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 temporal anomaly in Edmonton, Alberta -- four clocks photographed around the same time in the university's student union building, whatever that time may have been. From The Gateway, Nov. 6, 1973.
"This man is an academic. This man is your enemy. Do not be mistaken by his scholarly guise. His purpose in life is to wring every drop of creativity and interest out of you. He believes himself to be the world's greatest living expert on everything. If he finds your work satisfactory he will steal it. If he doesn't he will fail you. Get this man before he gets you." From Woroni, 1974.
[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.]