I'm usually so far behind the curve when it comes to pop phenomena and trends that I don't bother mentioning them, but even if I'm bringing up the rear on this one, it's just too good to pass up, especially with Hallowe'en around the corner. Seems George Clarke, a filmmaker in Belfast, was sitting around one day watching his collection of Chaplin DVDs–The Circus, to be precise–and in the special features they clutter these things up with, he saw a short newsreel of the movie's premiere in Hollywood in 1928, in the course of which a burly lady can be clearly seen striding past with her left hand to her ear in precisely the pose of one talking on a cell phone; furthermore, she's clearly yakking away nineteen to the dozen, as cell phone users are wont to do. Now, George has no explanation, but he suggests she might be a time traveler, which is thrilling of course, but very dubious; for one thing, who's on the other end of the line (or cell signal)? No, he's misled by what appears to be the mobile-phone pose that has become so familiar to us. It's as if we were to interpret a grand swooping gesture of leadership, as depicted in a Roman statue of Hadrian, as evidence that Hadrian played baseball, because it looks like he's warming up for a pitch....oh, I dunno.  Just watch the clip.