Tag: Morlocks

Memory Lane: Coming Home from the Scary Movie

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Time Machine, The (1960) | Nostalgia Central

Morlocks! I knew they had to be around here somewhere!

I’m 11 years old, The Time Machine is playing at the old Forum Theater, it’s Friday night–and by some miracle, my folks let me go to see the movie. I walked there with my friend Jimmy, from down the street. He’s 12.

Okay, we’ve seen the movie, time to walk home. We could’ve gone via Main Street, but I guess we were feeling kind of grown-up and adventurous so we went by way of the back streets instead. There was nowhere near as much street lighting then as there is now.

It didn’t take us long to get the creeps. The Morlocks, the baddies in the movie… what if there were Morlocks hiding in the darkness, getting ready to jump out on us? We picked up the pace a little. We laughed nervously at our fanciful idea–I mean, come on, really! That didn’t make the Morlocks go away. Happily, we made it home before they attacked us. Dawdling Morlocks.

I wonder if kids even have this experience anymore. All it did for us was to enhance the movie experience and provide me with a pleasant memory. I wonder about the state of their imaginations.

Gee, for some reason the daily nooze this month makes me think of Morlocks… a lot…

Next Step to Utopia: Compulsory Exercise

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

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From our It-Only-Hurts-When-I-Laugh Dept.:

Wait’ll the World Happiness Council gets a hold of this!

A Swedish company has made weekly visits to the gym mandatory for all of its employees. Every Friday, it’s yoga or bust. No getting out of it. As the company president says, “If you don’t want to exercise or be a part of the company culture, you have to go.” (https://www.yahoo.com/news/mandatory-exercise-office-swedens-latest-craze-030621335.html)

Walter Williams predicted this would happen. I’m sure he hoped he was wrong.

Exercise is good for you, right? Like, who could possibly disagree with that? So mandatory exercise, whether you feel like it or not–well, that must be even better for you!

And dig that company culture that everybody has to be a part of, or else. Now that’s diversity! None of that just going home when your work is done for the day.

My wife was once pettily penalized by her employer for not going on the company’s trip to the race track. She doesn’t care for horse racing: in fact, on that particular occasion, a horse broke its leg and had to be shot right there in front of everybody. But you’ve got to be part of the company culture.

Our masters the Morlocks control our lives for our own good!

‘Books? Yes, We Have Books’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

(From George Pal’s The Time Machine, 1960)

Watch what happens when the Time Traveler from 1900 tries to question the dull, almost brainless Eloi of almost a million years into the future. In real life, of course, thanks to public education and nearly universal collidge, we’re getting there a lot faster than H.G. Wells ever dreamed. Many of our people have already attained Eloi-hood.

Knowledge gets lost, even when it’s written down. If no effort is made to preserve it, knowledge evaporates into the past.

The Kardashians. Comic books. Movies based on comic books. Video games about zombies. University-level courses in comic books. Courses in zombie studies. Feminism. Rap music. Gender-neutral pronouns and safe spaces. Hitch ’em all to the sleigh and they’ll take you straight to Eloi country.

In The Time Machine, the Eloi do serve a purpose: the Morlocks, who dwell in darkness underground, eat them.

What purpose is served by a 25-year-old living at home with Momma while he works for his bachelor’s degree in Gender Studies?