Monster Mania

It was cold, cloudy, and damp when I switched on the American Top 40 this morning. Casey provided some heat as he took us to the heart of the 80s, 1985. Hits in late September of that year included "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" by John Parr, "Dress You Up" by Madonna, "Take On Me" by A-Ha, "Part Time Lover" by Stevie Wonder, "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner (from the sci-fi sequel Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), "Oh Sheila" by Ready for the World, "Lonely Ol' Night" by John Cougar Melloncamp, and "Cherish" by Kool & the Gang.

You can't get much more 80s than the song at the top of the chart that week. The massive success of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" was fueled by it's "greed is good" lyrics and a landmark music video that was one of the first uses of computer graphics on television.

The gloomy weather probably kept a lot of yard sales at bay. I only saw three, and only the one on E. Oakland Avenue in Oaklyn had anything of interest. The Christmas Almanac, edited by Lena Tambori and Natasha Tambori Fried, is a collection of just about anything that you can think of that is Christmas-related and in print - information on trees, decorations, gifts, food, and where to buy them, crafts, recipes, trivia, stories, essays, songs. It's a beautiful hard-back book with gilt-edged pages, and I'm so glad I found it. There's so much information in here, I'll be looking at it until Christmas.

The Farm Market was fairly busy despite the dark clouds. Peaches are winding down, but there's plenty of fall produce replacing it. The apples have been sweet and absolutely delicious. The winter squash are firm and bright. There's still heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant out, too, far beyond their usual season, and the fall leafy greens and radishes. I ended up with spinach, tiny Gala apples, pears, long, sharp sweet potatoes from the organic booth, and my favorite little brown mushrooms from the mushroom sellers.

I also bought this year's pumpkins today, a medium-sized pie pumpkin and three little "jack" ones. One of the little pumpkins had a bumpy shape I thought was cute. I always buy my pumpkins in late September or early October and keep them out until Thanksgiving or they go bad, whichever comes first. I never carve them. I don't think I'd be any good at it, and it's nice to have them around for Thanksgiving, too.

I browsed in two more yard sales, but they were both washouts. The one in Collingswood was pretty much knick-knacks and comics. The Westmont sale claimed it was a big multi-family affair. When I arrived, I could see plenty of family, but not much more than junk. Either it was all bought before I came, or someone has a weird idea of a big sale.

Stopped at the Westmont Acme on the way home, since I was in the area anyway. I forgot canned pumpkin when I was at the Audubon Acme yesterday. I wanted to pick up a can of cranberry sauce to replace what I used last night, too. I was delighted to find bags of those flavored Jet-Puffed Marshmallows from the spring on clearance. They're long-gone from the Audubon Acme. I ended up with Cinnamon Roll and Chocolate Mint.

Went straight back to the apartment after that, and stayed there the rest of the day. Finished out the second disc of Isis while I cleaned the kitchen. This is definitely not a superhero series for action or special effects junkies, but it's enjoyable enough to look past some cheesy plots and effects that show the limits of a low-budget kids' show. The one thing I really do like about this is how it deals, even vaguely, with hot-button 70s issues like the women's movement (there's a girl mechanic who wants to be the president of the school auto club and a Hispanic girl who builds model airplanes, not to mention Andrea Thomas herself is a chemistry teacher), enviormentalism, racism, and teaching those with disabilities (the last story on the second disc involved a blind boy who was once a champion horse-back rider and is given a horse trained to deal with the blind to help him out).

If you enjoyed this series as a kid or are intrigued by the premise as I was, by all means, this is a lot of fun if you can find it and don't mind the 70s cheesiness. (The complete series set that I took out of the library looks like it's long out of print, but the first six episodes are still around on DVD.)

I switched to working on Whole Wheat Zucchini Cookies and the much darker 1931 Dracula. The title character, of course, is the famous Transylvanian nobleman (Bela Lugosi) who drains blood from his victims during the night and sleeps when the day comes. His first victim is Renfield (Dwight Frye), a mousy little fellow who is originally his solictor and becomes his slave when he drains him. After moving to London, his second victim is the lovely Lucy (Frances Dade). The third will be her friend Mina (Helen Chandler)...unless her fiancee John (David Manners), her father Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunsten), and famous vampire hunter Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) can keep her from joining Lucy and Renfield!

While slow, bloodless, and a bit stilted by today's standards, it's undeniably creepy and atmospheric. The first half with Renfield in particular makes your skin crawl. Alas, things slow down once the mad Renfield winds up in an asylum and Dracula goes after his victims in London, but it picks up in time for the finale...which quite frankly feels a little too anti-climatic for what came before it. Worth seeing for some of the spookiest cinematography of the early talkie era and of course, for Bela Lugosi's career-defining performance as the eerie Count.

Stuck with Bela Lugosi but switched to a more comic horror tale, the East Side Kids movie Spooks Run Wild, while my foot was on ice. By far the best of the two East Side Kids movies Lugosi appeared in, this is almost as creepy as Dracula, with some well-done scares for a low-budget B comedy.

Ran Scooby Doo On Zombie Island during a tasty meal of "Golden Mum Beets" (cooked shredded golden beets with butter and honey), sauteed cranberry beans, and a broiled tuna steak. The first in a long line of Scooby Doo made-for-home-entertainment films reunites the gang to help Daphne find real ghosts in the Louisiana bayous. She gets more than she bargains for when the gang encounters zombies and voodoo cat witches...and none of them are local thieves in masks.

Finished with two horror-oriented Three Stooges shorts as I cleaned up after dinner. The Curly-era "Spook Louder" has the boys defending a ray gun from spies in a haunted house...but who keeps throwing those pies? Shemp joins Larry and Moe for the 3-D "Spooks," a more typical affair that has the trio rescuing a young woman from a mad scientist.