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.
"Our Lady of Last Things, Carnal Name of the Mystery and the Abyss—reassure and comfort those who seek you without actually daring to do so!" —Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Here's a precursor to animal rights activists' beef with John Waters' Pink Flamingos. Waters explains: "Animal rights acitivists always say to me, 'How could you kill a chicken for a movie?' Well, I eat chicken and I know the chicken didn't land on my plate from a heart attack. We bought the chicken from a farmer who advertised freshly killed chicken. I think we made the chicken's life better. It got to be in a movie, it got f*cked, and then right after filming the next take, the cast ate the chicken!"
Here's a note written on the endpaper of Violet: A Fairy Story (1855), calling it "the most exquisite book of all" and explaining how mutual appreciation of books of fairy tales united 488 young people into the "Ark-adian Brothers and Sisters of California."