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 money doesn't grow on trees. We learn the surprising reason why in Where the Money Grows by Garet Garrett, 1911. On Wall Street there is a "hoodoo tree" whose evil shadow deprives one of the money-making gift.
"He fetched a dummy figure of Viola, and tossed it into the knife-lined globe, addressing it: 'There, my fair Viola, I shall bind you, of course!'" From Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses, 1892.
You've heard of sticking inhuman pins into a voodoo doll, but the old-school sticks human pins into a pseudo doll. From The Baby's Museum by Uncle Charlie, 1882.