Clara Bow, Time Traveler

I'm a member of several groups on Facebook for my personal edification and entertainment. One such group - Pre-Code Hollywood (1929-34): Sin on Celluloid - is a nifty little gathering of fans who concentrate and discuss filmmaking of 1929-34, a period featuring a more laid back atmosphere of film production.

Per film historian Thomas Doherty: "More unbridled, salacious, subversive, and just plain bizarre than what came afterwards, they look like Hollywood cinema but the moral terrain is so off-kilter they seem imported from a parallel universe." (If you're unfamiliar with pre-code film and what it's all about, you can learn tons here.)

Not only have I learned quite a bit about the era over the years, it's been a fun ride, giving me not only a new appreciation of films I've previously seen but ones I've never before been introduced to. Furthermore, I have been pleased and surprised at the depth of knowledge (not to mention the intelligence of the group's members), present company excepted, of course.

That is ... until last night.

Well, Sir, late last evening a photo of Clara Bow was posted on the group site. It showed her seaside sitting atop a wooden pylon with what appears to be an open box in her lap. Here is that photo:

My question is this: Does that look like anything but an open, wooden box to you?

Not to quite a few members of Sin On Celluloid, apparently. To a surprising number, it's something all together different ...

"She's holding a laptop?"

"That was my first thought, too!"

"The bottom's too deep, like a briefcase. Just the way it's resting on her lap, and the top is almost flat enough looking to appear like a screen. Just at first glance, that's what it almost appears ..."

"Is this one of those time traveler things? She is definitely checking her email on a laptop."

"Could be a microphone."

Look at that box again: Laptop computer? I guess ... if you haven't put your glasses on beforehand and you're blind as a bat.

But let's consider this, just in case you happen to be optically impugned. How about utilizing a little bit of common sense? The photo was posted on a site catering to a particular era, an era that didn't know what a laptop was. (Let alone a computer.)

Really, that's all you need to process to come to the conclusion that what Clara is holding couldn't possibly be a laptop.

So, what I'll do is be done with shaking my head in amazement at those comments and toodle along my merry way until such a time I may need to re-evaluate the common sense of some of the group's members. (Or at least their eyesight.)

.......... Ruprecht ( STOP )