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.
You'll have noticed the gem-like lens flares hovering in the street. These are the treasures that night people seek but rarely find due to night blindness. It takes a camera lens to see them. From Salve Regina's 1971 yearbook.
The caption to this photo said, "A rainbow is something that happens between sunrise and sunset." That is incorrect. They forgot to remember the night rainbow. From Clarion's 1974 yearbook.
We take great pains and risk eye damage to capture lens flares in our photos, and stamping "flare" in the vicinity of the sun is cheating. From Infantry magazine, 1980.
This photograph may be used either to facilitate time travel or, on an astral level, to move away from the darkness and toward the light. However, it should not be used for near-death experiences. From the Illinois State yearbook of 1978.
Having already seen the world through rose-colored glasses, we're now enjoying the view through lurid Jello-green flexi-discs! The grass is definitely greener on the flip side! We're celebrating the Retroactive Lifetime Goal of having our voice recorded onto a lurid Jello-O green flexi-disc in the new issue of Fiddler's Green magazine!
We've been reading a history of how alchemical secrets were passed down via various coded messages woven into different philosophies and religions through the ages. In The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time (a companion to Fulcanelli's Les Mystère des Cathèdrales, about how the cathedrals of Europe aren't churches but rather stone books hiding the wisdom of alchemy in plain view), we learn on page 214 that the esoteric motive behind cathedral building was to make living grails that house the spirit of the (Mary precursor) black madonna/goddess Isis as a tangible "mystereion" designed to last through the centuries. We took a photo at Exeter Cathedral two years ago, and back then we didn't have eyes to see the holy grail. We've lately been ruminating on how a third party might be able to experience the grail-ness of a cathedral without having to read in advance a 200-page explanation, and it occurred to us that lens flares can distill the gnostic light that cathedral windows channel. Then we remembered the Exeter Cathedral photo, and sure enough — there was the grail! (We did an overlay of a chalice to clarify what we're seeing in our photo.)