Style Conversational Week 1146: The Invite’s lode of magnets Some of the first Loser Magnets shown with one of our best prizes ever: a stained-glass magnet box crafted and donated by Loser Peyton Coyner in 2005. (Julia Ewan/The Washington Post) By Pat Myers Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email // Bio // Follow // October 22, 2015 Back in the Czarist Era, The Style Invitational’s first 10-plus years — which coincided with the Age of Newspapers With Big Circulations and Big Budgets — the prizes were bigger, too. (Mostly.) The Invitational debuted March 7, 1993, in a revamped Sunday Style section under a new section editor, Gene Weingarten. That same Sunday, Gene also instituted a weekly essay, “Noted With ...” — with a different noun each time. That first week, “Noted With Disdain” was by Gene himself, and was a rant against President Clinton’s Timex Ironman Triathlon, “a plastic digital watch, thick as a brick and handsome as a hernia.” (Here’s a link to it from another paper that printed it and still has it online.) That piece ran on Page F1. And on Page F2 was Week 1 of The Style Invitational, a contest to come up with a new name for the Washington Redskins. The grand prize? “An elegant Timex ‘Ironman Triathlon’ digital watch, valued at $39.” In Week 2, a contest for a new motto for Maryland, the prize was “a huge, tasteless Maryland crab-motif cheezy souvenir” valued at $50. And the inaugural runner-up prize was announced (though not yet shown)): “the coveted ‘Style Invitational’ loser’s T- shirt” — a prize that, in numerous models, would be sent to runners-up until just a few years ago, when I went to mugs and then also tote bags. Two weeks later, the Czar awarded five runner-up T-shirts, but nothing to the honorable mentions. In fact, it wasn’t until nine months later, Week 41, that the Czar announced a contest to create a Style Invitational bumper sticker for the HMs. Three weeks later “Shirt Happens” (by Elden Carnahan) and “How’s My Drivel? Fax 202-334-4312” (by Stephen Dudzik, using the fax phone number for entries) got to be the first of a long series of HM bumper stickers. They were clever, if often insidey (another was “F2 2U2”), but they had a few shortcomings as prizes: 1. They were ugly — plain black and white, with unattractive, amateurish type. 2. They were permanently stuck to whatever you stuck them to. And so, surely also because of (1), nobody ever seemed to use them. 3. They were remarkably expensive for such crappy-looking prizes. Not only did the Czar’s flunky (those were the days) order them for close to $1 apiece, but they also were too long to fit flat in a standard envelope, which meant that The Post was paying something like triple the regular postage. Get inside the noodle of Loser (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.) in the Meet the Parentheses section of the Conversational. (Dave wore this to the 2013 Flushies and later donated it as a prize.) (Nan Reiner) And so, as the Empress-in-Waiting was getting ready to depose the Czar in late 2003, the Style section office manager trooped us both into a meeting and said: We need to stop sending out those bumper stickers. Which turned out to be win-win-win-win: Since Jan, 18, 2004, we’ve been issuing two new magnets (with the occasional reprint) every nine months to a year — all of them colorful, masterly artworks by Bob Staake, and all featuring Loser-supplied slogans. They’re easy to mail, they don’t take up much room, they’re portable, they will usually stick to your car for a while before fading or falling off, and they run us about 21 cents apiece. Meanwhile, if you’d like to have one of the vintage bumper stickers, just come to a monthly Loser brunch , where Pie Snelson will give you one of the hundreds that Elden Carnahan amassed during the Czarist Era, and regifted along with his Loser T-shirts (one of which an Inkin’ Memorial winner or runner-up may request in lieu of the usual prize). So now in Week 1146 , it’s time for two new Loser magnets; as usual, I’ll order 500 of each design that Bob makes (I’ll also be seeking his view on which ideas will work best). Below are the ones we’ve done so far; click on each link to see what it looks like. Often they came not from magnet-slogan contests, but from also-rans for the Loser Mug or Grossery Bag. Wouldn’t they make a great poster, all together? 2004: The Style Invitational Makes Me Gag (Dave Zarrow) The Pen Is Mightier Than the Mind (Josh Borken, repeated for 2005-06 and also 2008-09) 2005: Surely I Jested (Marty McCullen, repeated for 2005-06 and 2008-09) I Empressed (Cecil Clark) 2006-07: Near-Do-Well (Howard Walderman) I’m Ink-competent (Dave Zarrow) 2007-08: It’s a Dishonor Just Being Nominated (Bruce Carlson) Aging Quippie (Tom Witte) 2009-10: Honor Among Dweebs (Lee Dobbins) Certifiably Inane (Edward Gordon) 2010-11: Putting the Rude in Erudition (Craig Dykstra) Mirth Certificate (Kevin Dopart) 2011-12: Sunday Drivel (Tom Witte) Middle-Wit Champion (Tom Witte) 2012-13: Not(e)worthy (Bruce Carlson) Discredit Card (Beverley Sharp) 2013-14: Po’ Wit Laureate (Roger Hammons) Puns of Steel (Jennifer Hart) 2014-15: The Wit Hit the Fan (Jon Hamblin, Bird Waring) Hardly Har-Har (Barbara Turner) As I noted in this week’s Invite, I still have a few weeks’ worth of the current magnets, which (unless it’s your slogan that ends up on the new magnet) I’ll mail to you until I run out of them — unless you e-mail me with a request by the Monday after the results are announced. *Speaking of alternative prizes: * The Post will be moving in December to new offices a few blocks away in downtown Washington, and I’ve been told that there won’t be any room to keep prizes there. So I’m slowly cleaning out the Invite Prize Closet and bringing home boxes of stuff to sort through. And I’m finding a lot of little items that are fun or at least nutty but don’t really merit being second prizes — a number of books, plus various small novelty items. If, in lieu of the prize you win in a certain week (say, if you already have a dozen of the same magnet), you would rather choose *something from the Mystery Grab Bag * — you don’t get to choose, and I won’t put much thought into it either — e-mail me with your request by the Monday after the results are announced. *Twicky tweets: The results of Week 1142* Week 1142 — the contest to write a tweet penned by your creation of a hybrid of two people — seemed like a novel idea. But as soon as I started judging, a lot of the entries sounded awfully familiar. And that’s because we’ve run /several / “Before and After” and portmanteau contests that asked you to combine two names, and then quote the resulting person. I started to comb through the results linked to in Elden Carnahan’s Master Contest List , and discovered that not only had we given ink to Marion Barry Bonds saying “The pitch set me up,” (Dave Zarrow, Chris Doyle, 2003), but we had also given ink to Marion Barry Bonds saying “Pitcher set me up!” (Mike Gips, 2012). And in Week 287 (1998), Pollyanna Karenina was described as “someone so annoyingly cheerful it makes you want to throw yourself under a train (Susan Reese). In Week 489 (2003), Pollyanna Karenina “cheerfully threw herself under a train” (Jennifer Hart). And then, in a literature mashup contest, this won first runner-up: Pollyanna Karenina: “Oh, my — isn’t that the most beautiful train?” (Brendan Beary, 2005) If there are let’s-call-them encore jokes among this week’s inking entries, oh, well. They slipped through. Gary Crockett’s “OrangeJulius” gives him his ninth first-place win and 30th “above the fold,” to add to his 250-plus blots of ink. And while the instructions said to “combine two well-known names,” I really didn’t hesitate to bend the rules a millimeter in favor of the week’s cleverest, particularly timely idea. Gary’s entry was also the favorite this week of ace copy editor Doug Norwood. John Glenn’s runner-up was my favorite of several “Trumpelstiltskins” (for the Invite’s sake, do I want this guy to win the GOP nomination?). @JFKanye earns only the third blot of ink for Lela Martin — but it’s her second runner-up entry: She was also a runner-up in Week 1031 for the “air quote” contest: “M‘ale’: What’s inside a guy after a night of too much drinking; fe‘male’: What’s inside a girl after a night of too much drinking. (That entry drew a complaint from a woman accusing me of being a victim-blamer and rape-condoner. ) *Laugh out of Courtney: * Copy chief Courtney Rukan loved David Friedman’s “Swedish Chefferson” (“but I’m a Muppets fiend”). She also especially liked John Glenn’s “Trumpelstiltskin,” Warren Tanabe’s “RonaldonaldReagantrump,” Gary Crockett’s “JackLordByron” and Duncan Stevens’s “GeorgeR.R.MartinLutherKing.” *Blue Bird: * This week’s cleverest unprintable tweet was by Chris Doyle: @MarcAntonyWeiner: The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their boners. *MEET THE PARENTHESES: (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.)* Although once in a job interview, the secretary announced to her boss that “Mr. Pervert is here to see you,” Dave prounounces his name PRE-var. Dave’s 269 inks — all but one from the Empressive Era — place him at No. 24 all time, but local Losers know him best as one of the organizers of the annual Flushies award “banquet,” where he often steals the musical segment of the event with his phenomenal playing on cowbell, clapper and, once, triangle. Here are Dave’s responses to some questionnaire items, including some he added: *What is your official Loser Anagram? *Pravda Diver is better than some other names I have been called. *What do people who’ve never heard of the Invite (and some who have) know you as?* I consider myself a native Marylander, because it was just a car ride to Washington, D.C. to be hatched. I officially retired this year after nearly 44 years of being a Fed, and I am on two Volunteer Service Agreements with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. My first government job was as a “climbing ranger” for a summer at Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyoming, and my career continued in ups and downs until I became a biologist at the National Institutes of Health. Eventually I changed gears to the NIH Division of Safety, then USDA, where I became a manager to keep researchers and the environment healthy. *What did your dogs know you as?* Alpha Dog. *What brought you to Loserdom?* I noticed the SI around 1999 after exploring more of the paper beyond the comics. I was over-analyzing the rules and my entries (thanks to being science-oriented all my life) before loosening up at the end of 2003 about the time the Empress ascended to the throne. The SI became stress relief. *Name three of your favorite entries.* One of them is a favorite because I usually don’t get ink in poetry contestst. /From Week 935 poems about disasters: /High life for Romans! Pompeii was for living! None heeded omens of blast unforgiving, Years after quaking, Vesuvius building, Growing and waking to smother the gilding. Heat would benumb this, the masses were punished; Pummeled with pumice, Pompeiians were none-ished. /Week 784: bad endings for a novel: / He had been in a long, slow denouement. He rocked rhythmically on the porch, at once hesitant to turn the next page of his life, yet resolved to face his fate. With a deep sigh and exhalation, he turned the page. The page was blank. The third was picked up by the “Car Talk” guys for their radio show. A friend in Florida told me she heard my name and the joke while driving, and had to pull over, laughing. /Week 685, things to be thankful for:/ That dogs don’t know everyone else hates you. *What’s something you do or have done that confirms your Loserosity?* I re-created the now-extinct Inker statue winner prize on my refrigerator, using only Loser magnets and a small paper bag resembling the tiny one that went over the Thinker’s head. Other Losers, I’m waiting to hear from you.