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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Abecedarian personal effects of 'a mad genius'
A Turkish Delight of musings on languages, deflations of metaphysics, vauntings of arcana, and great visual humor.

Found 19 posts tagged ‘pen’

The Right Word – February 1, 2029 (permalink)

From The Ontario Readers First Reader Part 1, 1880.
> read more from The Right Word . . .
#vintage illustration #hen #illustration #men #pen #1880s
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Restoring the Lost Sense – November 5, 2028 (permalink)

From Youth's Companion, 1921.
[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 #anthropomorphism #1920s #illustration #pen #pencil
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Yearbook Weirdness – March 20, 2028 (permalink)

From the United States Naval Academy's 1908 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 #tiny man #writer #1900s #illustration #ink pen #pen
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Yearbook Weirdness – September 21, 2026 (permalink)

From the University of Mississippis 1905 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 #illustration #pen
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Old News – July 28, 2025 (permalink)

From Lighted Pathway, 1977.
> read more from Old News . . .
#vintage illustration #vintage headline #ink #red ink #pen #headline
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Old News – April 14, 2025 (permalink)

"Used pens too freely."  From the Duluth Herald, 1915.
> read more from Old News . . .
#vintage headline #pen #headline
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Old News – March 18, 2024 (permalink)

"The lost fountain pen.  Why is it never returned?"  From The Children's Newspaper, 1925.
> read more from Old News . . .
#fountain pen #vintage headline #pen #headline
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Yearbook Weirdness – March 10, 2024 (permalink)

A giant ink pen to battle the lion of ignorance.  From Sunflower County Junior College's 1928 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 #lion #ink pen #pen
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Yearbook Weirdness – December 27, 2023 (permalink)

From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's 1917 yearbook.  See The Collected Lost Meanings of Wedlock.
> read more from Yearbook Weirdness . . .
#vintage illustration #anthropomorphism #vintage yearbook #yearbook #wedding #pen
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Restoring the Lost Sense – November 21, 2023 (permalink)

From The Children's Newspaper, 1951.
> read more from Restoring the Lost Sense . . .
#vintage illustration #vintage ad #anthropomorphism #bird #illustration #ink pen #pen #1950s #ad
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Yearbook Weirdness – November 21, 2023 (permalink)

From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's 1904 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 #tiny man #pen
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Old News – April 18, 2023 (permalink)

From Lighted Pathway, 1974.
> read more from Old News . . .
#vintage illustration #vintage headline #pen #headline
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Restoring the Lost Sense – April 8, 2021 (permalink)

From Lustige Blätter, 1908.
[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 #faces in things #pen
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Yearbook Weirdness – July 24, 2020 (permalink)

"The size of your pen and the length of wands are important" (however, this quotation refers to llama raising; from Llamas Magazine, 1992).  (We took the instrument for an ink pen, but perhaps it's a paint brush.)
Our illustration appears in St. Joseph's 1992 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 #illustration #pen
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Restoring the Lost Sense – February 25, 2020 (permalink)

One of the many tools we use to create our weblog.  (For Teresa.)  From Le Charivari, 1880.
[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 #ink pen #pen
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Restoring the Lost Sense – August 29, 2019 (permalink)

From Nebelspalter, 1878.
[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 #ink #pen
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Restoring the Lost Sense – May 11, 2019 (permalink)

From Lustige Blätter, 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 #beard #hydra #hercules #pen
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Images Moving Through Time – September 25, 2017 (permalink)

A giant fountain pen from Popular Mechanics, 1924.
> read more from Images Moving Through Time . . .
#vintage illustration #fountain pen #illustration #giant men #pen #art
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The Right Word – September 10, 2011 (permalink)

"My pen, animated in part by itself and animated in part by all the rest, flies into the lambent paper sky.  My pen is a wing and every word, borne by it and by its shadow on the paper, rushes towards either catastrophe or apotheosis."
—Robert Desnos, Liberty or Love!
> read more from The Right Word . . .
#writing #pen
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