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.
In 1937's Hamlet, Revenge!, Michael Innes mentions an unstable world "in which Pike and Perch Documents can have a real and horrid power." That's a precursor to 2010's mention of "The Frankenfish Papers" at the National Association of Science Writers blog (referring, of course, to genetically-modified salmon).
If you were looking for the castle ... From Alberuni's India by Muhammad ibn Ahmad Biruni, 1910. See our book of imaginary Kafka parables, Franzlations.
Forget how many angels can dance upon the point of a needle (for St. Thomas Aquinas' answer, see our previous post.) How many angels can play see-saw on a quill? We find our answer in The Wilful Willoughbys by Evelyn Everett Green, 1893.
You've heard of the Seven Dwarfs, but the Seven Corks are (left to right) Dubious, Cynical, Dispassionate, Despondent, Disconsolate, Shattered (foreground), and Doleful (not pictured). From La Mujer magazine (Buenos Aires, 1899).