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.
"A demon vexed me / The light retreated / The master whispered / Follow the gleam." From the 1921 Southwestern yearbook. See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.
Non-photos of a riot that didn't take place. We don't know if a riot had so been expected that a yearbook page was mocked up, only to receive no photos in the end, or whether it's more artful than that. From Ohio's 1999 yearbook.
Here is revealed how halos stay up. But we protest this exposure of a harmless illusion that creates a sense of wonderment. Must our world be stripped of every last vestige of mystery? From Colorado College's 1933 yearbook.
The caption says, "Xmas tree," but "you must not take things too literally" (Ulric De Lazie, Dreams Within Dreams, 1864). So if it isn't literally a Christmas tree, the photo suddenly becomes rather more intriguing. See The Collected Lost Meanings of Christmas.