The uncanny valley hypothesis predicts that an entity appearing almost human will risk eliciting cold, eerie feelings in viewers.
In an experiment involving the human lookalike robot Repliee Q2 (pictured above), the uncovered robotic structure underneath Repliee, and the actual human who was the model for Repliee, the human lookalike triggered the highest level of mirror neuron activity.
Picture credits:
BradBeattie at the English language Wikipedia
This, the Lead Picture today, Friday, July 5, 2019, on the blog –
existentialautotrip.com
See ‘Thumbnail’ below for further description of image.
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Commentary
Friday, July 5, 2019
Tough guys.
We were the tough guys.
Boston’s teen-aged Italian North Enders of the 1950s and 1960s.
We could take on anybody.
We had our own morality and it did not condemn lawbreakers.
You might say we admired them.
Robin Hoods, all, because they (we) never committed crimes against our own.
Despite being rough-tough cream puffs, the thing is (was) we could laugh at ourselves.
One reason why Italians never cried “Discrimination!”
We offer this observation as a prelude to the ethnic joke we’re posting today.
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Announcements/Tips
Friday, July 5, 2019
A heads-up.
Howard D sent a response to the posting on Cecile Chaminade so interesting as to deserve its own section, one that we do not regularly publish.
Today, in place of the ‘letters’ section, we’re submitting a piece “From the laptop of Howard D,” which you’ll find as the penultimate entry, just before the “Good Morning.”
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Weather
Friday, July 5, 2019
On this day Boston will enjoy mildly hot temperatures, with a high of 86* and a feels-like of 86* under sunny skies.
The next days also look splendid.
Eighties with a lot of sun.
Anyone complaining?
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Dinner
Friday, July 5, 2019
Dinner Wednesday was a delicious London Broil with broccoli rabe, again.
I do like broccoli rabe.
We used the duck bones to make a stock boiled down to a demi glace which we added to our tub of Duck/Goose gravy.
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Today’s Thumbnail
Friday, July 5, 2019
Picture Credits:
Film poster for Bunny Lake Is Missing - Copyright 1965, Columbia Pictures
POV - Impawards
The ultimate uncanny valley.
Bunny Lake Is Missing is a 1965 British psychological thriller film starring Laurence Olivier and directed and produced by Otto Preminger, who filmed it in black and white widescreen format in London.
It was based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell.
The score is by Paul Glass and the opening theme is often heard as a refrain.
The English rock band the Zombies also appear in the film, in a television broadcast.
Dismissed by both critics and Preminger as insignificant upon its release in 1965, the film received a strong review by critic Andrew Sarris.
American single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley), who recently moved to London from New York, arrives at the Little People's Garden pre-school to collect her daughter, Bunny.
The child has mysteriously disappeared.
An administrator recalls meeting Ann but claims never to have seen the missing child.
Ann and her brother Steven (Keir Dullea)
In desperation, the Lakes call the police and Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) arrives on the scene.
Newhouse is steadfast, diligently following every lead.
The police and Newhouse decide to visit the Lakes' new residence.
They find that all of Bunny's possessions have been removed from the Lakes' home.
Ann cannot understand why anyone would do this and reacts emotionally.
Superintendent Newhouse begins to suspect that Bunny Lake does not exist.
Alone at night, Ann discovers she still has the claim ticket for Bunny's doll, which was taken to a doll hospital for repairs.
Regarding the doll as proof of Bunny's existence, she frantically rushes to the doll hospital late at night to retrieve the doll.
It’s the scene of Anne’s trip to the doll hospital that is fraught with fear, severely heightened by the slow panning of the rows of injured dolls bodies slouched in every position, faces sporting every expression.
The ultimate uncanny valley.
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From the laptop of Howard D:
Friday, July 5, 2019
Here you go:
I was going to write to you yesterday about your opining concerning the hapless Cecile Chaminade. It is unfortunate, historically, that women artists (to use the broadest term I can) have to excel even to the level of genius in order to perpetuate their reputations. This has been the valid circumstance for thousands of years unfortunately. Women, alas, have been victims of the patriarchy (if that’s how we have to characterize the status quo, not to mention the prevailing status quo ante) for thousands of years. They (the women) start off with the disadvantage of not being expected or aided in any way to distinguish themselves at any endeavours save for household management and child-bearing and rearing. If you don’t even get the chance, never mind the help and encouragement, to express yourself in creative ways, there won’t even be the most meager showing of work to stand the test of posterity.
I think Chaminade made some very pleasant music. But she was no genius. Not that that’s a curse or a critique. There’s another French composer, very much in the same mode, I think, and far more prolific, probably also not a genius, but I find him far more engaging and interesting to listen to in large doses. Like her, he was popular, though he attained to being considered among the crème de la crème of French composers of the period (he predated her slightly, and he died about 20 years before she did, but still well into the 20th century). If you like her, you’ll like Gabriel Fauré. And there’s a great deal more to like, because he wrote a lot more music, and just on a percentage basis, there’s a lot more of it that is superior.
There’s a surprising number of “covers” so to speak of the small number of her works that have endured despite her loss of popularity in time. I think you have to take into account that she wasn’t given short shrift at the time, and it was only over the course of time passing since, maybe, the 20s of the last century, that she lost some stature. I think it’s overly broad and sweeping to see in her fortunes, so to speak, some exemplum of the larger problem of suppression of women in any number of ways, including fields of creative expression. I think the far greater crime is the number of artworks and other accomplishments in the course of the history of western civilization never produced by women, simply because they were never permitted to do so. And the even greater crime of the inequities that drive such suppression still has not been sufficient to have caused us to forget certain key figures who would not allow themselves to be suppressed. Gentileschi, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Elena Ferrante, Nadia Boulanger, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson. The great misfortune is not that there is such a small number, but that it’s only a small number who were allowed to shine in the first place.
And, to be honest, the first thing I thought of when you mentioned Cecile Chaminade (and where did she come from? Who put you on to her out of the blue?), actually the first two things I thought of were, first, Erik Satie. Satie happens to be almost an exact contemporary of Chaminade, and sorry Dom, but however good she is, beyond the scope of my critical faculties to discern, she is no Satie. He was a genius. And it had nothing to do with his being a man (which was in some ways a questionable proposition to begin with)—he had one great love, a woman, in his life, early on, and then he gave up, it’s said, on amour. Which is to our good fortune, because maybe it meant he wouldn’t give up on music.
And the second thing I thought of was my very good friend Patty Goodson, who is the greatest pianist I know personally. She lives in Prague, Czech Republic, now, and has since 1991. She’s married to a really wonderful fellow named Ivan Karhan, a Czech she met over there, who happens to own the best toy shop in Prague and conceivably in the whole world (it’s called Rocking Horse). Patty has become the musical champion of a number of things, but most especially very avant garde music, Slavic composers, and in particular the revival of interest in a Czech composer, a woman named Geraldine Mucha. Patty has been instrumental in seeing to it that interest has revived in Mucha’s long neglected work. She (Patty) also has done similar things for the work of male composers who deserved more attention, so there is a kind of ecumenicism to her efforts.
She’s given up pretty much on live performing, though I’m sure she has enough followers who hope she will change her mind about that decision. She’s been performing all this time, mainly in Europe, and she does have at least a few CDs. If you look her up on Spotify she’s listed under Patricia Goodson. I don’t know if she has any plans to continue recording. I am guessing, but probably a YouTube search will reveal some additional performances that were recorded on video, live, in concert. I seem to recall seeing some she alerted me to at the time. I believe there’s a recording of Mucha’s music available on Spotify, and Patty appears on that disc.
ciao
H
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