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 raining cats, if not dogs. The caption reads: "I saw many myriads of spectral kitten forms and unsubstantial egg-shapes." From an 1895 issue of Punch.
An illustration from a 1920 issue of McClure's magazine. The caption reads: "There are privileged persons who possess the faculty of allowing their organisms to be used as a medium of communication by intelligences on the other side of the veil."This should be of interest:Seance Parlor Feng Shui.
"Step by step, nearer, nearer, until he touched airy hands that clung, that drew him to the heart of mystery." From Amélie Rives's The Ghost Garden, 1918.