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, and a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly. 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.
"The original is never better than the translation. The translation is worse than another translation, written or not yet written, of the same original." —Elliot Weinberger, via SocialFiction
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
"The only certainty is that it is always man who interprets, who assigns meaning. And that is the gist of the matter for psychology." —Carl Gustav Jung, The Practice of Psychotherapy, 1966
"When a King dies, we, who have to put into words the strange grief and grievous strangeness of the time, then know how ill we have served ourselves." —James Cameron, What a Way to Run the Tribe, 1968
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volume II from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
Which is funnier: A dead baby joke, a gun, or a flash flood in a fizzy factory?
Clue: This is according to poet Willie Smith.
Answer:A gun. “Frankly, what is funnier than a gun? ... After all, it is the most surreal act. Firing at random on a crowd.” (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Willie Smith, “Willie Get Your Gun,” Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader, 1988-1998 (2000), p. 228.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volume II from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
"I believe that everybody is singing an inner song, and the question
isn't whether we are or not — we are! — the question is whether this is
a song of power or a song of weakness; whether it is a song of love or
a song of hatred. That's the question."
—Eugene Burger, from his interview in The Magic Circular (May 2009)
—Dylan Thomas, “From Love’s First Fever to Her Plague”, The Poems of Dylan Thomas, 1971.
* Though printed in black and white, great literature is bursting with vibrant colour. In this rebus-style puzzle, color words and parts of words have been replaced with colored boxes. Try to guess the exact hue of each. Roll your mouse over the colored boxes to reveal the missing words. Click the colored boxes to learn more about each hue. Special thanks to Paul Dean for his colorful research.
"The only certainty that man can attain is the moral certainty that every human personality has inviolable worth, but no human being has or can have valid metaphysical knowledge." —Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1999
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
"It's a remarkable phenomenon, small town cafe life, that has never been studied fully. Someone ought to write a book on just that." —V. William Barnett, Sticks and Shovels, 2002, p. 37.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volume II from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
Does the march of progress allow space for somersaults? In other words, can we PLAY toward a better condition? In each of the following quotations, the word WORK has been playfully changed to PLAY.
"We need to PLAY toward developing peace in all of our thoughts, words, and actions." —William B. Gudykunst, Bridging Differences, 2003
"We need to PLAY toward a world where healthy anger is the norm and destructive anger the exception." —Jane Middelton-Moz, Boiling Point: The High Cost of Unhealthy Anger to Individuals and Society, 1999
"In order to have clarity, we need to PLAY toward seeing the world as accurately as possible." —Judith V. Jordan, Linda M. Hartling, & Maureen Walker, The Complexity of Connection, 2004
"We need to PLAY toward prevention of overwhelming stress situations that all too frequently result in mental hospitalization." —Robert Lefferts, Getting a Grant, 1978
"We need to PLAY toward ... a collective sense of meaning and significance." —Chris Hackler, Health Care for an Aging Population, 1994
"We need to PLAY toward trusting that whatever happens is 'good.'" —Dzigar Kongtrul, Light Comes Through, 2008
"By accepting the fact that all will not be pleasant at work and that we need to PLAY toward satisfaction and fun in our job, we can more readily dismiss unpleasant happenings." —Jennie Wilting, People, Patients, and Nurses, 1980
"We need to PLAY toward a society that has social policies that reflect humanitarian values." —Emelicia Mizio & Anita J. Delaney, Training for Service Delivery to Minority Clients, 1981
"We need organizational makeovers and we need to PLAY toward the change more rapidly than we have thought in the past." —Lloyd C. Williams, Business Decisions, Human Choices, 1996
"We need to PLAY toward protecting Mother Earth and all living beings." —Jane Middelton-Moz, Welcoming Our Children to a New Millennium, 1999
"We need to PLAY toward our survival as a species." —Bill G. Gooch, Lois Carrier, & John Huck, Strategies for Success, 1983
"PLAY is intrinsically satisfying, ie fulfilling; PLAY means survival; and PLAY provides a level of social connectedness to the larger community." —Samuel M. Natale & Brian M. Rothschild, Values, Work, Education, 1995
Are the altered quotations above still true? Law professor Mary Brandt Jensen reminds us that in the language of copyright law, to "perform" a work is to "recite, render, play, dance, or act it." Perhaps more of our work can be performed with a playful spirit, so as to transform our sense of duty into genuine enthusiasm.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volume II from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
Dedicated to Alexander Bard, founder of Vacuum, Army of Lovers, and Bodies without Organs.
Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Lulu and Volume II from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle.
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
Is it just me, or does the word "hebrides" sound like it ought to be a synonym for "eyebrows"?
* Ellipses don’t merely omit superfluous words or mark pauses. Far from
it! In an astonishing number of cases, the ellipses illustrate a
narrative, inviting the reader to “connect the dots.” Learn more about Annotated Ellipses at Amazon.com.
"The only certainty seems to be that our planet will become uninhabitable (even for bacteria) when the Sun swells up to become a red giant as it nears the end of its life." —John Gribbin, The Origins of the Future, 2007
* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction.
FreddiePrinze Jr. has been "five years in the Hollywood wilderness," according to IMDb. Yes, we can confirm that Freddie's been tangled up on Vine, caught in Holly on Briarcliff, sniffing flowers on Orchid and Primrose, munching pods on Tamarind, and unable to see the Forest (Lawn) for the trees on Beachwood, Fernwood, Black Oak, Sycamore, Yucca, Live Oak, Lemon Grove, Red Oak, and Canyon Oak. No one thought to look for Freddie on the grassy Knoll.
"There ought to be a book which, if read, might turn into food. But if we are starving we will have eaten before reading it." —Shuntaro Tanikawa, Giving People Poems, 2005, p. 7.
