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.
"Down in my inner self, there passes before me, in slow and sinister review, the memories of days done with, of things for ever over, of the faces of the dead." From A Phantom from the East by Pierre Loti, 1892.
Exactly when, down to the day, will the mystery be brought to light? Here are two answers:
"Possibly, in some yet undiscovered ruin or tomb, the key may be found to the problem which now puzzles the world: but then it is only a possibility. There is little doubt that the mystery will remain a mystery until the great day when the sea shall give up its dead and the past be stretched before us like a scroll." —The True Latter-Day-Saints' Herald, 1873
"That, I suppose, will remain a mystery till the day when a[ll] secrets will be cleared up, an[d] a[ll] the deeds o[f] darkness brought to light." —The Brownie of Bodsbeck by James Hogg, 1833
Here's 59 seconds on how to make a physical reality of your imagination:
Mindful attention was the meditative practice of Portuguese philosopher Fernando Pessoa. His technique empowered him to make a physical reality of his imagination, through what he called a great act of intellectual magic. His Book of Disquietdemonstrates exactly how to do that, entertainingly. Pessoa kept notes on what happened around him, from a sudden thunderclap to what the office boy just said, and he allowed every occurrence to inform and illustrate his personal philosophy, that we can sift out what parts of reality are illusions and which illusions have reality, and that we can prevent any act from being in vain so as to conserve energy. Depending upon how you look at it, Pessoa said, anything can be either astonishing or an obstacle. His secret was to look at each thing that happened differently every time, as a way of renewing and multiplying it. He said a contemplative soul who never left his village could in this way have the entire universe at his disposal. Pessoa's meditation was a magical act of transformation. I'm Prof. Oddfellow.
Here's an anecdote about how a restless spirit was charmed into the shape of a fly and read into a bottle by 12 parsons standing in a circle. Note how the parsons made a mistake when they threw the bottled ghost down a well: they committed it to lie for a hundred years, forgetting to specify "a hundred years and odd," thereby allowing the ghost the escape in due time. From Chambers's Journal, 1866.
Here's proof that I'm not merely a "friend and pal" of Cinderella, but I'm a friend and pal of her friends, too. (Tip: having annual passes for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World really helps.) The text reads, "With greetings and best wishes to our friend and pal, Craig. —Cinderella and friends." It's been theorized that friends of friends invite one to "harness the power of loose ties," and sadly that doesn't mean neckties that aren't knotted too tightly but rather casual acquaintanceships. If you'd like me to put in a good word for you to either Cinderella or any of her friends, as a token of your seriousness just put a penny in my tip jar: paypal.me/profoddfellow.
I found a pressed 6-leaf clover hiding in an expensive rare book. A few years ago, I purchased, for an exorbitant $128, what was promised (original typo: primrosed) to be the most unusual travel account ever published -- the surrealist painter Ithell Colquhoun's exploration of the eerie magic of the Irish countryside, The Crying of the Wind. (It hadn't yet been republished in softcover; I was a year too early!) I'd been sufficiently impressed by Colquhoun's dreamy occult novel Goose of Hermogenes to trust that the travel book would beguile me. It did! And though I can't help but wonder why the Universe tricked me into spending $128 just before the softcover came out, I do know that a new softcover wouldn't have had a pressed 6-leaf clover, so perhaps it all somehow works out in the end.
Who wants to buy caterpillars, cocoons, chrysalides, pupae cases, butterflies, moths, and Indian relics of all kinds? The Bird Woman, of course. From A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter, 1909.
"If the surprisor and the surprisee are mutually astonished, then, indeed, there is a tangle out of which anything may emerge, for two explanations are necessary at the one moment, and two explanations can no more hold the same position in time than two bodies can occupy the same lodgment in space." From The Demi-gods by James Stephens, 1921.
All the best travel guides include the imaginary. Japan, Real and Imaginary by Sydney Greenbie, 1920. See our own unusual travel guide to what many consider the most unusual village on earth: Puzzling Portmeirion.
"If here at the end of ages this is all—a white face floating in the whirling ball." From "A Leaf from the Devil's Jest-Book" by Edwin Markham, in The Man with the Hoe, 1899.
With a setup this overblown, you already know the payoff couldn't possibly live up to it, so we've left it off as a courtesy. From Lauzun by Mary Frances Sandars, 1908. Amazingly, this passage was later quoted in a piece about the art of letter writing.
