Seasons Greetings from Bananagrammer

August 2011 Bananagrams events

A couple of notable Bananagrams-related events are scheduled to take place next month.

1) Bananagrams is sponsoring the August 13th instance of WaterFire, a spectacular event that takes place along the river in Providence, Rhode Island. One hundred fires blaze along two-thirds of a mile of the river, illuminating the art and performances that accompany the festivities. WaterFire happens several times each summer, but on August 13th, there will be special Bananagrams-related events.

waterfire.org/bananas is the official page for the Bananaganza. Also available is a schedule for the evening's events.

Providence is home to Brown University and a strong arts scene. A graduate of Brown, Barnaby Evans, created the WaterFire concept and has been running it since 1994. Evans was a friend of Abe Nathanson (the inventor of Bananagrams) and wrote a tribute to Abe.

It's very cool that Bananagrams is sponsoring this event. The Bananagrams components of the evening have not yet been revealed. I think they're going to be surprises, but this idea has been cooking for over a year, so I expect it will be a great event. If you are in the area, I recommend checking it out.

Also, if you happen to go to Providence, keep an eye out for the Bananagrams headquarters sign while driving around:

(This photo was sent in by a personal acquaintance and Bananagrams fan. In case you were wondering, that is not a sign for the "Bananagrams Archives Gallery". I believe the "Archives Gallery" is a separate business in the same building.)


2) On August 14th, large-scale Bananagrams will be played in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. They are going to use 1-foot square tiles made of Masonite (a type of processed wood, sometimes used for house siding and interior doors). The game will look something like this:

Further details on the event are here.


I suppose very large-scale Bananagrams would be played by moving around human-sized tiles, like "human chess" (those games of chess where people act as the chess pieces) except it would be much faster. Played with a full set of tiles, you'd need 144 people. Watching people run around and try to figure out where to stand to form words while other players are peeling off the bunch would be awesome. Human Bananagrams is really something that has to be played.

The Bananagrams writing contest is now open

The Newport Review's Bananagrams writing contest (previously previewed here) has started with the posting of the grid of required words and some more specific rules. The grid,

            M
           JOLT
            N
         H  E
        MINTY
     FOXED
     A
     C
     E

has really only one odd word: "foxed". "Foxed" can apparently be an adjective (used to describe paper having yellow-brown stains), but I think the people judging the contest will be expecting "foxed" to be used like "outfoxed", as in, outwitted. Which is precisely what you will want to have done to your opponents.

Good luck!

Bananagrams writing contest

The Newport Review is an online magazine which publishes creative writing, poetry, photography, and other visual art forms. They sponsor an annual writing contest, and this year the competition has a Bananagrams theme. Between May 1 and September 30, 2010, entrants can submit either a poem (<=21 lines) or a short story (<= 2100 words). The catch is that a Bananagrams grid made up of 21 tiles will be posted on the Newport Review site, and every word in that grid has to appear in the submitted story or poem. It's sort of a form of constrained writing. (More severely constrained forms of writing were described in my post on word game poetry.) You can read some of the previous contest winners to get a sense of what the Newport Review might be looking for.

Also, it is useful to note that links to information about two of the judges have been given: John Landry, a poet, and Jincy Willett, writer of fiction and blogger of blogs. Jincy Willett clearly has a sense of humor which gives me hope that any entry I might happen to submit might not be immediately dumped (as it were).

Check the site for full details on the contest. Prizes include a $500 cash award (donated by Abraham Nathanson), publication in the Newport Review, and, of course, Bananagrams sets. There is also a per-submission entrance fee of $7. Void where prohibited. Do not bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate this blog.

Good luck!

Bananagrams lecture on March 11, 2010

Abe Nathanson, the creator of Bananagrams, is going to give a lecture, titled "The Success of Bananagrams", Thursday, March 11th, at 5:30pm at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. The lecture will take place in Moore Hall II.

The map on the event page actually has the wrong location. I've plotted the actual location on this Google Maps map with the lecture hall dead center:

I'd really like to hear this lecture as I'm sure it will be interesting. If anyone gets the chance to attend this talk, please send me a report.

Play online Bananagrams and you might possibly win Bananagrams prizes

According to this press release, there is a contest running from now through February 12th, 2010 where, if you play Bananagrams online and attain certain levels of achievement, it is possible to enter into a drawing for an actual prize.

Depending on the day, you either have to play Solo Café Bananagrams (the one where you get all 21 tiles at the start with no peeling) or actual Bananagrams games against other online opponents.

Here's exactly what you have to do to be entered into the drawing:

From January 25th through January 29th, if you finish a game of Solo Café Bananagrams in less than 40 seconds, you are entered into the drawing for that day. (You can qualify once per day.)
From February 1st through February 5th, you have to win more than 12 Bananagrams games (in one day) against other players to qualify for that day.
And from February 8th through February 12th, you have to finish one game of Solo Café Bananagrams in less than 35 seconds.

You can play on any of the four venues for online Bananagrams (the iPhone app, Facebook, MySpace, or Bebo).

The information posted on Facebook on the first week of the contest indicated that ten copies of the Bananagrams book will be awarded for the first week of competition as well as one copy of the Bananagrams iPhone app. Probably the prizes will be the same for the remaining three weeks.

Good luck!

The Bananagrams iPhone app is on sale

If you have an iPhone or an iPod touch, you may be interested to know that the iPhone version of Bananagrams is now on sale for 99 cents. I wrote a partial review of this app when it first came out. There are some bugs in the 1.00 release, but the ability to move different tiles with different fingers simultaneously is just so appealing (even if I haven't mastered it yet) that I would rather play the iPhone version than the Facebook version of Bananagrams.

I recommend buying this game while it's on sale, as whenever Large Animal Games eventually releases a patched version of the game, the upgrade should be free.

An event for people who love puzzles

A very unique event is happening in a couple of weeks: On September 13th, a puzzle hunt (a series of puzzles, spread around a particular area) will be simulcast to a bunch of different cities, including: Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The hunt is called DASH which stands for Different Area, Same Hunt. This is entirely run by volunteers and is an effort to expand the puzzle hunt community beyond its current ecological niches in the Bay Area and Seattle.

It will not be all words games, but if you are good at Bananagrams and like puzzles, you might enjoy it. If the sample puzzles appeal to you, I would encourage you to get together a few friends and give it a try.

UPDATE: DASH 2 is happening April 24, 2010.
2011 UPDATE: DASH 3 takes place April 30, 2011.