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In a recent study, MacDorman and cognitive psychologist Alex Diel found the most support for a theory called configural processing, the idea that uncanny valley reactions are caused by our sensitivity to the positioning and size of human facial features.

Diel explains we may see imperfections in a human replica as a sign they might be physically ill or a potential source of contagious illness—and that triggers our disgust response.

It is hard to imagine a modern Indian psychoanalyst — Sudhir Kakar, say — turning him into an object of revulsion or perversion, the way Diel does with the chimera.

The chimera, as Diel writes, externalizes a certain danger, “in the form of a monster encountered by chance,” that “chimerical enemy” that “every man carries secretly within himself ... the devouring monster.”

These were transcribed and pieced together into a libretto by the writer Scott Diel, with whom Birman has collaborated on other verbatim projects.