spellbound.

I was flipping through the tv listings late one night when I came across a program called Iowa City Spells. Spellbound is one of my favorite movies, so I clicked on the program hoping to find a local version of the grade school spelling bee, but what I discovered was something so much better. It was an adult spelling bee! With teams! And do overs!



Apparently the public library hosts Iowa City Spells every year as a fundraiser. Teams of three with names like Spellfire and Brimstone, and Spells Like Team Spirit compete for orthographic glory and gift certificates. My favorite part of the bee is that teams can spell a word wrong in the first round and not be eliminated. Too bad, kid who studied his dictionary for a year who gets a word wrong in the first round of the Scripps National Bee! Just like in getting in to that ivy league school so your parents will love you, you don't get a second chance. But in the adult word, we don't let a little thing like misplaced letters stand in the way of a good spelling bee.