Week 145: Looie, Looie


At Bob Packwood's office: Casanovas and Ovas

At The Playboy Club: Bunnies and Dinosaurs

This Week's Contest was proposed by Stephen Dudzik of Silver Spring, who wins a mistletoe beltbuckle. Inspired by cutesy-poo signs on restaurant bathrooms (fish restaurants: "Buoys" and "Gulls"; The Outback steakhouse: "Blokes" and "Sheilas") Stephen suggests that you come up with paired, themed ladies' room and men's room signs for various types of public places. First-prize winner gets a canvas shoe-tote bag from the Burning Tree golf and country club, an extremely exclusive value of $ 20 inappropriate for use by women. Runners-up, as always, get the coveted Style Invitational losers' T-shirts. Honorable mentions get the mildly sought-after Style Invitational bumper stickers. Winners will be selected on the basis of humor and originality. Mail your entries to the Style Invitational, Week 145, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, fax them to 202-334-4312 or submit them via the Internet to this address: losersaccess.digex.net. Internet users: Please indicate the appropriate week number in the subject field. Entries must be received on or before Tuesday, Jan. 2. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. Editors reserve the right to alter entries for taste, appropriateness or humor. No purchase necessary. The Faerie of the Fine Print & The Ear No One Reads wishes to thank Paul Styrene of Olney for today's Ear No One Reads. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes. 

Report from Week 142, in which we asked you to come up with the 1996 winners of the Turner Prize, a British art award characterized by the pretentious pursuit of the avant-garde.

Second Runner-Up: Twelve toy poodles are shaved to the skin and spray-painted with colorful urban graffiti. They are taken for daily walks in posh suburban neighborhoods. (Laura Farr Collins, Washington)

First Runner-Up: The audience is instructed to disrobe completely and put on kimonos. As they walk into the gallery, they see that the floor is clear glass. Crowds of people below are pointing, laughing, videotaping and sketching. Exits are not clearly marked. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

And the winner of the item from Dave Barry's Gift Guide:

Exhibit consists only of notice awarding artist grant for exhibit. It is mounted on wall with masking tape. (Fred Dawson, Beltsville)

Honorable Mentions:

"The Sound" -- A looped, silent video of a tree falling in a forest is accompanied by an audio speaker that keeps blaring the word "ouch." (Joseph Romm, Washington)

"VA Joe" -- GI Joe dolls with various limbs amputated. "This chilling masterpiece brings home the trichotomy of the innocence of children's play, the horrors of war, and an artist's gratuitous efforts to shock the audience." (Russell Beland, Springfield)

A mirror has laser beams aimed at it, such that anyone looking into the mirror to see himself is permanently blinded. "Techno-terrorism on a collision course with vanity and narcissism." (Sarah Worcester, Bowie)

One million people carrying mobile phones are assembled on the Mall. At noon, they all call one another and get busy signals. (Nick Yokanovich, Arnold)

A pressing apparatus is in use. Oil drips from its spout into a container labeled "Baby Oil." The contents of the press are, mercifully, invisible, though a pacifier lies next to it. (Sarah Worcester, Bowie)

A new audio speaker, used only once to play every known Beatle song, is opened up and its wires soldered together, rendering it forever mute. (Greg Arnold, Herndon)

An aspiring artist kidnaps last year's winner, cages him and puts him on display. Respecting the integrity of the work, exhibit viewers ignore his desperate pleas and leave him locked up. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

"Day In, Day Out" (mixed media, 1995), a 13-room installation -- One first enters a room filled with empty Cat Chow bags and then passes through 12 rooms containing a total of 365 used litter boxes, 31 in the first room, 28 in the second, etc. "This is a breakthrough moment in British art, cynical, nihilistic, unsentimental, capturing the rote of the routine and the natural deconstruction on an artificially imposed taxonomy." (Tim Westmoreland, Washington)

"Hard Stones" -- Diamonds, emeralds, rubies and gallstones are covered with chocolate. "A daring exposition of the mysteries of hidden beauty and pain." (Sarah Worcester, Bowie)

Three white Broncos painted with oversize bloody fingerprints and swastikas are suspended by ropes from gallows. TV monitors installed behind the driver's side windshields play excerpts from the chase and Mark Fuhrman's testimony. "Sometimes ebony and ivory don't live together in perfect harmony. A white man in a 'brown' shirt is brilliantly played off against a brown man in a 'white' shirt. The ironic subtlety cuts through you like a knife." (Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring)

A rabbit is shaved and human hair is glued to its skin to replace the fur. "A caustic commentary on the cosmetics industry." (Sarah Worcester, Bowie)

And Last:

"Invitation to Disappointment" -- A full colostomy bag is decorated with papier-mache to look like a pinata. Children are told it contains prizes. "With blindfolded juveniles flailing wildly in a frantic effort to win crap, this has captured the essence of the newspaper contest that spawned it." (Joseph Romm, Washington)

Next Week: It's My Parody (& I'll Try If I Want To)