(noun) - A mobile is a kinetic sculpture invented by Alexander Calder in the late 1920s. Rumor has it that that prankster, Marcel Duchamp, actually coined the term as a sort of French pun to denote both motion and motive.
A mobile's components are suspended from (usually wire) arms and carefully balanced so that the slightest movement of air sets the entire construction into motion.
Many of us became familiar with mobiles at an extremely early age, having gazed in wide-eyed, drooling wonder while they floated over our wee heads, as we lay supine in cribs. (Calder's pieces, however, made no use of either copyrighted cartoon characters or a music box.)

