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.
"A probable combustion," from Elizabeth College's Caps and Belles yearbook, 1901. (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)
We've been pressured through advertising to achieve spotless dishes and sparkling floors, but back in 1886 one was seriously expected to see one's reflection after ironing a shirt.
"And any present moment was only thinking, and thoughts bear the same relation, in mass and weight, to the darkness they rise from, as reflections do to the water they ride upon, and in the same way they are arbitrary, or merely given." —Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
She's captivated by the representation, even as swans are swimming right behind her. We don't even know if that's the point of this image from The Eastern Wonderland by D. C. Angus, 1882. Spoiler: the swans behind her are representations, too!