There's a girl from Poteau, Oklahoma (a portion of which is pictured above),14-year-old Alyssa Kramer, who can repeat any word you say backwards in three seconds or less. The girl is fast.
Go ahead and try it. No, not any three-letter words.
Alyssa is a unique girl with a useless skill. Or, you might say:
Assyla si a euqinu lrig htiw a sselesu lliks.
It's a Huffington Post comment that "Alyssa is a special girl with a useless skill." I would never say that. It's obvious that Alyssa's skill is not useless -- she has become famous because of it. I imagine it's one of those 15 minutes type of fame.
I've just learned something. For years I've thought that it was Marshall McLuhan, talking about his media theory and the ephemeralty of fame in the information age, who said in 1968: "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes."
Thanks to Alyssa I found out I've been wrong for years! It was artist Andy Warhol, or Ydna Lohraw, who coined the words. Warhol died 25 years ago, but anytime you go to Google News you see a long list of current articles about his work. Try it. You will see that the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has announced a large retrospective exhibition of Andy Warhol’s artwork will tour five Asian cities over the next three years, reports the Washington Post.
Back to Alyssa and her backward ways. She's from Poteau, with 8,520 residents and located 25 miles southwest of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Poteau is almost completely surrounded by mountains. Yes, I did say Oklahoma. And just west of town is Cavanal Hill -- the world's tallest hill, according to the town's website.
Alyssa's first step towards fame came when a friend posted a video on You Tube where friends in a car shouted words for her to say backwards -- in 3 seconds or less. To date, the video has had more than 2 million views. Click here to view the video.
She was even in Time magazine. Wow! Time reminded readers of the movie The Exorcist when the demon inside Reagan was speaking in a strange and mysterious language. The Catholic priests sent to expel the demon were not impressed because she wasn't speaking Latin or Aramaic, but backwards English.
The really big surprise came when NBC's Today Show called and wanted to do a live interview with her in New York. On the Today Show, Alyssa said she began talking backwards at the same time she was learning to read. "My brain flips it for me," she said, explaining that she visualizes the word in her brain and then reads what she sees backwards.
Very interesting!
by Sharon McEachern
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