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.
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Always Remember

June 1, 2024 (permalink)

One thing to remember:
  • you must leave the ball by midnight, because then the magic will end, and your clothes will be rags again
  • words that sound like fox don't have to be spelled like fox
  • you cannot draw something if you do not know what it looks like
  • not only have you changed, but so have the people you are returning to
  • a compass does not really point to true north, except by coincidence in some areas
  • we all have the same instrument, whether some of us have shaped it into the body of a dancer or not
  • you are not alone in this
  • the Great Wall was constructed over a period of thousands of years
  • always discriminate between fish
  • when drawing a clown, everything gets exaggerated -- that is, big nose, big mouth, weird hair, and huge shoes (usually with toes sticking out)
  • glue makes wood swell
  • things do go through fads, so it can be hard to say what new ideas will stick and which will be discarded as a passing fashion
  • proceed one thing at a time!
  • any "off" odor generally means "off" flavor as well
  • learn to yelp and cluck
  • we may have misunderstood the purport of a doctrine which repels us
  • pressed flowers must be collected when in plentiful supply and dried well before you will need them
  • political cartooning is a negative art
  • the body was made to be used and not to stand idle
  • floods are not abnormal happenings but a regular part of the way nature works
  • all the problems you left behind have not magically disappeared
  • no one is going to treat your possessions with the same tender, loving care that you would yourself
  • ideas can be successfully studied only in the concrete
  • all nappy hair is not bad, and all bad hair is not nappy
  • there is often more than one way of working out a given problem
  • a bee’s wings are held at shoulder height
  • there's a limit to the amount of double duty a plot of ground can do
  • you cannot delete your termination entry
(Snippets gathered through the course of our research.  See Bullet Lists.)
#bullet list
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March 18, 2024 (permalink)

From Focus On Instructional Video Programs from MET, 1981.
#vintage illustration #don't forget
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September 9, 2023 (permalink)

From Boat International, July 2015.
#time
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June 21, 2023 (permalink)

The only thing to remember is …
  • to keep dodging at random
  • change the subject completely
  • that what works best for you is what works best, period
  • not to move when danger is near
  • what should be left undone
  • to buy flowers and buy them as often as possible
  • that, God bless them, they are vulgarians
  • that you must take sensible precautions, most of which are blindingly obvious
  • that whatever you do to one side of the equation, you must also do to the other
  • to go totally
  • that you have to cock the hammer before you squeeze the trigger
  • to run faster than the other person; that’s just good enough
  • that bad points will be emphasized just as strongly as good ones
  • to keep it free of lumps
  • that if you want to double back on yourself it takes a bit of time to cancel out your inertia
  • to keep the decimal points aligned
  • to speak idea-wise, not sentence-wise
  • that both history and future are only propositions and descriptions - the only real action is now
  • to subtract backward
  • if you love then all sacrifice is okay
  • prompt treatment often saves much suffering
  • never to look directly at the sun
  • that you can't be half right
  • self-preservation
  • the Tetragrammaton
  • to keep the shape fairly simple
  • that there are no rules
  • that a limp carrot is a very old carrot
  • that the primary motivation comes from the familiar properties of “less than or equal to” and not “less than”
  • a bond is created as soon as the pieces touch each other
  • don't fly too close to anything else
  • the old principle of harmony
  • that we all put on an act from time to time, but there is no point in putting on an act before God
  • memory cannot be taken as literally true
  • that personal gains should neither be contradictory to divine rules nor cost losses to others
  • not to set the voltage on the transformer too high
  • don’t commit the same mistakes again and again
  • to be balanced between activity and inactivity
  • you've got to win the war
  • not to give too much
  • to remain a witness
  • to take a sure aim
  • that souffles wait for no one
  • the honesty, the sincerity
  • to make sure the calculator is in the right mode
  • you're the one who's supposed to be on top
  • not to overdo it
  • that it isn’t and can't be November
  • that "you were looking for a job when you found that one.”
  • never to waste a potential source of food
  • when it’s long, use the length
  • be alert
  • to make more than you think you will need
  • don’t become the mask
  • to always demand to speak to someone in charge who is high enough up to be able to make spontaneous
  • decisions on your behalf
  • don't be worried about others' motivations
  • not to apologize and to wear something white
  • that being innocent and appearing innocent are two entirely different things
  • the silence, the equilibrium, the balance, the integrity
  • it is usually best to "start small"
  • never to lose sight of the basics
  • that you can’t turn back on yourself
  • to look up and not look down
  • always be a lady, no matter how bad it hurts
  • that you must act young and innocent
  • that once you start giving prizes away, if you stop them, you're apt to stop the flow of questions
  • don’t expend all your creative energies trying to get comfortable
  • stay away from the front windows and don’t put any lights on
  • not to meet their approaches with a similar rebuff
  • if you're going to wait, you'll wait, and if you aren't, you weren't ever in love anyway
  • that we have to speculate, if we are to have a rule for our conduct at all, that in one sense life itself rests on speculation, since it is always directed to ends not yet realized—so that the practical question is hardly whether we shall speculate or no, but whether we shall speculate wisely, comprehensively, consistently and well
  • not to take yourself too seriously
  • dreams
  • that if you like it as much as I do make a bit more to allow for eating some as you go along
  • that when you cross a field and go through a gate, leave the gate as you found it. That is a cardinal rule; do not forget it
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research.  See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
#memory #list
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May 21, 2022 (permalink)

Fair enough advice, but quit telling me what to do.  From Coraddi, 1974.
#vintage illustration #two sides #advice
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December 18, 2021 (permalink)

"What you see here you will never forget and you'll never remember."  From the unforgettable Dark Shadows episode 347.
#memory #hypnotism #dark shadows
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November 12, 2021 (permalink)

"And don't run round the fairy ring in the wrong direction -- Wid[d]ershins -- the opposte way to the sun.  It is ever so dangerous!  Don't forget this."  From Puck's Broom by E. Gordon Browne and illustrated by Kathleen I. Nixon, 1923.
#fairies #fairy ring #advice
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August 16, 2021 (permalink)

Confession: we did indeed forget how folks love bubble grains.  From Motion Picture Classic, 1920.
#vintage illustration #vintage ad #fruit #grain #ad
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July 14, 2021 (permalink)

If you're ever bricked into a wall, may someone hold up a candle before the final brick is placed, "so you will always remember what the light was like."  From Dark Shadows, episode 442.
#candle #dark shadows
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August 3, 2020 (permalink)

"The only thing to remember is that x always equals the unknown quantity" (Phyllis Houghton, "A Lost Art," 1936).
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July 11, 2019 (permalink)

Always remember that accepting a gift binds you to the giver.  From Wake Forest's 1967 yearbook.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.
#shadow people #vintage photo #vintage yearbook #yearbook #dark figure #rose
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March 3, 2019 (permalink)

"Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else."
—Cheyenne McCray, Demons Not Included
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August 4, 2018 (permalink)

"Many things I have not remembered.  But the eerie moonlight, falling in light and shadow on the old haunted pulpit, I always remember."  From Upper Annandale by Agnes Marchbank, 1901.
#moonlight
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July 20, 2018 (permalink)

From The Architect's Apprentice by Elif Shafak, 2015.
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May 31, 2018 (permalink)

From My Highland Lover by Maeve Greyson, 2015.
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December 28, 2017 (permalink)

From Baby Business by Katherine Garbera, 2008.
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August 11, 2017 (permalink)

"But, do not forget (1), the cost; and (2), the evil."  From Pearson's, 1910.
#vintage illustration #evil #illustration #the cost
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February 7, 2017 (permalink)

"Always remember that a basic psychological point of reference for people is 'What's in it for me?'" —The Managerial Leadership Bible
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June 8, 2016 (permalink)

"Always remember, Mouseketeers, that the most important things are the little deeds of kindness, the little words of love." —Judith Moffett, Two That Came True, 2015
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February 10, 2016 (permalink)

"Always remember that information that might seem trivial to an individual might be very interesting if collected en masse." —Peter Waher, Learning Internet of Things 2015
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