New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
He knows puzzles backward and forward
Author’s exhibit on display through Oct. 19
MADISON — If you patronize the Madison Art Cinemas, you might say they’re still the Same Nice Cinemas.
Those three words are also the title of Jim Beloff’s new palindromic exhibit in the theater’s lobby from Thursday through Oct. 19.
So stop and read the words backwards. Right, they’re a palindrome, defined as a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward, as in “bursitis rub.”
“I’ve always loved wordplay,” said Beloff, 62, of Clinton, in a phone chat. “I grew up in a family that loved to pun and I always had a fascination with words. And I was a songwriter ... so I had a great affinity for words and writing and reading.”
The 24 palindromes on display are specially chosen enlarged prints from a limited edition book of palindromes by Beloff, with illustrations by Scott Baldwin, of Killingworth. An opening reception will be held at the theater from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
As for occupation, Beloff, 62, and his wife, Liz, have flourished in “an interesting other life as well.”
“What we’re best known for is having published a lot of very successful songbooks for the ukelele market,” he said. “I wrote a book on the history ... of the ukelele.”
There have also been how-to-play-theukelele DVDs and Jim Beloff has written a couple of concertos for ukelele and premiered one with the Wallingford Symphony in 1999.
If that’s not enough, Beloff is currently
on the cover of Ukelele magazine. The backstory told there is that after publishing songbooks in 1999, he mentioned to his engineer brother-in-law that there was a need for a good American-made ukelele. The guy eventually used his background to create a fine ukelele line that the Beloffs use in performance to this day.
The ukelele songbooks are distributed worldwide, Beloff said, led by a bestknown collection called “The Daily Ukelele” (of course). There’s actually a social media world of folks who have discovered the ukelele and formed clubs, Beloff said, some of whom remember Arthur Godfrey or Tiny Tim playing the instrument.
But back to the palindrome, which for Beloff springs also from his long devotion to crossword puzzles. He said he received this response to his book from Will Shortz, crossword editor of The New York Times: “Some of the best illustrated palindromes I’ve seen. The palindromes make sense, and the pictures are funny!”
When we suggest Beloff must have a math mind to see the words front and back, Beloff agreed and said he also jokes that he went to Hebrew school, where you learn to read Hebrew backwards. The words began to assemble in his head in idle hours.
“I actually found that ... I began to use it as a sleep aid,” Beloff said. “Oftentimes if I wake up in the middle of the night, instead of counting sheep, one method to help me go back to sleep was to just think about words backwards ... ultimately containing long sentences.”
Beloff’s concoction of “Lapses? Order red roses pal” is one that he’s best known for and has been included in anthologies and other wordplay books. A palindrome magazine called it an “instant classic,” he said.
The longer ones, which form a cogent thought, “are really fun to create and always with the idea that you’re trying ... to have them make sense.”
Taking time to compile palindromes “absolutely starts with a love of puzzles.”
Take another example (not his own) that is considered the Mt. Everest of palindromes: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. It’s “just super because it makes sense and it works. So that, to me, is the ultimate example that fulfills the requirements and actually means something.”
His book with artwork is an outgrowth of a wordplay subculture out there that is seen on the shelves of bookstores or on amazon.com.
The books contain “often fairly simple palindromes, kind of goofy . ... And I always thought that it would be really cool to do a palindrome book but with symmetrical illustrations.”
So in the illustration for his “Lapses? Order red roses, pal,” the rose is centered above the words. Beloff said Baldwin, challenged to keep it symmetrical, did only half the rose via his medium of linoleum blocks and then scanned the image and flopped it on computer so the image is perfectly palindromic.
“So accompanying all the palindromes are visual palindromes,” said Beloff. Perfect balance, we’d say. Never odd or even.