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 mirror doubles the scene, confirming what is at first hard to make out and then hard to believe." —Peter Schjeldahl, The 7 Days Art Columns, 1988-1990
[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.]
The theory that Humpty Dumpty was pushed is nearly as old as the chicken-or-the-egg conundrum, but we finally lay the matter to rest with this evidence of the culprit, from The Baby's Museum by Uncle Charlie, 1882.
An illustration from a 1906 issue of Puck magazine. Speaking of which, one of the many things we admire about our British brethren is that they've long been consciously aware that they've slipped down the rabbit hole. So very few nations realize they're in Wonderland.
[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.]
You can guess where we're going with this one. What if Alice and the Wonderland caterpillar had found romance? Arthur's Home Magazine wondered the same thing (not really) in the same year that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published.
Before the walrus was Paul, the walrus was Lewis Carroll. (Thanks, JohnnyDiego!)
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings-- And why the sea is boiling hot-- And whether pigs have wings."