Weird News: Thousands Watch Giant Mechanical Spider in Liverpool
Monday, September 8, 2008
La Princesse, an enormous mechanical spider operated by a small platoon of French engineers and artists, is currently wowing thousands of bystanders in Liverpool, England. Displays like this are an indisputable marvel of modern technology. At the same time, however, La Princesse seems all too much like the horrific center of a deranged Medieval procession brought kicking and screaming into the modern age. These are the gods we now have on public display. No more do they awe us with miracles, but rather with lifelike imitations of real terrors. Like the mysterious monsters of old sometimes alluded to in old churches and city processions, the strange animation of the gargantuan arachnid shares an aura of the pure weird.
