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.
You've heard that we're all made of stardust, but so are bicycles, sewing machines, and typewriters. Or ... smoke coalesces into the Platonic ideals of bicycles, typewriters, and sewing machines, and the cosmos celebrates. From Jugend, 1906.
"The sky is an umbrella to the earth" (Sri Venkateswara University's Oriental Journal, 1981). Photo courtesy of the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.
"Why do the children watch the skies when the stars peep out as the sunset dies? What is the secret the shadows hold? What is the legend the stars unfold? Hold to the light where no shadow bars, and read the answers in the stars." From c. 1890. (Spoiler: when held to the light, additional stars on the back of the card filled in letters that read "Hood[']s Pills.")