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.
"'I should like—" 'You shouldn't,' said the Caterpillar, with decision." From The Westminster Alice by Hector H. Munro a.k.a. Saki and illustrated by F. Carruthers Gould, 1902.
Just shy of four decades before Alice went through the looking glass, some knights came riding "thro' the mirror blue" in Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." Actually, going through mirrors was an old pantomime gag by Harlequin, as mentioned decades even earlier in The London Magazine, 1822.