But couldn't be Kirk they held their devices down not to their ears.
http://tv.yahoo.com/daytime/video/early-show-ellen-regis-and-kelly/22208433/
I had the sound off so I don't know if they said what she might really be doing but I think it would make a great story idea.
[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited October 28, 2010).]
The video is footage from outtakes of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 movie Circus. The funny looking person in the oversized coat appears to be holding something and talking into it. The only "logical" explanation offered - a time traveller of course talking into some sort of mobile device.
Near as I could tell from the stories online, it's not actually from Chaplin's The Circus, or from outtakes (Chaplin saved his outtakes,) but some film footage taken at the premiere.
According to the appendix in David Robinson's Chaplin: His Life and Art, the premiere of The Circus was January 6th, 1928, at the Strand Theater in New York; there was a Los Angeles opening at Grauman's Chinese on January 27th; from the bit of film I can't say just which one the film comes from.
I'm thinking---not a cell phone 'cause the supporting technology (like a cell phone tower, among other things) just wouldn't be there. Not a walkie-talkie---I'm not sure they were available in 1928 but the ones of WWII vintage were bulky and one in 1928 would be of similar size.
But then what?
Here's a link to one (of many) copies of the clip on YouTube.
Some articles say it's from the "Hollywood premiere;" the clip seems to be a bit of a longer clip that I haven't seen. (I'll check my files, but I think the only DVDs of Chaplin work I've got are City Lights and maybe The Gold Rush.)
But couldn't be Kirk they held their devices down not to their ears.
But a time traveler's device probably wouldn't need cell towers.
http://www.hearingaidmuseum.com/gallery/Carbon/WesternElectric/info/westelect34a.htm
I don't know why the person looks like they are talking into it though.
Also, I'm not even sure if it's a woman or a man. On viralvideos website someone speculated it might actually two people, little people, as part of a circus act.
I think this guy gives the best explanation though - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxdfRnDQvx0 (Caution - guy uses some profanity)
The old lady, with a hearing aid pauses to talk to a little girl bottom left of the screen (you see part of the girl's dress and her shadow). This makes perfect sense and supported by the video itself since the woman in question actually changes direction, angles herself towards that little girl, and talks to her.
[This message has been edited by redux (edited October 28, 2010).]
By the way, if you do listen to Clarke's explanation, I love how he says it might be an AM/FM radio, but it couldn't be because...it's 1928.
So the obvious next choice is a cell phone. Yeeesh.
Here in Forida, they emptied the asylums and we had street people walking around, talking to themselves. This past year I had two possible reasons for it. One is that they are hearing future cell phone calls and are responding to them,
the other is that they are from the groverment or aliens talking into blue-tooth devices made so small you cannot see them in their ears.
That story went viral. I saw it on Slash Dot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hewX99DxxLg&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_stronger_r2-2r-5-HM
It's also been suggested that the woman in the video is adjusting the hearing aid and encounters a young girl as she passes the zorse (zebra/horse). There is a bit of the girls dress and her shadow. The woman plainly reacts to the girl as she turns to address her.
I can't even begin to entertain that this is any kind of time traveler as there are so many rules being broken here set by the Chrono Council Authority. 
So, no. Not a time traveler.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101129/ts_afp/finlandarchaeologyculturehistory
Write a story from the POV off the 13 year old girl even though it would be sad.
There is a trilogy about a civilization in the area the Mediterranean sea is now, with telepathic saber tooth tigers and a special breed of warriors Two modern humans were sent back to that time period taking over bodies.
Strangely enough, I get a lot of ideas from fark.com. I like the irreverant headlines. Sometimes they really spark some odd tangents.
quote:
I remember reading that story! I really loved it. Do you remember the name?
It's too long ago, maybe over 15 years, since I read them or even seen them but I was thinking it could be the same writer, whose name I also forget (I shouldn't in this case) who wrote the novels about the alternate universe Sherlock Holmes. He didn't call the guy Holmes and magic worked in the universe but the character was a 18th century English Detective with a doctor who was his partner. In this case the Doctor was a pathologist(hopefully I got the right term) who used magic to check dead bodies out.
I hope all that made sense but in either case the writer died in a car accident, I believe, and someone else took over writing about the Detective. And as I said I was thinking it was the same writer but I know I have read books by Julian May.
In the series I mentioned in the original post the story is about a guy who is on a cruise ship gets hit by a light or some such and wakes up in the past in some ones else's body. That someone had just died. It's not 'till the end of the series that he realizes where he is. Could be four books even though I thought it was three.
The Gandalar Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron
Now, I'm going to have to go hunt this down and reread it. Thanks for reminding me of this great series.
That's IT! Randall Garrett.
I'm sure he's that other writer I referenced also.
I knew his last name and didn't realize it...which also explains why Cook's Garrett series kept coming to mind.
As I recall I thought they were very well written. Not sure what I would think now.. but they drew me into the story and I couldn't wait 'till I got the next one.
And another video for inspiration. This one of old and not so old buildings abandoned.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_weekend/20101210/ts_yblog_weekend/lost-treasures-of-the-city
Who used, worked, worshipped in these buildings? Who might life in the now?
Some alien who crashed on the earth? Someone from an alt reality? Someone settles down in an area where there abandoned city buildings, on another planet or from the future or just a pair of lovers who want to run off to get married.
However, I did read and do know the other Randall Garrett series...the "Lord Darcy" series, consisting of (I think) the novel Too Many Magicians and a series of short stories. Alternate universe, back before the term was hip...where a Plantagenet heir who died in our world lived and came to the throne in their world...also a world where magic was developed in the way science was in ours. Lord Darcy wasn't an alternate Sherlock Holmes, or at least he didn't come across as one.
As I recall---from reading about it, 'cause I don't know any of these guys---Randall Garrett, a well-known and well-liked SF writer from the 1950s to the 1970s, sold and (maybe) plotted out the series...then became fantastically ill with something that kind of burned his brain out. Vicki Ann Heydron, his wife, took up the typewriter and wrote the series. (I may have messed up the details---if anybody here knows more or knows better, correct me.)
I considered him an alternate Sherlock because he did the same type of thing as Sherlock and even had a Doctor or what passed for Doctors in that world, as a partner. No drugs, as I recall and I think he had a brighter attitude than Sherlock plus he was a Lord but over all basically the same idea. Same type period too, or maybe I should say the same English societal development.
[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited December 12, 2010).]
In one of the books finished by someone else there's a mention of a car accident, the person didn't go into details. I may be getting my writers mixed up but I'm sure it was Garrett.