Style Conversational Week 1089: If you can't laugh anymore, they win: Humor in the Sept. 11 era; The Empress looks back on the Style Invitational contest in the weeks after 9/11 Washington Post Blogs September 11, 2014 Thursday 7:19 PM EST Copyright 2014 The Washington Post All Rights Reserved Length: 1731 words Byline: Pat Myers Body Uh, "Happy September 11" isn't quite right ... In the Sept. 18, 2001, Washington Post, on the front page of the Style section, Gene Weingarten came out as the editor of The Style Invitational (though not as the anonymous Czar) in an essay headlined "Not Funny: The Rules of Humor Changed on Sept. 11." Gene noted that it had taken more than five days for him to see any online jokes about the attacks - an interval that even back then was uncharacteristically restrained. "Last week," Gene said, "The Post decided to publish as scheduled its Sunday humor contest, the Style Invitational, which I edit. This feature is not famous for its political sensitivity, but this weekend I found myself culling from the results any entries that suggested any cognitive weaknesses in the president of the United States." The Sept. 16 Invitational had already been produced; the contest's production deadlines were earlier then. It asked for Rodney Dangerfield-style "no respect" jokes. But the next contest, Sept. 23, contained this complete set of directions: "Make us laugh." Gene offered to reflect on that Sept. 18, 2001, essay, and his sudden (if temporary) ban on George W. Bush jokes that had been submitted for contests in process: "A few things about this column, and the decision. I remember cutting at least two Bush-is-stupid jokes, for these related reasons: The first was simply a matter of way-too-soon. The second was that people were genuinely fearful about what would come next. Third, people were truly invested in hoping that this new president of ours was smarter and more competent than they suspected he was. I didn't want to publish anything, for a week at least, that might extinguish that small flicker of hope. And finally, even if I had judged that a Bush joke was okay to use, I didn't think it was fair to do that to the entrants who had composed it before 9/11 and who might well want to disavow it in light of events." . Gene turned out to be wrong, I think, in declaring that "it won't be the same," that the rules of humor had changed permanently; the Bush-critical jokes were back in the Invite well before the end of the president's first term. But I see that a full nine months after 9/11, the results of a contest for "a haiku summarizing the career of an American politician" contained none about President Bush. Here are the results of the "make us laugh" contest, which includes only the gentlest teasing of Bush's language creativity: During the least funny week in anyone's memory, Page 2 of 4 Style Conversational Week 1089: If you can't laugh anymore, they win: Humor in the Sept. 11 era; The Empress looks back on the Style Invitational contest in the.... we asked you simply to make us laugh. No further instructions. Predictably, your 175 entries constituted the smallest response in the history of this contest. We empathize with all who chose to stay silent but salute all who did not: Your entries were wildly different but shared a certain thrilling pugnacity. Thanks for the laughs. All entries below win T-shirts. Winner of the Prince George's County Police Department bell is the last entry on the page. There is one huge problem with the guarantee of 70 virgins for each martyr in Paradise. What can one do with six dozen women? The guarantors eit her don't know Paradise or don't know women. (Howard Walderman, Columbia) If wives were meant to enjoy sex, God would've made husbands good at it. (Judith Cottrill, New York) Bad choice of tough language for the Taliban to use: "Oh yeah? You and what army?" (Russell Beland, Springfield) This is a real excerpt from the news shortly after the WTC and Pentagon were attacked. The interview took place at a blood donation site: "At times like this, people come together. We have come together here to give blood. Many people didn't know they had it in them." (Judy Freedman, Rockville) A tornado tore through the Gaithersburg Home Depot yesterday, leaving in its wake 12 newly fashioned houses, three toolsheds, a gazebo, and a new deck added onto a nearby home. (Paul Kondis, Alexandria) I keep waiting for our president to say something like: "We are not at war with Islam, and we certainly don't wish to offend the many good Muslim Americans. Our enemies are the terrorists and those nations that have become a Mecca for terrorist behavior." (Hang Xia- Ti, Arlington) As I write this, I am at work and not wearing pants! A clown has just thrown a pie in my face! Also, poopy­doody! (Stephen Dudzik, Olney) Okay, here's a trick. Think of a number between 1 and 10. Now multiply it by the number of decades you have been alive. Okay? Now subtract the day of the month you were born. Okay? Now picture J. Edgar Hoover in a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader costume. (Russell Beland, Springfield) The week before Russell wrote those jokes, his close colleague Bryan Jack was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon - into Jack's own workplace. I had hesitated to run this contest at all, because I was afraid that all the funny stuff would be unprintable. I finally relented, adding the explicit challenge that the humor couldn't be too sick. And then I realized that the results would be posted online on Sept. 11, and so I banned all 9/11 jokes as well. I wouldn't think Reader's Digest would want to share the inking humor in this week's results, but I hope the sicker entries have at least passed the "too soon" bar. Many of the entries aren't sick at all, but simply use the gift-shop construct as a vehicle for your typical Invite current-events jokes. (The one I was wavering on was Dave Airozo's Lincoln penny bank with the slot in the back of the head, but I'm hoping it's okay 149 years later.) That didn't mean, of course, that people didn't send some nohhhh-wayyyyys. A small sampling: At Monticello, a Sally Hemings inflatable doll (Thad Humphries), and and at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a Karen Carpenter de-flatable doll (Diane Wah). At the Clinton Library, a Monica Lewinsky gobblehead. (Tom Witte) From the gift shop at the maker of Thalidomide, commemorative Lego minifigures. (Kevin Dopart) But the jawest-dropper of the week was the suggestion of a new player, one Nathan Ainspan. Nathan suggested some U.S. Holocaust Museum oven mitts. This would have been just garden-variety unprintable except for Nathan's note: Page 3 of 4 Style Conversational Week 1089: If you can't laugh anymore, they win: Humor in the Sept. 11 era; The Empress looks back on the Style Invitational contest in the.... He used to work at the Holocaust Museum. Now that is sick. One entry that I'd chosen was rejected by The Post's managing editor, when it was brought to his attention, as "not in good taste." It's by Rob Huffman: "At the FedEx Field gift shop: Your choice of bobbleheads: Nappy Head, Polack, Hymie or Redskin." The thing is, we'd done essentially the same joke less than a year ago -showing equivalent slurs to make clear that the football team's name was one, too. Barry Koch's second-place bank-headline : Post headline: Metro to stay open late for Redskins Bank head: Honkies, coloreds file discrimination complaint That one received no reader complaints, even at the top of the page. But I decided not to make a big to-do; for one thing, this week's joke is pretty much the same idea as Barry's. And also, I'd just as soon not have the top editors worry over the rest of this week's ink as well. Lots of new or rarely appearing Losers this week, including at the top: Mike Duffy, who's relocated from Washington to Montana. Mike got his first Invite mention all the way back in Week 90, but is an ink-dabbler; this is his 16th blot and his first Inkin' Memorial. But! It's his fourth ink "above the fold" - a truly impressive ratio. Nancy Schwalb gets Ink No. 18 (and 19) and her third above the fold, along with the Titanic tchotchkes. And it's just the second blot of ink for Randy Arndt, who'd sent his entry as an actual picture of a didn't-vote sticker; and the fourth for Steven Steele Cawman, who's a regular on the Style Invitational Devotees page on Facebook. Randy and Steven get their choice of the Loser Mug or the Whole Fools Grossery Bag, provided they let me know by Tuesday morning. Otherwise, they get my choice. We're having two neologism contests three weeks apart why? Because I'm so jazzed about this contest idea, which was suggested by the Royal Consort here at Mount Vermin. Much like the contests we've based on ScrabbleGrams letter sets, Week 1089 should get a whole lot of entries, because it's so, so easy to find words, especially since the letters don't have to be in a straight line. (Finding interesting words, and writing clever definitions, might not be so easy.) And now that I've found out about the cool word find maker at puzzle­maker.com, I can easily make new grids for future contests. You simply feed a list of words into the entry field, one to a line, and the software instantly creates a grid with your specified number of rows and columns (if possible), filling in the rest of the spaces with random letters. Which words to use? For that, I consulted the Random Word Generator at wordgenerator.net: I clicked 15 times on "Generate random words" and fed the following into the word find maker: Amoneste. Enregister. Bunghole. Floriculture. Condensate. Itsy bitsy. Defensible. Mustachioed. Doricism. Polytechnica. Ectropium. Salic. Educability. Spreadeagle. So those should all be in there in straight lines. No prize for finding them -unless you dazzle the Empress with a hilarious definition for one or more of them, of course. (While forming the grid was delightfully easy, I was grateful for the assistance of Scion No. 2, the Little Princess, who agreeably offered, from her college dorm, to turn it into a graphic that included the number and letter coordinates and the circled neologisms.) There's a change of venue for the Sept. 21 Loser Brunch. It had been the annual outing to the Baltimore Museum of Art, but instead it will be in Montgomery County: It's at Founding Farmers, just off I-270 north of Montrose Road. See the details and RSVP to Elden Carnahan at the Loser webite, nrars.org. I have another engagement that morning, but should be able to make it to the October brunch Oct. 19 at the Front Page in Arlington's Ballston area. There are a number of new Losers on whom I have not cast my personal eyeballs; I hope that this situation will be rectified. pat.myers@washpost.com Page 4 of 4 Style Conversational Week 1089: If you can't laugh anymore, they win: Humor in the Sept. 11 era; The Empress looks back on the Style Invitational contest in the....