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Palindromic video

Mark Frauenfelder at 2:37 pm Mon, Apr 20, 2009

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If, after watching this video, you want to see it played backwards, don't bother. You already did! (Via The Agitator)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

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  • Anonymous

    Gah! The eating noises are just too much! I had to turn it off after a few seconds.

  • Anonymous

    Here’s another “palindrome” movie.

    http://daveuhler.com/?q=node/93

    Rather than just being bunch of visual tricks… it attempts to tell a story. Unlike the video above it takes into account that people talking in reverse directions can’t understand each other… but inevitably effect each others progress in time. Underneath the clip is a link to see it backwards if you wish. Please leave a comment.

  • Anonymous

    Dimitri Martin would get such a boner over this.

  • Kobie

    Great video – I especially love how at the beginning the backwards guy agrees by saying something sounding like ‘Yes’, but at the end we hear it forwards & find out he was actually saying ‘See’. Really really clever.

  • A New Challenger

    Sugar Water broke my brain when I saw it a couple years ago, too.

    Also of note, Douglas Hofstadter’s Crab Canon, as well as Bach’s version which it refers to.

  • codeman38

    Is anyone else reminded of the “Backwards” episode of Red Dwarf?

  • Anonymous

    You’re wrong, Argelesplage.

    Frauenfelder’s headline does not call this video/audio a palindrome but describes it as “palindromic.”

    Your pedantry aside, a transcript of the audio would read the same backwards and forward and would itself qualify as a palindrome.

  • dagfooyo

    Michel Gondry did something similar a few years ago – one of my favorite music vids of all time:

    http://www.mtv.com/videos/cibo-matto/46392/sugar-water.jhtml

  • joncro

    Or this amazing Cibo Matto

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1j5eh_cibo-matto-sugar-water-pv_music

    ?

  • joncro

    doh!
    beaten to it by seconds…………..

    but the MTV canot be sen outside the USA so the rest of us can view it on Daily Motion

  • dagfooyo

    Great minds think alike, eh Joncro? Or twisted minds perhaps. FWIW I can view the MTV and am in Italy. But the dailymotion loads faster…

    Also, Red Dwarf rocks, and that is one of the classic episodes.

  • Anonymous

    this was pretty cool

    after playing Braid, i had to resist the urge to hit the shift key and reverse everything

    also i think that the Red Dwarf writers were the first to elaborate on the idea of a traumatic reverse-toilet experience, but i might be wrong

    also, i have the tshirt he/they is/are wearing, and that pleases me for some strange reason

  • Anonymous

    Was it a rat I saw?

  • Antinous / Moderator

    If that’s the national headdress of Palindromistan, I know where I’m taking my next vacation.

  • alisong76

    Gave it a go, but I can’t handle eating noises.

  • Darren Garrison

    Weird Al did it better:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nej4xJe4Tdg

  • hackedbychinese

    i only got as far as noticing i have that same shirt (urban outfitters).

    but then SMACK SMACK CHEW GURGLE SLURP *VOMIT* video closed.

    so gross.

  • sophos7

    With #7… yeah. I work with a guy who eats his lunch like that every day… He hasn’t caught on that I close my office door every day when he takes lunch…

  • Anonymous

    John Callaghan says:
    You are to be congratulated. By me. Very cleverly scripted and executed!

  • Sork

    Top Secret, Swedish bookstore scene is still funny “in reverse”.

  • Anonymous

    John Callaghan again. It occurred to me that one of my videos might appeal to those who’ve enjoyed yours:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSNJe7Hk5RQ

    All the best with your future projects!

  • palindrome

    I approve.

  • Beta_Bates

    With #7 and #8… Eating noises drive me up the wall. Glad to see I’m not alone in this.

  • argelesplage

    A palindrome reads backwards the same way it reads forward, i.e. “Yo, Banana Boy”, or “a dog, a panic in a pagoda”.

    Playing audio backwards is a different thing. Maybe it even has a name. Call this clip what you will, but palindromic it ain’t..

    Yes, Red Dwarf rocks, big time…

  • KyleTexas

    That’s not a Palindrome movie. *THIS* is a palindrome movie:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbkNxYaULBw

  • Anonymous

    thinkin’ of the man from another place and laura palmer…

  • Snig

    This is great, but many people do not know that the written out lyrics of the entire song catalogue for the band “They Might Be Giants” is one long palindrome. It’s not obvious as they are not halfway through, and it’ll be a few years before they start the second half of their songs, which will be considered less accessible and clever and kind of odd and garbled sounding compared to the first half of their songs.

  • Anonymous

    Napoleon XIV

  • Anonymous

    VIX noelopaN

  • apoxia

    that cibo matto video has broken my brain.