Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Internets

This is why the internet was invented, isn’t it? According to The Belfast Telegraph, an Irishman has found a clip in Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 black and white movie, “The Circus”, that pretty clearly shows a woman passing in the background of a scene talking on a cell phone. www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/film-tv/news/ The obvious and immediate conclusion drawn from this piece of film is that she is, in fact, some sort of time traveler. While that was not my first reaction to the film, I admit that to the modern viewer, the woman could be doing little else. The fact that within a few hours, the “hypothesis” had been refuted, will have little to do with the “legs” of the story. In our modern age, it is the story that matters, not whether the story is true or not. Trying to find out what is happening in the world using the internet, however, is like trying to find out what time it is by watching the second hand on a clock.


By Sam DelPresto