The new documentary The Palindromists is a delightful romp through the world of competitive palindrome construction. The movie chronicles the events leading up to the 2017 World Palindrome Championship held at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and hosted by New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz. Top competitors include Mark Saltveit, founder and editor of The Palindromist Magazine, and John Agee, author of such books as Go Hang a Salami, I’m a Lasagna Hog (Bookshop|Amazon) and So Many Dynamos (Bookshop|Amazon). This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Palindromists”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette, and I have a movie recommendation that’s going to appeal to every word nerd. It’s a brand new movie. It’s called The Palindromists, and it’s a documentary about the 2017 World Palindrome Championships. Of course, as you know, a palindrome is a word or a phrase or a sentence that reads the same forward and backward, like Madam, I’m Adam, or No Lemons, No Melon.
And the World Palindrome Championship is organized and emceed by our friend Will Schwartz, who’s editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.
And this film features some of the best palindrome creators out there, like Mark Saltvide, who’s the founder of the Palindromist magazine, and John Agee, who’s author of such palindromic books as Go Hang a Salami, I’m a Lasagna Hog, and So Many Dynamos.
And you get to follow the top competitors as they prepare for this contest, which takes place at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Of course it does. Of course it does. It’s like Nerd Central.
What’s fun is that the championship itself is a real nail-biter because the top contestants have limited time to come up with original palindromes that adhere to any of several constraints, like on a particular current events topic or on a particular movie, or maybe the first and last word of the palindrome have to be from a foreign language.
And what’s really fun is that they do this in front of a whole audience, and the audience votes by holding up paddles that say, Wow, on one side, which is a palindrome, and huh, on the other side, if the palindrome doesn’t make a lot of sense.
H-U-H, another palindrome. Nice. You get instant response. Boy, you know you’ve really stunk up the room if you get a lot of homes in your direction.
Yeah, and that happens sometimes, and it’s painful because, you know, a really good palindrome is going to be something that makes sense and conjures images. It’s a wonderful film.
It’s really entertaining, and it answers some of the questions that you might have, like who are these people, and how do they do what they do, and why do they do what they do?
Oh, and the winner gets a check for, of course, $1,001 because that’s a palindrome.
Yeah, we watched it in my house and my 14-year-old son, Guthrie. He also enjoyed it. And we immediately got interested in palindromes and started looking up palindromes and talking about how to make palindromes.
So it’s a family movie, too. It’s great fun. And there are clips from it on YouTube if you want to take a taste of it or you can find more about the movie. I believe the website is The Palindromists. That’s with an S dot com.
Yeah. And we’ll share some more later in the show. This is a show for word nerds. This is a welcoming environment. We talk about all aspects of language and we welcome your calls 24-7 toll free in the U.S. and Canada.
1-877-929-9673. And we’ll take your emails from anywhere in the world. Words at waywordradio.org. And hey, talk to us on Twitter @wayword.
