Heaneyland!

Words and music

As you all probably know, I have a serious CD buying habit. I'm also a puzzle buff. So it was with some amusement that I realized I had bought two CDs in the same order that both included wordplay-related material. (I actually bought them a while ago, back when I was still getting the hang of updating my blog regularly, but I am reminded of them because I'm listening to one now.)

One is Menomena's "I Am the Fun Blame Monster". The title is an anagram of the phrase "the first Menomena album". As if that wasn't already amusing enough for me, the CD package is an enormous flip book which includes moving pictures of the band, as well as a little cartoon of the letters in "I Am the Fun Blame Monster" rearranging themselves to spell "the first Menomena album". Very cool. (You can visit Menomena's website if you wish, but be prepared for some extremely aggressively bad website design. Deliberate, of course, but still painful.)

The other is a collection of chamber music by Charles Knox which includes the piece "Semordnilap Number 2". The piece is a big palindrome in three movements. The first and third movements are reversals of each other, and the middle section is palindromic all by itself. And a very pleasant piece it is, I must say. Another amusing thing about "Semordnilap Number 2" is that it is called "a trio for ___, cello and piano". There's a blank there because Knox says he will write a part for whoever the cellist and pianist wish to perform the piece with. (This version is performed with a French horn.) I have to love someone so simultaneously serious and goofy.

Posted by Francis at 02:47 AM