People keep sending me this link, so here it is: Gregory Kornbluh’s entertaining (and a bit disturbing) article on Barry Duncan, master palindromist (from The Believer).
When you think about palindromes, you probably just think they’re fun. For Duncan, though, they’re much more than that. He writes them constantly. He sees them everywhere. Have you ever killed twenty dull minutes scanning the grid of a word-search puzzle, and then afterward found yourself with a bit of a word-search hangover, your eyes involuntarily searching for words everywhere? Imagine doing the word search for three decades. That’s Barry Duncan with palindromes.
And he takes them very seriously indeed. Read and enjoy!
Update. Mark Saltveit of The Palindromist sent me a link to a YouTube clip of his very funny (and brief) standup palindrome routine. Enjoy!
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