We saw Spellbound on Sunday. It was so very good and I can�t wait until it comes out on DVD next year. The producer, who was there to speak, said that they�ve also been granted a theatrical run in one hundred theatres around the country, so if it comes to a town near you over the summer, go! Though the movie was absolutely fantastic, the conditions in which it was shown were not optimal. The venue they secured for the screening used to be a movie theatre, but they have since renovated it and it�s a nightclub now. So, they put up a screen to be projected upon and put folding chairs on the first floor. The balcony was several stadium style rows of padded bench seats, allowing for absolutely no personal space and thus the cramming of so many bodies like sardines. The pair next to me was the penultimate in annoyance. The male half kept hugging the female half to him and then smacking her arm loudly. The female half talked the entire time and spelled along with the contestants. I could have killed both of them right then and there. Blood would have rained on the people below and it would have been hamburger for the other balcony dwellers. I don�t understand why some people can�t grasp that movie time=quiet time. An occasional whisper to the person you�re with is acceptable, but speaking at full volume is just rude.

I had a very hard time watching it because a fair number of the eight who were featured, may not necessarily have been good spellers, they simply trained incessantly. One boy would go through eight thousand words daily with his overbearing father. One girl would hole up in her room for nine hours a day in summer and do nothing but study. I don�t think that I ever even studied a full hour in preparation for something, let alone a local spelling bee. For me, language and its components have always been innate. Yes, it is true, I was eliminated in the first round when I went to the nationals, but it was a word I�d never heard before, was mispronounced, and I only missed it by one letter. I was asked by my mother whether I would like to file a complaint while sitting in the comfort room, but I was happy with the all expenses paid, five day vacation in a city I�d never seen. Which word was it?

bar�bi�cel

n.

One of the minute, hooked projections extending from and interlocking the barbules of a feather.

Given its Latin root meaning beard, I was close. I spelled it �barbacel� because that is how the Pronouncer had said it. He used a short �a� sound instead of the short �i� sound, so it threw me off.

It was also hard for me as a former contestant to watch in those difficult times when one of the kids got stuck. I felt as though I was standing there again in my dress with the blue flowers on it, the lights shining into my eyes. It was worse than every time I have performed in front of a group because it was the sound of my voice that captivated people, not the miniscule pieces of the words I was singing. I sat there on Sunday, eyes glued to the screen, mouthing the spelling of every word that came up and willing the child on that stage to get it right.

Of course, I took a shine to certain kids. I wasn�t terribly fond of the stage-parented kids who wanted perfection as a way for them to gain notoriety. I know it is no fault of the children who happen to have such parents. I liked the kids whose parents were just normal people. People who were proud of their children no matter how far they went and told them so. Those are the well-adjusted kids. The ones who don�t put all of their self-worth into whether they can spell �crocodilian� in front of an audience.

I also found myself resenting my district. Some of the contestants were there for their second or third time. I wasn�t permitted to compete a second year. I don�t know whether it was because I would have crushed the competition again or if they were simply making arbitrary rules, but my school informed me that I would not be allowed to compete again, even at the school level, and asked me to coach the girl who would be my replacement. She lost and my brilliant friend Jonas ended up going. He would have been legitimate competition for me had he been old enough to compete when I did. Instead I was up against a group of sub par spellers who were only there on luck. I remember before the district bee, one of the older girls threatening to kill me if I beat her. I was later told that her mother had recently committed suicide and that she was having an understandably rough time.

I grew up with Jonas, as our parents ran in the same circle of free weekly newspaper writers and he and I, along with the other writers� kids, spent many a dinner party holed up in some room of a house doing whatever we could to occupy ourselves. He�s brilliant, far more brilliant than I will ever be. He was taking calculus in his freshman year of high school and reminded everyone of Lou Smadbeck, who had been teaching calc in his junior year. I have no doubt in my mind that, like Lou, Jonas had his choice of any university in the country when he graduated. He wasn�t at all pompous. His parents had raised him to be a normal kid who simply had a little extra. When I Google him, there are a page and a half of entries dedicated to just his accomplishments.

All this digression. See the movie when it comes around. It�ll be well worth your five to ten dollars.