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.
This is Marquette's Monster, a.k.a. Lennipinja or Man-Cat of the Peorias and Illinois, a.k.a. Micibisi of the Northern tribes. The Chippewa name is Michibichi, the spirit panther "god of the waters" or "the manito of the waters and the fishes." The Shawnese clan name is "Manetuwi Msi-pessi," a "'celestial tiger,' i.e. a meteor or shooting star. The manetuwi msi-pessi lives in water only, and is visible not as an animal, but as a shooting star. But the activities of this manito are not confined to the water. He corresponds to the 'Fire Dragon' of other mythologies; and when they see a meteor, the old Miamis say that it is Lennipinja going from one sea to another" (Indiana and the Indianans by Jacon Piatt Dunn, 1919).
"For even things lost in a house abide, like forgotten sorrows and incipient dreams, and many household things are of purely sentimental value .... In the equal light of disinterested scrutiny such things are not themselves. They are transformed into pure object, and are horrible, and must be burned." —Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping