Big Elf on a Mayonnaise Man (volume II)

 Flee to me, remote elf--Sal a dewan desired;
 Now is a Late-Petal Era.
 We fade: lucid Iris, red Rose of Sharon;
 Goldenrod a silly ram ate.
 Wan olives teem (ah, Satan lives!);
 A star eyes pale Roses.

 Revel, big elf on a mayonnaise man -
 A tinsel baton-dragging nice elf too.
 Lisp, Oh Sibyl, dragging Nola along;
 Niggardly bishops I loot.
 Fleecing niggard notables Nita names,
 I annoy a man of Legible Verse.

 So relapse, ye rats,
 As evil Natasha meets Evil
 On a wet, amaryllis-adorned log.
 Norah's foes' orders (I ridiculed a few) are late, pet.
 Alas, I wonder! Is Edna wed?
 Alas--flee to me, remote elf.

I recently posted a brilliant Weird Al parody of Bob Dylan singing Subterranean Homesick Blues entirely in palindromes (which, quite frankly, made about as much sense as most of his lyrics). It was so exquisitely funny that I just KEPT laughing at it as I watched it over and over and over again. This got me thinking about the art or science of the palindrome, how I`ve never really composed a good one myself, and how many there are lurking around that would only make sense in a sort of verbal Twilight Zone.

Though "Flee to me, remote elf" - titled The Faded Bloomers Rhapsody, for some unknown reason - is universally believed to be the world's longest palindrome (and if you don't believe me, just go to the end of the thing and read it backwards), I was not able to find it on Google except for the first line, which was used as the title of some song or other. I was extremely irritated, because I had no trouble at all finding it in 2012 when I first posted it (along with these images - too good NOT to repeat). Has the internet perhaps become a little less literate in almost 8 years? It wouldn't surprise me. It's a sinking ship now, weighed down by unbelievably shoddy filler and outright garbage. Finding the good stuff is getting harder than ever.

I first encountered the "Flee to me" tour de force (written by one Howard W. Bergerson, not known for writing anything else) in a book called An Almanac of Words at Play by Willard Espy, which I believe I still have somewhere (and first read in the 1970s). Some of the word-games in there are likely NOT on the internet, because no one would get them now due to the mass lowering of IQ which has taken place over the past ten years or so. So I may just replicate some of them in future posts, even if I have to scan the buggers. It might just be worth it.

 

 

SPECIAL BONUS `DROMES!

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas

Tired nude man, in a pajama I am. A japan I named under it.

A Santa Lived As a Devil At NASA
 
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era ?

 

Weird Al Yankovic - BOB

I don't know how I've lived up 'til now without hearing this song! Weird Al has been around forever, my kids grooved to "Eat It" (his Michael Jackson parody of "Beat It"), and now my grandkids are digging him too. But I never dug QUITE this much dig in two and a half minutes. This is why it  is sometimes worth it to watch those "top ten artists who hate Bob Dylan"-type of things on YouTube, because, bad as they often are, they can lead you to to a musical Valhalla like this.

I've always loved palindromes, and I guess it was the sudden Zenlike realization that Bob IS a palindrome that set this thing in motion. Good palindromes almost make sense, or a kind of peculiar-to-the-palindrome-universe sense, a world alarmingly askance and atilt. There can be a sense of apocalypse in some of them, or an economy that is almost scary. Like Dylan, a palindrome can say so much with so little that they appear here as small lyric miracles.

"Bob"

I, man, am regal - a German am I

Never odd or even

If I had a hi-fi

Madam, I'm Adam

too hot to hoot

No lemons, no melon

Too bad I hid a boot

Lisa Bonet ate no basil

Warsaw was raw

Was it a car or a cat I saw?

Rise to vote, sir

Do geese see God?

"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod

Rats live on no evil star

Won't lovers revolt now?

Race fast, safe car

Pa's a sap

Ma is as selfless as I am

May a moody baby doom a yam?

Ah, Satan sees Natasha

No devil lived on

Lonely Tylenol

Not a banana baton

No "x" in "Nixon"

O, stone, be not so

O Geronimo, no minor ego

"Naomi," I moan

"A Toyota's a Toyota"

A dog, a panic in a pagoda

Oh no! Don Ho!

Nurse, I spy gypsies - run!

Senile felines

Now I see bees I won

UFO tofu

We panic in a pew

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo

God! A red nugget, a fat egg under a dog!

Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog

Bouncing tits: the wacky world of palindromes

No, no, no, I swear this gif relates! And I didn't write these, though I wish I had. I don't know how anybody could sit there and figure even one of these out. They sort of make sense, in a weird, almost surreal way. It's hard to find anything to illustrate these, so I tried to dig up a few palindromic images of my own.

Some of them are, I'm warning you, pretty weak, but the palindromes are magnificent.

A dog, a plan, a canal: pagoda. 

A man, a plan, a canal: Panama. 

A new order began, a more Roman age bred Rowena. 

A tin mug for a jar of gum, Nita. 

A Toyota. Race fast, safe car. A Toyota. 

Able was I ere I saw Elba. 

Animal loots foliated detail of stool lamina. 

Anne, I vote more cars race Rome to Vienna. 

Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era? 

Are we not pure? "No sir!" Panama's moody Noriega brags. "It is garbage!" Irony dooms a man; a prisoner up to new era. 

As I pee, sir, I see Pisa!

Barge in! Relate mere war of 1991 for a were-metal Ernie grab! 

Bombard a drab mob. 

Bush saw Sununu swash sub. 

Cain: a maniac. 

Cigar? Toss it in a can. It is so tragic. 

Daedalus: nine. Peninsula: dead. 

Dammit, I'm mad! 

Delia saw I was ailed. 

Denim axes examined. 

Dennis and Edna sinned. 

Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped. 

Desserts, I stressed! 

Did I draw Della too tall, Edward? I did? 

Do good? I? No! Evil anon I deliver. I maim nine more hero-men in Saginaw, sanitary sword a-tuck, Carol, I -- lo! -- rack, cut a drowsy rat in Aswan. I gas nine more hero-men in Miami. Reviled, I (Nona) live on. I do, O God! 

Doc, note I dissent: a fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod. 

Drab as a fool, aloof as a bard. 

Drat Saddam, a mad dastard! 

Draw, O coward! 

Draw pupil's lip upward.

Ed, I saw Harpo Marx ram Oprah W. aside. 

Eva, can I stab bats in a cave? 

Evil did I dwell; lewd I did live. 

Gateman sees name, garageman sees name tag. 

Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog. 

Goldenrod-adorned log. 

Golf? No sir, prefer prison-flog. 

Harass sensuousness, Sarah. 

I roamed under it as a tired, nude Maori. 

Laminated E.T. animal. 

Lay a wallaby baby ball away, Al. 

Lepers repel. 

Let O'Hara gain an inn in a Niagara hotel. 

Live not on evil. 

Lived on Decaf; faced no Devil. 

Lonely Tylenol. 

Ma is a nun, as I am. 

Ma is as selfless as I am. 

Madam, I'm Adam. 

Madam in Eden, I'm Adam. 

Marge lets Norah see Sharon's telegram. 

May a moody baby doom a yam. 

Meet animals; laminate 'em. 

Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.

Murder for a jar of red rum. 

Never odd or even. 

No, Mel Gibson is a casino's big lemon. 

No cab, no tuna nut on bacon. 

No lemon, no melon. 

No sir -- away! A papaya war is on. 

On a clover, if alive, erupts a vast, pure evil; a fire volcano. 

Party boobytrap. 

Poor Dan is in a droop. 

Reviled did I live, said I, as evil I did deliver. 

Rise to vote, sir. 

Saw tide rose? So red it was. 

Senile felines. 

So many dynamos! 

Some men interpret nine memos. 

Stab nail at ill Italian bats.

Stack cats.

Stella won no wallets.

Step on no pets.

Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots!

Straw? No, too stupid a fad; I put soot on warts.

T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I'd assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot-toilet.

Tarzan raised Desi Arnaz' rat.

Ten animals I slam in a net.

Too bad I hid a boot.

Was it a car or a cat I saw?

Wonder if Sununu's fired now.

Won't I panic in a pit now?

Won't lovers revolt now?

Yo, banana boy!

Yo, Bob! Mug o' gumbo, boy!

Yo, bottoms up! (U.S. motto, boy.)

POST-SCRIPT. Like the success of my book, this doesn't want to happen, so head-bashing is useless indeed, unless I wish to become a rampant alcoholic who lives for the advent of Happy Hour. And I've had enough of that. But I have tried to piece it back together after a large chunk of it just disappeared, along with the last gif which I retrieved from the garbage, i. e. the recycle bin.

Wondering about the last gif, the palindrome? Oh OK, this is OTTO Klemperer. Father of Werner Klemperer, who played Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes. We were sitting in a symphony concert back in the '60s, and my Dad said, "Look, there he is."  "Who?" "There's Klink." He was right, but we didn't speak with him, too cowed by his greatness.

Order The Glass Character from:

Thistledown Press 

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Character-Margaret-Gunning/dp/1927068886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395534131&sr=1-1&keywords=the+glass+character

Chapters/Indigo.ca

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%2520glass%2520character%2520margaret%2520gunning&ikwsec=Home

Big elf on a mayonnaise man

Flee to me, remote elf--Sal a dewan desired;
 Now is a Late-Petal Era.
 We fade: lucid Iris, red Rose of Sharon;
 Goldenrod a silly ram ate.
 Wan olives teem (ah, Satan lives!);
 A star eyes pale Roses.

 Revel, big elf on a mayonnaise man -
 A tinsel baton-dragging nice elf too.
 Lisp, Oh Sibyl, dragging Nola along;
 Niggardly bishops I loot.
 Fleecing niggard notables Nita names,
 I annoy a man of Legible Verse.

 So relapse, ye rats,
 As evil Natasha meets Evil
 On a wet, amaryllis-adorned log.
 Norah's foes' orders (I ridiculed a few) are late, pet.
 Alas, I wonder! Is Edna wed?
 Alas--flee to me, remote elf.

S'kay, you don't need to go hide in the corner, it's called a PALINDROME. Kind of like "Pa's a sap" or "Able was I ere I saw Elba" and things like that. Can't think of any more at the moment. (Oh, thought of one! "Sex at noon taxes" and "I moan, Naomi" can be conflated to read, "'Naomi, sex at noon taxes,' I moan."

I don't know who sits around thinking up such bizarre things, but the imagery in this word wedding-cake is gorgeous: just the idea of a remote elf, sitting pondering the mysteries of the Universe when he should be busy in Santa's workshop making death destroyers, makes me sigh, as do the wan olives that teem (teem? In a stream somewhere, or maybe a giant martini), followed by the nihilistic statement, "Satan lives".

Elves (elfs?) teem too in this enigmatic miracle of a piece: the big elf on a mayonnaise man, who surely needs to lower his cholesterol, and of course that tinsel baton-dragging nice elf (can you see it? I can't). Certain lines are like self-contained poems: "Lisp, oh Sibyl, dragging Nola along" and (maybe my favorite) "I annoy a man of Legible Verse". I've wanted to do that many times.

I could go on and on, for each line of this amazing edifice is fat and juicy with strangely yummy poetry (the "wet, amaryllis-adorned log"!). Reminds me of drinking guava nectar on the lanai that time we went to Maui. Either this was penned by some evil genius, or an autistic savant who reads everything forwards and backwards at the same time, or Oliver Sacks, or Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. I certainly couldn't do it myself. . . being a backward child.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Backward child

Today I found two books I had given up for dead. You know how you just can't find a book? It must be somewhere. I felt as if I was going out of my mind.

This all started a few months ago, I think. I was in the bird room (my bird's bedroom, downstairs, also a catch-all for my husband's TEN YEARS' WORTH of receipts for such important purchases as foam insoles at Walmart and two loaves of bread from the Safeway). No, back up a little. I couldn't find my music books! Caitlin, now 7, got a guitar for Xmas and wanted me to help her and I could not find ANY of my 25 or so music books!!

I don't know, I didn't even think to look in the bird room, nor did I remember moving a whole bookcase down there with lots of "tall" books in it, books that just didn't fit anywhere else. Anyways.

The 2 books I found today, in the tall book case in the bird room, are called (firstly) Panati's Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody. Most of it is boring, the rest of it gruesome. It talks about how a man, after being beheaded, retains consciousness (presumably in his head) for several seconds after "severance". Once a researcher asked a poor beheaded guy to blink three times after they removed his melon. He blinked twice.

I won't tell you about Thomas Edison's early failed experiments (on humans) in electrocution, or the death of William the Conqueror whose body exploded like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python, because it is simply too disgusting (and when I visited England, a tour guide at the Tower of London told a horrible fable about a drunken executioner, Jack Ketch, who mis-chopped about fourteen times before successfully offing the poor guy's head).

But I will say, during one of the worst bouts of the Black Plague, 10,000 people were dying per day. Unable to accommodate the bodies even in burning pits, they had to remove the roofs from massive guard towers, throw the bodies in, cover the whole thing with quicklime and nail the roof back on.

I think my day just got a whole lot brighter.

Enough of this Panati stuff: and who is he, anyway? Some ghoul? On to the other one, equally boring except in spots, called An Almanac of Words at Play by Willard R. Espy.

A lot of this is bad poetry and tricky little word-things, and the anagrams are atrocious, but I do like the palindromes, words or names or phrases that read the same forwards as backwards ("Otto"; "Anna"; "Norma is as selfless as I am, Ron"; "'Naomi, sex at noon taxes,' I moan").

I want to share with you, dear readers, before I nod off into another bout of foggy depression, what I've come to think of as the Ultimate Palindrome. For some reason it's called The Faded Bloomers' Rhapsody. I will have to transcribe it, damn it, and it's long!

Flee to me, remote elf - Sal a dewan desired;
Now is a Late-Petal Era.
We fade: lucid Iris, red Rose of Sharon;
Goldenrod a silly ram ate.
Wan olives teem (ah, Satan lives!);
A star eyes pale Roses.

Revel, big elf on a mayonnaise man -
A tinsel baton-dragging nice elf too.
Lisp, oh sibyl, dragging Nola along;
Niggardly bishops I loot.
Fleecing niggard notables Nita names,
I annoy a Man of Legible Verse.

So relapse, ye rats,
As evil Natasha meets Evil
On a wet, amaryllis-adorned log.
Norah's foes' orders (I ridiculed a few) are late, Pet.
Alas, I wonder! Is Edna wed?
Alas - flee to me, remote elf.

This is simply gorgeous, and you just gotta start at the end and go backwards. It will at least distract you for a while.