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.
he most profound secrets lie not wholly in knowledge, said the poet.
They lurk invisible in that vitalizing spark, intangible, yet as
evident as the lightning—the seeker's soul. Solitary digging for facts
can reward one with great discoveries, but true secrets are not
discovered—they are shared, passed on in confidence from one to
another. The genuine seeker listens attentively.
No secret can
be transcribed, save in code, lest it—by definition–cease to be. This
Book of Whispers collects and encodes more than one hundred of
humankind's most cherished secrets. To be privy to the topics alone is
a supreme achievement, as each contains and nurtures the seed of its
hidden truth. As possessor and thereby guardian of this knowledge, may
you summon the courage to honor its secrets and to bequeath it to one
worthy.
"The great secret of ironic handling ... [is] to run the risk of not driving a point quite home than that of driving it too hard and too far" (George Saintsbury, The Academy, Feb. 17, 1894).
This tiny jester with a shoulder ladder, looking very happy to have reached an ear, is from Lebanon Valley's 1921 yearbook. (Our restoration, as per usual.)