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.
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Found 24 posts tagged ‘california’


Images Moving Through Time – November 24, 2028 (permalink)

From The Wasp, 1902.
> read more from Images Moving Through Time . . .
#vintage photo #night photography #california #1900s #san francisco #photo #cliff house
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Restoring the Lost Sense – November 12, 2028 (permalink)

From Los Angeles Graphic, 1913.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#vintage illustration #california #illustration #1910s #by the way
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Images Moving Through Time – May 25, 2028 (permalink)

From Improvement Era, 1912.
> read more from Images Moving Through Time . . .
#vintage photo #tree #california #cypress #1910s #photo #monterey
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – April 28, 2028 (permalink)

From Ranch of a Thousand Horns by Jean Bothwell and Phyllis Sowers.
> read more from I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought . . .
#vintage illustration #map #california #illustration
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Restoring the Lost Sense – June 27, 2027 (permalink)

A map of California "going Scientology."  From Ability, 1963.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#religion #vintage illustration #map #california #vintage magazine #1960s #illustration #magazine #scientology
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Restoring the Lost Sense – January 14, 2026 (permalink)

From The Wasp, 1902.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#vintage illustration #political cartoon #fashion #vintage fashion #california #1900s #illustration
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Restoring the Lost Sense – April 25, 2025 (permalink)

From The Film Daily, 1925.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#vintage illustration #vintage ad #animal attack #bear #california #ad
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Yearbook Weirdness – March 26, 2025 (permalink)

A map of Spanish ranchos in southern California.  The endpapers from Santa Monica College's 1933 yearbook.

*For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

> read more from Yearbook Weirdness . . .
#vintage illustration #vintage yearbook #map #yearbook #california #1930s #endpapers
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Miscellanies of Mr. Jonathan – November 12, 2024 (permalink)


Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

unearths some literary gems.

From The Californiacs, by Inez Haynes (Gillmore) Irwin:

***
California, I repeat, is populated mainly with Californiacs; but the Californiacs are by no means confined to California. They have, indeed, wandered far afield. New York, for instance, has a colony so large that the average New Yorker is well acquainted with the symptoms of Californoia. The Californiac is unable to talk about anything but California, except when he interrupts himself to knock every other place on the face of the earth. He looks with pity on anybody born outside of California and he believes that no one who has ever seen California willingly lives elsewhere. He himself often lives elsewhere, but he never admits that it is from choice. He refers to California always as "God's country", and if you permit him to start his God's country line of talk, it is all up with intelligent conversation for the rest of the day. He will discourse on California scenery, climate, crops, athletes, women, art-sense, etc., ad libitum, ad infinitum and ad nauseum. He is a walking compendium of those Who's Whosers who were born in California. He can reel off statistics which flatter California, not by the yard, but by the mile. And although he is proud enough of the ease and abundance with which things grow in California, he is even more proud of the size to which they attain. Gibes do not stop the Californiac, nor jeers give him pause. He believes that he was appointed to talk about California. And Heaven knows, he does. He has plenty of sense of humor otherwise, but mention California and it is as though he were conducting a revival meeting.
***
> read more from Miscellanies of Mr. Jonathan . . .
#california
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Images Moving Through Time – October 16, 2024 (permalink)

From The Wasp, 1902.
> read more from Images Moving Through Time . . .
#vintage photo #wine #california #1900s #woman #vintage woman #photo
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Restoring the Lost Sense – October 1, 2024 (permalink)

From Watson's Magazine, 1906.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#vintage illustration #political cartoon #bear #california
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Staring at the Sun – April 28, 2024 (permalink)

From California Sunshine by Lillian Hinman Shuey, 1888.
> read more from Staring at the Sun . . .
#sun #california
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Yearbook Weirdness – December 10, 2023 (permalink)

From Hartnell College's 1949 yearbook.

*For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

> read more from Yearbook Weirdness . . .
#vintage illustration #vintage yearbook #yearbook #california #cowboy #covered wagon
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The Right Word – February 22, 2019 (permalink)


We're often asked, "is it teepee or tepee?"  You'll see tepee everywhere, but "popularity is only of temporary moment ... a vulgar struggling for supremacy" (Chamber's Edinburgh Journal, 1849).  Indeed, California's Wigwam Motel (on both the historic registry and alongside the ghostly vestiges of Route 66) spells it teepee.  That's surely definitive.  For further proof, we offer our own graphical evidence (heehee).
> read more from The Right Word . . .
#teepee #california #wigwam #route 66
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought – August 24, 2018 (permalink)

"Esoteric students everywhere understand that California is one of the occult eyes of the world, because it still retains the magnetism of prehistoric times, never having been visited by the ice ages or flood, and only in recent geological reckoning being partially purified by fire.  Its Sanscrit name is Kali (time) and purna (fulfillment)."  From Yermah the Dorado by Frona Eunice Wait, 1897.
> read more from I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought . . .
#esoteric #california
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Restoring the Lost Sense – May 10, 2017 (permalink)

A lemon comet, as seen from Villa Park, California.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#vintage illustration #vintage ad #comet #california #lemons #villa park #illustration #ad
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Restoring the Lost Sense – April 16, 2017 (permalink)

Santa Barbara, California, 1913.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#rabbit #california #vintage postcard #santa barbara #vintage california #1910s #postcard
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Restoring the Lost Sense – March 26, 2017 (permalink)

"Camp Curry's Fire Fall," date uncertain.

[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#california #vintage postcard #vintage california #firefall #falling fire #camp curry #postcard
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Yesterday's Weather – January 31, 2017 (permalink)

"In Winter Dress."  Blue Jay, California.  Date unknown.
*Inspired by the world's only accurate meteorological report, "Yesterday's Weather," as seen on Check It Out.
> read more from Yesterday's Weather . . .
#snow #winter #california #vintage postcard #snowfall #deep snow #postcard
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Restoring the Lost Sense – December 28, 2016 (permalink)

"Wellingtonia or mammoth tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum) towering above surrounding forest and person at its base."  Coloured lithograph after W. P. Blake, c. 1857.
[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.]
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#vintage illustration #tree #sequoia #giant tree #california #redwood #illustration
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