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.
Tag youself. We're the decanter on the bedside table. And that might sound weird, but Wendy Walker's sublime novel The Secret Service explains a Tibetan technique to transform oneself into an inanimate object like a crystal goblet. From L'Assiette au Beurre, 1910.
It's been said that like a poet, a golfer is born and not made. It may all boil down to a baby's affiliation with fairies. The illustration is from Punch, 1892.