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.
Is an electro-spectre a ghost who haunts currents of charged particles? It’s also the name of a Norwegian band who invited me to transmogrify a new song through my haunted clockwork for an album of remixes. I could hardly believe the sounds that came out when I attached the spirit radio to the grandfather clock via a strand of cobweb. Don’t ask me how that even works — I’m just rolling with it myself! You might recall from a previous episode that the clock face has inexplicably been pulled backwards, beyond the back of the cabinet, and a ghostly face floats within. All I know is that it transmogrifies better music now. I wonder if I can tune into the clockwork version of Electro Spectre’s song, to find out if you agree how astonishing it is.