I Have Seen the Future, and It Is Cute Dancing Robots

March 28, 2008

Jason Harper,

I was rooting around for Spoon videos to post with our preview of the band online (found a rad Paul Simon cover), and I found these beguiling videos of a Japanese robot dancing to a couple of recent Spoon hits. The robot is called Keepon, and it consists of two conjoined yellow spheres, with perky, rudimentary eyes and a black-button nose on the upper sphere. (I don’t know why, but it reminds me of Baron Silas Greenback’s pet caterpillar Nero from DangerMouse.

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I’m not usually the type to give two farts about some Japanese toy, but this little critter is compelling — hell, it dances better than every single white person in midtown. And then I think, how it is it even possible to communicate “dancing” with a squiggly little ball-like creature, much less higher emotions like “curiosity” and “look at me I’m cute and quirky”? That question’s for the behaviorists, I suppose. I do know the music helps, because Spoon, of course, gots the groove.

Here it is, dancing to “I Turn My Camera On”