CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.

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A Turkish Delight of musings on languages, deflations of metaphysics, vauntings of arcana, and great visual humor.

February 23, 2011 (permalink)

I dreamed that a misplaced question mark obfuscated the entire meaning of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

(My typographical error dream was no doubt triggered by Fredericka Beardsley Gilchrist's The True Story of Hamlet and Ophelia.)

(Thanks, FutilityCloset.)

---

June asks:

To be or not to be: that is the question?



February 14, 2011 (permalink)

I dreamed of a self-possessed apostrophe—a ghost haunting itself.

(Inspired by Gary Barwin.)


Illustration by Prof. Oddfellow

December 4, 2010 (permalink)

I dreamed I had two left feet.

[In Anton Chekhov's "The Exclamation Mark," visions of punctuation dance before a civil servant's eyes.  Which punctuation leads the dance and which follows?  This much is certain: the semicolon is left-footed.  Gautam Malkani confirms: "Punctuation came with a kick, but with his left foot this time so it was more like a semicolon" (Londonstani, 2006, p. 3).]

August 7, 2010 (permalink)


Punctuation music via Make It Work.
I woke up with a tune stuck in my head.

March 30, 2010 (permalink)

I dreamed someone told my fortune: the Tarot Hanged Man, inverted.



February 17, 2010 (permalink)

I dreamed I played a suspended game of dominoes.



January 2, 2010 (permalink)


"Something interesting happens at 6:00 o'clock."
Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill

December 2, 2009 (permalink)

"How do you carve yourself out of your self?"
The North Dakota Quarterly


Photo by mag3737.

August 10, 2009 (permalink)

I dreamed of endings:

At the end of a sentence a period, a full stop. Peer into its darkness, a celestial sky so dark nothing is visible save the darkness itself.

Or it’s some kind of cave, an inscrutable Lascaux, a dim basement. Jazz musicians crowd beside bison hunters. Hear the shimmer of the cymbal and the erotic bleat of the saxophone, the clink of mouth-bound martini glasses, the soft murmur of warriors.

Now lean closer, look as if through the aperture of a microscope. There’s an entire city. A single swart cell. An inkwell. The birthmark of the sentence. An insect whose legs my brother removed.  You raise your head and look out at the room. Black ink from a silent movie gag circles your eye.

Gary Barwin

April 22, 2009 (permalink)

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

I dreamed I fell in love.


(Inspired by Gary Barwin, who writes: "And soon they will join in holy matrimony...")

January 28, 2009 (permalink)

I dreamed of a poem by Gary Barwin:

The semicolon dreams.  It isn’t one, but two.  Brother and sister.  Mother and child.  Egg and sperm.  Zygotic.  X and Y.  Chromosomal.  A Bicameron over the corpus callosum of the page.  A greater and lesser brain, brontosaural.  A thought and its strange horn.  The beginning and end of sleep.  A dream of dreaming and of waking.  A hand and its other becoming breath and its shadows, a one eye open, a book.

January 22, 2009 (permalink)

I dreamed I underwent a colonoscopy.


Designed by the Serif of Nottingblog.


After the procedure, I was beautiful enough to appear in Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert's hilarious book Wigfield.


A semi-asterisk typo from page 156 of Wigfield.

Granted, I was a typo, but that's why they called me "The Insinuator."

January 13, 2009 (permalink)

I dreamed I was tied up.



December 16, 2008 (permalink)


"Punctstellations" by Gary Barwin.  See full size.
I dreamed of star-gazing.

December 12, 2008 (permalink)

I had a nightmare about a ghost shark.


(Illustration incorporates artwork by Dr. Tony Ayling.)

December 11, 2008 (permalink)

I dreamed I came down with stigmata.

November 21, 2008 (permalink)

I dreamed a secret admirer sent me a love letter.



November 16, 2008 (permalink)

I dreamed I arrived at a pajama party in fancy dress; I was mortified.


 
Thanks to the Serif of Nottingblog for featuring this piece earlier.

November 4, 2008 (permalink)

I dreamed I went on a silence retreat.


Collage by Genevieve Dionne.

October 20, 2008 (permalink)

I dreamed it was the ampersand's 40th birthday.


Photo source.

---

Joy Fisher writes:

No semicolon should show up to a party without a gift.  This would be perfect for a 40 year old ampersand to rest his head on.



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