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.
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.
[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.]
From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook: "Wine's skeleton resembles both a corkscrew and a vine." For more eccentricities, see our collection of "Forgotten Wisdom."
Relatedly, here's a Pompeian mosaic of a skeleton holding two wine jugs.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Mindful Greetings and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
"Such is the power of wine. It is, after all, the juice that comes from a dying grape—to get drunk is to know how it is to begin to die." —Norman Mailer, Ancient Evenings (What a truly amazing read!)