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.
"A Lost Shadow. Eric and his little Shadow went out walking in the Meadow. Little Shadow got away—haven't seen him since that day." From Eric's Book of Beasts by David Starr Jordan, 1912.
Most poems are fashioned with pencils or ink, but the finer ones are oil painted. Unless this title is likening poems to sardines in oil, as opposed to sardines in mustard. (We prefer our sardine poems in mustard.) From Poems In Oil by Will Ferrell, 1919.
"It may be ever so merry and gay, this place where we go at the close of each day; but we're thankful it's only the Resting Place here of to-day and not of to-morrow to fear." From Heidelberg University's 1923 yearbook.