2004-03-20 - 8:16 p.m.

In Steve Martin's delightful and highly underrated comedy L.A. Story, he states that " If confusion about your love life is ruining your day, I think it's good to go over to your best friend's house and ruin her day too. " As it happens, when you find out that the German industrial/experimental musician you're achingly in love with is married*, the best thing to do is to go to the MIT Museum and look at the robots.

The featured part of the collection is kinetic sculpture by Arthur Ganson. This fellow has created fantastic, odd little machines that are a maze of wires and gears and strings and that often contain organic elements, like a wishbone or an artichoke leaf. The sculptures move by crank or motor and are a stunning display of the beauty of mechanics.

The ones with organic components are my favorite, though they make me sad, somehow. Sad and oddly frightened. Seeing strips of paper paper flapping silently in place like determined moths makes you wonder for a second if there is a soul in the machine. Seeing a circuit of wires and knotted string shuddering like a heartbeat is unnerving. Robots should not be lonely.

* No, I'm not sure why the idea of someone who's 20 years older than me and shares none of my interests and whom I'd never meet being married alters my fantasy life. I guess I just have a crappy fantasy life.