterday. I didn’t even get dressed. I had cereal for lunch, Frosted Flakes, and cheese and crackers for dinner. Also, over the course of the day, I ate one sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies. I’m not proud of it, but I did leave the second sleeve alone. I want credit for that!