At The Leaning Tower, It's All About Perspective

Cabinet of Wonders is a blog that my Google Reader recommended to me earlier this year, and I'm grateful. Its author, Heather McDougal, describes it as a "place where things of interest are set out, in possibly bizarre, possibly fetishistic presentation, for perusal by the discerning, who understand that presentation, and scientific interest, are all a form of magic." Frequent topics of discussion include weird science and medicine, art, architecture, history, natural wonders and automata.

A post that immediately jumped out at me while I was combing through their archives is The Art of Gesture in Tourist Italy. While on vacation in Italy, Heather and her daughter were watching people taking pictures of their friends at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Tourists wanting a picture with the tower have to stand in such a way and take the picture from such an angle that it appears they're either holding the tower up or pushing it over.

According to Heather, her daughter took the camera and disappeared, returning half an hour later with a series of silly and interesting photos that illustrate Heather's description of the scene as "some kind of mass-hallucination tai chi class."