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.
No cranks invited to the UFO club? Imagine how stultifying those meetings must have been! (Cue the Fawlty Towers episode in which Basil hosts a “Gourmet Night” but ends the newspaper ad with, “No riffraff,” and almost nobody shows up.) But really, it did hit me like a sack of bricks — any sort of club desiring only serious-minded people? And they charge dues for the privilege of exclusive earnestness? Horrors! Via UFO Newsclipping Service, 1995.