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.
"What I was about to learn ... was only the beginning of what I now know, and can only hope to continue to learn as long as spirits allow me the pleasure to communicate with them."
"In one sense, hallucinations are not far removed from ordinary experiences. We all know what visual hallucinations are like because we have them in dreams." —Atkinson & Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology
You've no doubt heard the argument that modern art is a racket engineered by art dealers, that the whole thing is a kind of vast and very expensive practical joke. In a letter to Esther Harding (7/8/47), Carl Jung wrote, "I am only prejudiced against all forms of modern art. It is mostly morbid and evil on top [of that]." Our illustration is from Fliegende Blätter, 1931.