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Weird Please Editorial
181In Edo-period kΕdΕ, heated aromatic woods were identified by scent and recorded with playing pieces and geometric symbols.
182A sixteenth-century mechanical galleon rolled across a table while figures processed, bells rang, music played, and miniature cannons fired.
183Alexander Graham Bell's 1880 photophone vibrated a mirror with speech and reconstructed the sound from a modulated beam of sunlight.
184A provision of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 addresses kite-flying that annoys people in a thoroughfare.
185Giant Puppet Project creates large illuminated figures carried through public streets by teams of puppeteers.
186Niuafo'ou's remote mail service used swimmers, canoes, and sealed biscuit tins to exchange letters with passing ships.
187Mechanical engineer Elis Stenman built a Rockport summer house whose paper walls and furniture were made by rolling and varnishing old newspapers.
188Stanhope novelties placed microphotographs behind tiny lenses hidden in pens, sewing tools, jewelry, and other ordinary objects.
189Victor Lustig posed as a government official and persuaded a scrap dealer that the Eiffel Tower was secretly for sale.
190Artist Zimoun builds large installations from repeated motors, wires, boxes, and impacts that behave like mechanical environments.
The Weird Please editorial desk collects true stories about curious inventions, peculiar history, strange science, and the gloriously unexpected.
