Lori Wike is the principal bassoonist in the Utah Symphony. She also crafts clever palindromes, as is clear from the documentary The Palindromists, which features one of her favorite creations: Had a tonic, cuppa cappuccino, Ta-Dah! This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Had a Tonic, Cuppa Cappuccino, Ta-Dah!”
Getting back to this movie about palindromes, one of the things I really liked about it was you really get to know some of the people who are obsessed with palindromes, and one of them is Laurie Weick, who is also principal bassoonist for the Utah Symphony, and she came up with a great one, which is Hadatonic Cup of Cappuccino.
Ta-da!
Yeah, and she made a shirt for it, too.
Yeah.
Yeah, you have to spell cup as, you know, C-U-P-P-A, but Hadatonic Cup of Cappuccino.
Ta-da!
And there’s a wonderful segment where she and one of her music students play palindromic music passages from Bach, which require that you play a passage forward and backward at the same time in order for it to be what the composer intended.
And it’s quite lovely.
Both of them have these burping bedposts, as they’re called, and it’s really quite brilliant.
They also have a great shot of her playing the oboe at the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake, which is just outstanding.
Just wonderful stuff.
