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.
"Is the earth still inhabited? While scientists are wrangling over the question as to whether Mars or Venus is signaling us, it would be well to start an inquiry into whether the earth is inhabited." From Life, 1920. We say the same thing about scientists touting artificial intelligence: is there any intelligence on earth to begin with?
During Daylight Saving Time, you set your bookmark one chapter ahead if you're reading The Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour by Thomas-Simon Gueullette, 1893.
We love how the presenter of these stories by the ghost of O. Henry handles any skeptical readers. We've reproduced about half of the preface, but it's all delightful. From My Tussle With the Devil by O. Henry's Ghost [via a Ouija board], 1918.
We paint all of our "minus colors" with a "minus paintbrush" onto a "minus canvas." It just simplifies everytrhing. From Popular Mechanics, 1933. Speaking of "minus colors," see The Minimalist Coloring Book.
Long before radio stations offered the best of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, novels were doing it. From The Veiled Hand by Frederick Wicks, 1893.
This is typical of the "New Inquisition" mindset behind vintage Popular Mechanics: "Poison gas guards 'health' of art treasures." If only Big Science could gas all the arts, this toxic sentiment suggests. It's an example of why Robert Anton Wilson called Big Science the New Inquistion. The headline is a variation of the old witch test -- if she sinks, she's not a witch, and if the art survives the poison gas, it's "healthy." Yikes. From 1932.