I'm reading "Lost 19th century film by Méliès discovered at the Library" (Library of Congress).
And here is that amazing 45-second film from 1897 — "Gugusse and the Automaton" — with its delightful jump cuts:
The word "automaton" — used in the Méliès film title — goes back to the 1600s. There's an essay from 1616 with the line, "The soule doth quicken and giue life to the body, the body like an Automaton, doth moue and carry it selfe and the soule."
The quote seems to expect the reader already to have a picture of an automaton. What is that picture? Mechanical toys? Elaborate clocks like the Prague Astronomical Clock (built in 1410)?
Maybe you thought "Gugusse and the Automaton" was — compared to the CGI action movies of today — rather dumb and dull!
And maybe you've journeyed to Prague only to be disappointed by their stupid clock... or were you disappointed by all the tourists wrecking the medieval mood with their disappointment?
"Do you think people are too mean to the clock?"
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"Do you think people are to mean to the clock?"
I loved that line from the Prague clock video and only realized after publishing this post that today is the #1 day of the year when people "are mean to the clock," the clock having done them wrong, what with it's jumping ahead.
I'll add this to "Lumiere, Le Cinema" and the Hearst Metrotone News Collection, in my wonderful but time-burning excursion into restored cinematic history.
Those tourists are idiots. The clock is hundreds of years old and they’re upset it’s not by Industrial Light and Magic?
Show some understanding of what you’re looking at or just stay home.
Sure... old clock... but can it Spring forward?
Melies was the inspiration for Martin Scorcese's wonderful movie "Hugo," which starred Ben Kingsley as Melies. The repellent Sacha Baron Cohen has a supporting role, where he is slightly less loathsome than the personas he creates elsewhere (Borat, Ali G) or in real life. The film garnered (!) a lot of awards and nominations, but didn't make any money. Well worth watching.
"Show some understanding of what you’re looking at or just stay home."
Good point. These places exist in a context of time and events, and if you dont have an idea of all that you are missing the point of being there.
Considering it was built sometime around 1410 I'd say it's doing amazingly well. State of the art engineering for that time.
My clock has disappointed some women. But it's never disappointed me. IYKWIMAITYD. CC, JSM
people travel across the world (burning carbon),
so that They can record a video that they saw (a HUNDRED versions of) on you tube. WHY?
Why do people think that if something is important, that THEY NEED to record it? So that they can show it to others?
Hello? it's already been done.. it's on you tube.
it's been done BETTER than you could.
if you're standing in a crowd that ALL have their phones above their heads.. You're in the wrong crowd.
In Downton Abbey. the barely closeted footman had the job of winding and setting all the timepieces in the mansion. He was referred to as the 'clock expert.' CC, JSM
These days my clock falls back more than it springs forward, iykwimaityd. CC, JSM
Automaton Intelligence and the inspiration of selfe, now selfie.
This is going to be the old way one day
clock falls back more than it springs forward
A drag on the momentum of transition.
A disappointment and aborted conception of a novel birth in the modern family.
I like that mainland Europe is now a repository for annoying tourists. Quite successful with all the insty traps. Even this lousy one is still working…
..all y’all can skip The Vatican if restoration work is the standard…it’s interesting though this insistence on originality. We see it in collectible automobiles and more relevant here, watches. Don’t polish your Rolex people…
If people are so into photography, why not just look at photographs of these oft-photographed famous places. Leave your iPhone in your pocket and just use your eyes. Save your photography for odd observations. If others around you are pointing cameras at something, that's your cue to put your camera away. Take it out when you notice something that other people are not seeing, such as the way the light and shadow happen to fall or some funny juxtaposition.
I am a fan of Valery and her YouTube Prague channel, Real Prague Guides. Prague is full of Wonders, but also full of tourists and traps to snare them. Also pickpockets, especially at the hourly Astronomical Clock show.
If there were any justice in this world it would be called a cut-out-the-stuff-in-between cut and not a jump cut.
All the jump cuts in the video are really annoying. Unfortunately, this is becoming near universal in this type of video.
I've seen the clock, but it was over 30 years ago, before it's current, restored, glory. It is really a marvel for it's time.
Prague was hopping back then. The Wall had just come down, and everything was dirt cheap. A friend and I made some decent money buying model airplanes and engines there, and reselling them in the West.
The war will be over by April1, 2026.
Stop what you're doing and immediately look for and watch the movie Hugo, a beautiful and charming tribute to Melies. The whole family will enjoy. The hero, Hugo, is a boy tasked with maintaining all the clocks in the Paris train station.
If people are so into photography, why not just look at photographs of these oft-photographed famous places. Leave your iPhone in your pocket and just use your eyes.
I get taking a picture that is yours to say you were there, but yeah. There are so many photos professionally taken showing details. If you want to show others the detail, use those photos and otherwise enjoy the show with your own eyes.
Same goes for live sporting events and concerts. Why spend so much money to see the event live only to experience through your phone?
A must watch video about the mechanical inspiration for the bestselling children's novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" and the Oscar nominated film "Hugo."
Automatons - mechanical marvels from a time gone by.
The plot of Hugo centered around an orphan who inherited from his father an automaton built by Méliès, in Scorsese's cinematic paean to the pioneering filmmaker.
I liked the Czech Republic when I was there, especially the beer. Better than German, better than Austrian. The Czechs know their beer - and their guns. The clock is amazing too, but as with the entire old city section of Prague: too many tourists. Don't go there in the high season.
Althouse: "The map is not the territory" is a principle coined by Alfred Korzybski stating that our mental models, words, and representations of reality (the map) are not the actual, complex, and changing reality itself (the territory). It highlights that abstractions omit details, meaning our beliefs are not the same as reality.
This explains why people are disappointed with the astro clock and why looking at photos instead of experiencing something in real life is very limiting.
Theseus's Timepiece. A lot of old things in Europe are like that.
We saw the clock in '19, and it was fine. I don't know what people expect.
"Karel is an educational programming language for beginners, created by Richard E. Pattis in his book Karel The Robot: A Gentle Introduction to the Art of Programming. Pattis used the language in his courses at Stanford University, California. The language is named after Karel Čapek, a Czech writer who introduced the word robot"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_(programming_language)
"...We saw the clock in '19, and it was fine. I don't know what people expect...."
They don't know what they expect, to be honest, but they would probably prefer to be watching a magical hologram of Mickey Mouse, and slurping on something sugary. If you tell them the clock predates the Columbus discovery of America, it might not have much meaning for them.
Last summer, I gazed at a large, rather plain wooden door at the entrance to a compound, in an alley in Naples, and was told that it also predated the Columbus voyage, and that the compound at the time was a gift bestowed by the de Medici family. I was impressed.
i swear to GOD, that at Yosemite; there was a sign that said:
IF you take your picture RIGHT HERE.. it will look like everyone else's
and people were lined up to do so.
AND, that was back in the late 20th century
All I can say is that Ron Swanson would not be impressed.
Years ago we ended up in Regensburg on a Sunday. It turns out that Germany is closed on Sunday, so the only things open were the cathedral and the famous sausage restaurant. From there we took the bus to Prague. There were no trucks allowed on the Autobahn on Sunday, and just inside the Czech border there was a huge truck stop full of trucks from everywhere waiting for midnight so they could hit the road in Germany. In the middle of all this was a McDonalds. After a drive through the beautiful Bohemian countryside we arrived Prague in the evening, worried that it would be closed, too. But Prague was jumping.
Well of course an astronomical clock is going to be boring. Have you ever looked at the sky? During the day it’s just this thing that’s too bright to look at anyway, plus it gives you skin cancer. At night it’s just a bunch of tiny dots that don’t move around or do anything cool like those Chinese drone shows. Talk about dullsville. People say it’s 6000 years old, and it looks it. Badly in need of renovation and updating.
--- Scorsese's cinematic paean [Wince]
That must be a dangerous pill to play with, that paean stuff. YMMV, but I found Hugo's cool look did not translate into an interesting movie.
If I had a clock that was built in 1410 and was still ticking, AND offered up a figure of death turning over an hour glass symbolizing our time is...well...moving on...I'd be pretty pleased.
I'd say I'm not sure what people today expect from a clock that sits outside in the elements overlooking history for over 6 centuries, but then, this is a generation of people who think "Love is Blind" is something to stop your life to watch.
tcrosse said...
"Years ago we ended up in Regensburg on a Sunday. It turns out that Germany is closed on Sunday, "
We had the same observation, that the Eastern European nations, newly released from the old USSR, were eventually going to kick the Germans in the butt.
What Prague and similar centuries old sites need is holograms, CGI, AI generated (sort of like the real) historical events. Blaring loudspeakers screaming you are having fun, fun, fun! Drone swarms illuminating the night sky. A full moon guaranteed! Maybe virtual reality Elvis as your tour guide.
Even here is America it works. Strap on that VR device, an experience Pickett's Charge on the hillside. Watch those Rebs race to their deaths, falling about you, color enhanced red for the blood. Hidden spray nozzles as body parts ricochet off your face and neck.
Feh.
"Strap on that VR device, an [sic] experience Pickett's Charge . . . ."
You can do that sort of thing at the new (as of 2015) Waterloo Museum. Episodes of battle through the eyes of a French drummer boy. (No actual blood or body parts, though.)
"You can do that sort of thing at the new (as of 2015) Waterloo Museum. Episodes of battle through the eyes of a French drummer boy. (No actual blood or body parts, though."
Yep. I've seen, and even experienced a bit of this in our travels. I find, in a few cases they are an interesting SUPPLEMENT. But why take half steps? Golly why would anyone ever leave the state, city, neighborhood or even home with the whole world available in your purchased at birth (projected adult sized) coffin. Complete with hydraulic motion, smell-a-vision, surround sound and suuuuuper VR.
Some will tell you confidently that robot is Czech for worker. Not quite, robot is what workers were required to do by law. Robot was compulsory, unpaid labor performed by a tenant for a lord, or communal help given to a neighbor for tasks like harvesting or building. In France it was called corvée. In England it was called boon work by the Saxons and fatigue by their Norman masters, usually maintenance work for the manor done on specified boon days.
By 1789, the corvée was a much resented obligation owed by the free peasantry to the king, usually road construction or repair. The revolution put an end to the corvée to universal rejoicing, and then brought it back as "patriotic duty" by the Committee of Public Safety. Moral: never trust a democrat.
Robot persisted in the Habsburg Empire, at least the obligation, if not the actual labor until after the revolutions of 1848. It was abolished as part of Minister President Felix zu Schwarzenberg's plan to end the uprisings, a meaningless bone thrown to the wretched Slavs and Magyars. By then robot had acquired its modern connotation of mindless industrial drudgery.
Golems predate robots and automatons. Just sayin'. Go Israel!
I'd be more interested in seeing the workings of the clock. The clock from the inside.
In 1410 there were no machine tools. Well. Maybe a crude lathe. So all the fine work was done by hand with files. Imagine cutting gear teeth with only files.
"Do you think people are too mean to the clock?"
By judging a mechanical clock by today's mechanical wonders, maybe that's a sign that we are not appreciative of what we do have.
I was looking at my iPhone's clock app widget to see what happens at 2:00 am. The hour hand just dropped like a stone from 2 to 3, as if I was winding it by hand myself. Of course, I want to go all philosophical about how ephemeral everything is and nothing is real, we are all just making it up as we go along... and then "the passage of time" lady just popped in uninvited and I was back in Réalville. This would not make a good share later at Sunday morning men's meeting, I thought.
Why are people mean to the clock? We want to look marvelous.
"The Czechs know their beer - and their guns."
Pilsner Urquell and the CZ-75B are best enjoyed together -- take a sip, squeeze off a round, take a sip, squeeze off a round...
...and then shoot the bottle when it's empty. Extra points for 'Rooster Cogburn' style.
There's a clock of similar age in Bern, Switzerland. It doesn't put on a performance on the hour. Just as well, because if you stood and looked at it you could very well be run over by a tram.
To paraphrase James Lileks "We used to take 1 picture and look at it a hundred times. Now we take hundreds of pictures and never look at them again."
I was looking for a picture of the clock tower in Berne which Einstein looked at while he developed his theory of relativity. Intending to make some remark about the mind's eye and the mindless eye. But the Berne clock tower also has some sort of astronomical clock which looks similar but different from the Prague one. The Prague Clock is based on the geocentric view of the universe; the Berne clock ?on the Copernican? Another byway for me to explore.
Berne clock
https://astronomyforchange.org/the-enigma-of-time/
closeup
https://www.dreamstime.com/zytglogge-detail-bern-switzerland-closeup-medieval-clock-tower-its-complex-face-ancient-dial-conveys-famous-clear-image258948947
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The clock is great. A technological marvel from 1410! How can you not love it, and how can you not expect that a 600 year old mechanism will need occasional repairs and cosmetic refreshes
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