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 like how this photocopy of the portrait makes the skeptical Dr. Menzel look somewhat surreal and alien. We also like the wording that he "speaks against" UFOs as if he is opposed to them (rather than a disbeliever). From UFO Newsclipping Service, 1969.
It’s actually not all that easy to find weird computer/video games anymore. Everything seems to be created by focus groups or is otherwise homogenized. The weirdest games from other nations either don’t ever get exported or never get translated, and blog posts about weird games tend to be written by folks who haven’t seen enough weirdness in life to know actual idiosyncrasy when they see it. (Image source.)
For the person who has everything -- Archaic Fictile Revetments in Sicily and Magna Graecia by E. Douglas Van Buren, 1923. As we always say, as of just now, people who live within clay-walled houses shouldn't throw pottery, unless they're broken-tile mosaicists.
Why is the four-piece band the most common configuration in rock and pop music? It's because a guitar pick can hold four faces: a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, and a frontman (pictured right). From the cover of The Revolutionary Personality by Victor Wolfenstein.
Ever begin a book and feel as though you arrived late, that it started without you? This one's already open at the cover. From Love and Death in the American Novel by Leslie A. Fiedler.
There's no going back. Plus, note that the sticker on the book cover constitutes a red nose. From Once a Clown, Always a Clown by De Wolf Hopper, 1927.