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.
We haven't yet tracked down the earliest recorded pampered pooch, but here's a pampered pooch with an early recording. Those canine headphones make the famous dog listening to "his master's voice" from a gramaphone horn seem downright old-fashioned. Scanned by the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive.
From The Rhododendron yearbook of Appalachian State University, 1969. This recalls: "I was looking for a ghost from the past—the picture of a classmate" (Elizabeth Welt Trahan, Ten Dollars in My Pocket, 2006). See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.
"I can't emphasize too strongly the need for a good breakfast," she said as skeletons looked on. From Hunter College's Wistarion yearbook, 1958. See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.
That's right—none of those is his actual hand. This old trick is so tricky that to this day the phrase "clandestine macramé" delivers no Google results. From My Years at the Austrian Court by Nellie Ryan, 1915.
An illustration from Modern Psychical Phenomena: Recent Researches and Speculations by Hereward Carrington (1919). The caption reads: "Huge hypnotic wheel, as used in the 'mysteries of Myra,' containing more than 50 revolving mirrors, reflecting light."
A spirit photograph is made even eerier by blocking out the faces of the sitters from the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. 16 (1922). The caption reads: "The photograph by Mrs. Deane. (Faces of sitters obliterated.)"