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.
Athanasius Kircher invented the "polydyptic theater," "in which about sixty little mirrors lining the inside of a large box transform a bough into a forest, a lead soldier into an army, a booklet into a library" (Italo Calvino, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler).
What is funnier than a sudden outspoken declaration of the truth?
Clue: This is according to scholar Northrop Frye.
Answer:Nothing. “In our world, there is the proverb ‘children and fools tell the truth,’ and the Fool’s privilege makes him a wit because in our world nothing is funnier than a sudden outspoken declaration of the truth.” (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (1986), p. 111.
"There ought to be a book dealing with the kinds of questions that come from the unique and often magical perspective of children." —E. B. Freedman, What Does Being Jewish Mean?, 2003, p. xviii.
"The point is this: not that myth refers us back to some original event which has been fancifully transcribed as it passed through the collective memory; but that it refers us forward to something that will happen, that must happen. Myth will become reality, however skeptical we might be." —Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Our friends at Musings from a Muddy Island found a "dangerous bank" sign in a marshland. Wasn't it Mother Nature who said "don't put all your eggs in one basket"?