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.
Pinball as an illustration of a college's department of religious studies? According to the Church of the Silver Ball's Pinball Museum (which, sadly, is neither a church nor a museum, according to its own description), pinball can be a religion.
Our photo is from Colorado College's 1975 yearbook.
Here's why the caption is a lie. It says, "A single trumpet is calling you, a mystic note only you can hear." But it's not a trumpet -- it's a saxophone solo. From the University of Nebraska at Omaha's 1970 yearbook.
For how to tap into the strangely potent spirituality contained within an old yearbook, see How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook. From Pennsylvania State College's La Vie yearbook, 1920.
We'd assume this was from a production of Dracula, if college yearbooks weren't such occult objects. From the Lycoming yearbook of 1980. See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.
A funny inkling led us to zoom in on the head of the glowing figure. Sure enough, she has a terrifying skull face. This phantom haunts Guilford's 1990 yearbook.
“I have always had a thing about old photographs. The older pictures have an uncanny ability of suggesting that there is another world where the departed are. A black and white photograph is a document of an absence, and is almost curiously metaphysical. I have always hoarded them. They represent a sense of otherness. The figures in photographs have been muted, and they stare out at you as if they are asking for a chance to say something.” —W.G. Sebald, The Questionable Business of Writing
Here's a college graduate depicted as "A Freak L.S. (Living Skeleton)." From the Codex yearbook of Beloit College, 1893. See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.