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.
You've heard that an airplane is "alive and in dialogue with the aviator" (Denice Turner, Writing the Heavenly Frontier, 2011). Well, here's textbook "proof that the airplane is alive, well and an important part of the national transportation system" (Richard L. Collins, Flying Magazine, 1974). Our illustration is from Biology and Man by Benjamin Gruenberg, 1944.
The secrets of How to Be Your Own Cat go back to the Meiji period of Japan, when cat people wrote books in between naps. For example, the author of the Japanese classic I Am a Cat was himself a feline: "Choosing a kitten for the main character has a two-fold meaning as Sōseki was, in fact, himself a stray kitten" (Aiko Ito & Graeme Wilson's introduction to Sōseki Natsume's I Am a Cat). Our illustration from a 1906 edition of the book.
You've heard of the force which holds the celestial bodies in orbit, and here he is, in the Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, 1917.
"In a field of prescribed methodologies and practices, it may surprise you to learn that original thinking is a core skill of any successful scientist." —The Art of Achievement
You've heard of "the booze talking," but here's how it happens, c. 1935. From the Leslie Jones Collection, Boston Public Library.
"It may surprise you to know that most of the sound you hear when you play a harmonica comes from your lungs, throat, mouth, and hands — not the harmonica." —Harmonica For Dummies