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.
Creating song lyrics by expanding single words into entire phrases via decoding the meanings of each letter? We're delighted that the artist Velvet Tangerine was inspired by our two videos concerning alphabetic codes, one about the "Mantong" key, the other about the Christopher Smart key. Here's his resulting song.
"Love (a beautiful four letter word)." (We noticed several less-beautiful four-letter words hidden within those letters, too. How many can you spot? Also, did you notice that this alphanet has two e's and two v's?) From B.A.R., 1971.
We were asked just today, in a random encounter, how we came up with a thousand definitions for our One-Letter Words: A Dictionary. We had to make up an answer, because the truth verges on unbelievable. From North Texas' 1918 yearbook.
For what this means, see (or course) our very own One-Letter Words: A Dictionary (and though the hardcover is out of print, the e-version remains "out there"). Our illustration is from The Galaxy magazine, 1866.
For an upcoming book, the artist Jim Girouard depicts Prof. Oddfellow listening to a mysterious whisper in a liminal zone between Portmeirion, Wales and a museum of the weird. We made an animated gif of sketches he sent throughout the creation of the piece.