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.
The only thing we'd add here is the genie bottle from I Dream of Jeannie. From Lustige Blätter, 1902. Did you know that we're caretakers of the actual genie bottle that inspiredI Dream of Jeannie? It's revealed in this video.
(Is it an ironic pairing of a best-seller with a non-starter? Or is it a visual joke, like "Alpha[bet] and Omega?) We recall Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair (with its charming, time-bending solution to the true authorship of the Shakespeare plays) in which a motel drawer features a Gideon Bible, the teachings of Buddha, Thoughts Of St. Zvlkx, and the complete works of the Bard (among other things).
If these are walking bathtubs with sponge heads, they're the best walking bathtubs with sponge heads that we've seen all week. From Nebelspalter, 1885.