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.
"Obviously the foreword should be called a hindbefore-word, and ought to appear at the end ; or better still, in the middle, and preferably printed upside down." —G. K. Chesterton's foreword to Dressing Gowns and Glue
[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.]
"This year of movement toward the not impossible has left imprints on these pages. Imprints of days not wholly sweet, not wholly bitter." From Indiana State University's 1929 yearbook.
The author here admits to being wholly unqualified to write about Mexico, having spent little time there and having failed to study its history, geography, language, art, archaeology, philosophy, or economics. From Notes For A Book About Mexico by Howard Vincent O’Brien, 1937.
What a great pre-apology for causing offense: it's not you, it's your next-door neighbor the author was eviscerating. From Needles and Pins by Mina Deane Halsey, 1909.