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.
As it spans two pages, one might say this is a cracked hall of mirrors. It brings back nightmares from that time we, too, were trapped within a shattered hall of mirrors.
Without special glasses, the only way to see the world like this is to "start changing the way you look at life, from your heart's point of view" (Women of Wisdom Spoken Word).
"Sentinel pines marshalling the magic way to fairyland." This photo may indeed be used to facilitate journeys into the otherworld. From the University of Wisconsin's 1914 yearbook.
With the full moon and the lamp post as coordinates, this photograph may be used as a tool for facilitating time travel. From the University of Washington's 1923 yearbook.
[Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.]
I always flunk quizzes like this -- I invariably think it's two faces, but it's nearly always a vase. Something about "negative capability" ... or was that another class?
From the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg's 1973 yearbook.