Style Conversational Week 1106: A sampling of Invitational Hebdo*; The Invite's Muhammad jokes have been about not making Muhammad jokes Washington Post Blogs January 8, 2015 Thursday 7:41 PM EST Copyright 2015 The Washington Post All Rights Reserved Length: 951 words Byline: Pat Myers Body Well. Not a great week for the Satirical Publication world. If you hadn't had a chance to, read the superb reactions written yesterday by Joe Randazzo, the former editor of the Onion (here), and the Onion itself (here) -the American publication for which the attack must have hit closest to home. The Onion, from what I can tell, shows more far maturity and taste than Charlie Hebdo, but it nevertheless has a proud history of pointing up the unpleasant ironies and ridiculous logic of whoever voices them, and some of those people aren't known for reacting very rationally. Perhaps the most shocking thing the Onion ever printed was this cartoon about cartoon censorship. It was surely offensive to practitioners of several religions, its point was: Yes, of course it's offensive and tasteless. But we believe that your response will be to perhaps complain about it, perhaps just turn the page. Not this. Over here in Invite land, we're just not brave enough to make the point so graphically. Our idea of courage is seeing if we can get "ass" past The Post's taste police when it fits into a limerick. In general, I steer clear of jokes that mock specific religions. I'm not a religious person myself, in the theological sense (I'm Jewish in the ethnic sense and I'm active at my synagogue) but I think it's unfair to make fun of what might seem silly or weird dogma or rituals; for one thing, all religions have them. I won't run jokes about "Mormon underwear," for example. And I do regret using the Book of Genesis as a word bank from which I invited people to pluck words and string them together into humorous sentences -even though the results were a hoot; many people view the Bible as a sacred text, and there are other lofty texts I could have just as easily used as penis joke fodder. On the other hand, the Invitational has, several times over the years, joked about the danger of retribution for creating an image of Muhammad. Here are some: Week 648, 2006, in which we asked for silly questions to ask customer service representatives on their phone "hotlines": Third place: To Blue Cross: "After a night of heavy drinking, I woke up to find an image of Muhammad tattooed on my chest. Do you think you might cover tattoo removal in this one case? It might be a pretty big health issue for me if I don't do something." (Fred Dawson) Week 651, 2006, in which we asked you to add another character to a book or movie and describe the resultant plot: Second place: "Harold and the Purple Koran": Harold uses his crayon to show kids the acceptable way of sketching Muhammad: Just draw his house and say he's inside. (Kevin Dopart) about not making Muhammad jokes Week 865, 2010, Googlenopes -phrases that had had no Google hits: "Muhammad Halloween masks" (Kevin Dopart) Week 988, 2012, add excitement to a sport or game: Pictionary: The Muhammad card. (Danny Bravman) *Actually, "Hebdo" just means "Weekly"; it's an informal truncation of "hebdomadaire," as in hepto-, as in seven. This week's contest is awfully straightforward, I think. And the Week 1102 results, as I mentioned, didn't bear as much fruit as I'd expected, but the fruit that's there is tasty enough, especially if you listen to the radio a lot, as I do. And I was happy to be able to add a few more entries from my short-list from Week 1101. Whoa, it's the 10th win for Pam Sweeney (official Loser Anagram: Weepy Mensa)! And Ink 246 in all for the biotech engineer from Boston (and formerly based here) who's been Inviting since back in the Czarist era. The "Dull Men of Great Britain" calendar goes -much earlier in the year than some of the calendars we've given away -to Warren Tanabe, who got his first ink in 2007 but only recently has become a regular Loser. Warren is up to his 25th blot of ink, and his second "above the fold." A mug or bag is headed for Heather Spence, who popped up at a Loser brunch a year or two ago when visiting from New York. Heather's 12 inks, including two runners-up, outscore by 11 her father, Brent Spence, who corrupted his daughter's mind at an early age by introducing her to the Invite. Karma, Brent. And I combined parts of Jeff Contompasis's and Lawrence McGuire's jokes about playing songs backward to give them yet more runner-up swag; they have a total of 60 inks above the fold, and more than 600 total, almost all of it in the last five or six years. We're currently at 55 Losers, Style Invitational Devotees and their support staff, parole officers, etc. -but fortunately there's plenty of room at the Centreville, Va., dreamhouse of Craig and Valerie Dykstra, who are hosting this year's Loser Post-Holiday Party, Saturday, Jan. 10, 7-10 p.m. And I'm tickled to announce that 43-time Loser Steve Honley -a church musician when he's not the editor of a foreign-service magazine -has volunteered to play the piano to accompany Loserbards Nan Reiner and Mark Raffman, who'll be performing song parodies they wrote just for the occasion. It's a potluck, but you don't have to bring very much food or drink: We don't need 55 giant platters for 55 people. If you haven't RSVP'd that you'd like to come, please write me at pat.myers@washpost.com and I'll give you the details. I'm especially eager to meet people who've never been to a Loser event, but I also hope to catch up with the longtime Losers as well. Also: Door prizes. And party favors: Get a genuine vintage Czarist-era honorable-mention bumper sticker just for showing up with your clam dip or whatever. See you then! I'll be the one with the skunk on her head.