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.
Sensitive viewers will have noticed that a portal is opening up in this photo, a phenomon sometimes triggered by excellent reading material. From Marquette University's 1959 yearbook.
Back in the day, I had wanted to write my master’s thesis about my slant on Barbara Pym. My idea was rejected, the thesis advisor's excuse being: “Our library isn’t big enough.” I had been devastated at the time (as I didn’t have a backup topic). It took a great many years for it finally to hit me: the library wasn’t big enough for my thesis idea! What a compliment! That led to this unusual video.
***** Five stars. If you know someone who is traveling to Vegas for the first (or tenth) time, perhaps to get married for the first (or tenth) time, this would make an excellent gift. Everyone I've given it to has gotten a kick out of how clever it is.