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.
Note the astonishing typographic art in this mangled scan from Google Books. The scanner's fingers have been transformed into textual kaleidoscopes. The page in question is from Cornhill magazine, 1865.
"A rose is a rose . . . except when you're shopping for flowers for your wedding. Then a 'bridal' rose is suddenly eight times more expensive than a regular rose." —Denise Fields, Bridal Bargains (2010)
Here's "the genius of the cork," the imp of drunkenness ("angel or devil according to contending moralists") who sits with every solitary drinker, taking not a drop himself but telling stories and singing songs and filling your gaping pockets with ideal gold. (Punch, 1842). This should also be of interest:How to Believe in Your Elf.
Here's a precursor to the 3D printing (additive manufacturing) process, from Cornhill magazine, 1883. We see that the more things tech, the more they stay the same.
If we had to choose but one shop to carry our whimsical field guide to identifying unicorns by sound, it would be [now sadly out-of-business] Castle in the Air in Berkeley, California. Imagine our delight to hear that folks had been "pawing through it, gleaning its wisdom." [Thanks, Clint!]
Speaking of castles in the air, we spotted the immaterial tower below within the world of Google Maps. This castle "exists" in the town of Warwick, England. But get this: we spent so much quality time bi-locating to England that Google defaulted our browser to the U.K. version. No kidding: we're automatically redirected to Google.co.uk, even when we explicitly type "google.com." Can't make this stuff up.
The Lord of Misrule, magician/comedian Tommy Cooper, sometimes intoned an "incomprehensible incantation of dubious foreign extraction that might have been spelled 'Zhhzhhzhhzhh,' but probably wasn't" (John Fisher, Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing, 2006, p. 6).
This illustration from Cornhill (1880) isn't especially remarkable except for the fact that it depicts one of those decisive moments in which everything is changed. (Frederic Tuten is a master at handling such turning points; see his Self Portraits: Fictions.)
John Leech sketched this for a tale about a clown who had to crack jokes in a circus while his wife was in her dying agonies after fatally missing her footing on a leap from a standing position on horseback; the rip in the hoop is meant to suggest the initial letter I of the story. From Cornhill magazine, 1864.