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, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, 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.
It's easier now than in the 1970s, what with messaging apps, for mothers and their at-home sons to keep in touch. The text reads, "It's good for a mother and son to keep in touch—especially when they live in the same house." From Together, 1972.
In Dark Shadows, Barnabas the vampire is more like Bartleby the Scrivener. Let's call him Bartlebas. In fact, most everyone at the very haunted Collinwood estate would prefer not to.
We thought it was a Cole Porter-style compliment: "You're the soup, the salad, and the jelly." Alas, she's talking about a banquet made from a single chicken named Jack. From St. Nicholas, 1914.
A Hindu lamentation for a dead son: "My lion, my arrow, my blood, my body, my soul, my third eye! Gone, gone, gone!" From Hand-book of Bible Manners and Customs by James Midwinter Freeman, 1874
We double checked, and these are indeed the twelve states of existence: afraid, asleep, blindness, stoned, poisoned, insanity, dead, irritation, nausea, paralyzed, disease, and curse. From Wizardry: Crusaders Of The Dark Savant Clue Book.