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.
Many, but crucially not all girls are less attractive when thet twist their feet awkwardly. From The Business of Life by A. B. ZuTavern and A. E. Bullock and illustrated by Leo Thiele, 1936.
Can one hear the ocean in a seashell? Yes! The tides are at play in the inner sanctum of the shell, pulled by the gravity of the full moon. Waves of sound rush from the spiral of the shell into the cochlear spiral of the inner ear. Inexplicably, seagulls are often heard as well. Skeptics may claim that the sound one hears is the rushing of one’s blood. Yet "it has long been established that the makeup of human blood bears a haunting resemblance to that of sea water” (Larry Gedney, Alaska Science Forum). (Previously, we found vintage proof that the ocean one hears in a seashell is the shore at Atlantic City.)
This Pandora appears in a 1904 issue of Saturday Evening Post magazine. The caption reads: "A common, battered tin box . . . but it held tragedy—more than tragedy."