This week’s New Yorker has a “Talk of the Town” piece by Dana Goodyear on Demetri Martin, a Greek-American comedian obsessed with language games. Along with creating “one of the longest, non-computer-generated, sensemaking palindromes in English” (called “Dammit, I’m Mad”), he has composed the wonderful “All the Words Printed on a Bottle of Rolling Rock Beer in a Different Order”:
Women, your ability to operate extra tender springs from birth.
Good machinery comes as your contents cause enjoyment.
Cash, beer, a car: rock and rolling.
During “it,” the general warning:
“We may risk pregnancy according to old problems.”
I’ve always loved “Flee to me, remote elf,” but I don’t have a clue who wrote it, and I don’t have my copy of An Almanac of Words At Play here (where I first read it). But I did find The Willard R. Espy Foundation, which pleases me mightily.
Random: the public restroom of the Amherst Delicatessen in Amherst, Massachusetts is graffitied with a large number of clever palindromes–or at least it was some years ago; does anyone know whether it still is?
I’d like to find the rest of this work. Is it on the net somewhere?
Some good palindromes here, with visual aids.
http://www.comedycentral.com/webshows/spot/art/
A story about two anagram geniuses, with a link to this webpage, has just been posted in the March edition of The World’s First Multi-National e-Book, http://bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/two_geniuses.htm
Huh. Thanks for letting me know!