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.
"My pen, animated in part by itself and animated in part by all the rest, flies into the lambent paper sky. My pen is a wing and every word, borne by it and by its shadow on the paper, rushes towards either catastrophe or apotheosis." —Robert Desnos, Liberty or Love!
The secret of long-distance communication is revealed in this illustration from a 1913 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. The caption reads: "Fairy magic—telephone reality."
"[Robert] Frost writes that a 'rose is a rose, / And was always a rose.' He then goes on to explain that the 'theory now' is that it is not only the rose that is a rose, but the apple and pear and plum, too." —Deirdre J. Fagan, Critical Companion to Robert Frost
Here's a percursor to the paranormal-erotica craze, from a 1906 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. The caption reads: "Hardly had my shaking hand found the door-knob when—merciful heaven!—I heard it returning."