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The Best of the Jest
The Loneliness of the
Long-Distance Punner
A far-off alum struggles to
create some Twisted Titles.
The Dan Who Knew
Too Much
DaVinci Code author scares
church authorities.
Eric Wallace ’62
Goon River
The historical resting place of
cement boots.
D’Arcy Selwood ’47
Vanity Hair
Thackeray gets a comb-over.
Jonathan Karpf ’76
Homily grits
Spiritual victuals.
Frump Tower
Home for badly dressed women.
Ron Berman ’58
| Nukebox
Put some money in and listen to a
blast from the past.
A.M. Eisenstein ’51
No Rain, No Gain
Dry farmers’ lament.
Collage of Hard Knocks
An interesting collection.
Art Poulin ’48
Toll Over, Beethoven
We’ve got FasTrak now.
Elaine Hamill ’80
The Task of Zorro
To make a perfect “Z.”
Chris Argentos
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide
New editor moves Twisted Titles to
unknown Web site!
Alice Levering
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Word Nerds’ ChallengeYour recent outcry over the departure of Twisted Titles was duly and truly noted. We admit it: We were misguided. We stand chagrinned but corrected and return inspired. Now, we’re raising the challenge. We’re keeping TTs (as evidenced on this page) and adding a feature. Imagine, along with us, hidden messages scrambled in the names of people and places. What if by rearranging the letters of a name, you reveal new words and perhaps break the code to a hidden persona of a person or place? Actually, this is an ancient verbal riddle dating to 1589. That’s when the term “anagram” first appeared. Taken from the French anagramme with the Greek antecedent anagrammatizien (to transpose letters, from ana-“up, back” + gramma or grammatos, “letter.”) “A word or phrase is formed by reordering the letters of another word or phrase, such as “satin” to “stain.”
The Rules
Maybe you already knew this. But did you know that rearranging the letters in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name yields this: he’s grown large and crazed? Our copy editor, however, contends that he’s always been that way. Linda Ronstadt, one of our favorites, was rearranged to spell: dirt and talons (just ask our former governor, who used to date her). Golden Gate Bridge deconstructed gives us barelegged tin god. And finally, we’ll leave you with one guess as to which university—that sports red and white colors—is for vain studentry.
Pick some prominent California names and places, scramble the letters (leaving no letter out nor adding any letters; added punctuation is permissible), and reassemble the letters into a here-to-fore hidden meaning (be sure to add the parenthetical just as you do in Twisted Titles). We assure you, as in keeping the faith with TT, assessment will be rigorous. assessment will be rigorous. The top 12 will be printed in the next issue. Extra points will be awarded for relevance, clearly understood characterizations, topicality, multiple meanings, and also for full phrases. We’re giving points for weird ness too—though we haven’t set the scale or standard yet. We’ll leave that up to you. Here’s some help, though. For an easily understood definition, Fresno, California can be rearranged to read anon officials err (as the local newspaper
might bear this out). We’re confident you can top these and we’re eager to hear.
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Send your Word Nerd anagram or Twisted Title (for TT, change only one letter of a book, play, movie, saying, etc., and add a snappy underline) to calmonthly@alumni.berkeley.edu or via snail mail to Twisted Titles, California Monthly, CAA, 1 Alumni House, Berkeley, CA 94720-7520.
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