Style Conversational Week 1148: Does counting to 31 make you do this?
The Empress ruminates all over the new Style Invitational contest
and results
Year 22 Rookie of the Year (Todd DeLap, Fairfax, Va.) aims to mortify
his school-age children. Todd spills a little about his Loser self in
our Meet the Parentheses section below. (Family photo)
By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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November 5, 2015
Next June I’ll be participating in a workshop at the West Chester Poetry
Conference (near Philadelphia) on light verse and song parodies. The
sessions will be led by two award-winning poets who are also
“award”-winning Style Invitational Losers -- Melissa Balmain
and Frank
Osen
—
while I chime in with Great Imperial Wisdom about What Works.
Perhaps we’ll be using some of the winning TankaWanka from Week 1148.
And from our inaugural TW contest a year ago,
Week 1095
.
Last year’s winner, it turns out, sadly, could have been pulled from
this month’s headlines as well, as the SXSW expo in Austin recently
canceled two panels on harassment in the gaming world because of threats
of violence:
Gamer dweebs all say
Girls are not supposed to play.
Hey, guys: Get a clue.
We have learned what we can do
With our joysticks, without you. (Nan Reiner)
For that matter, the second- and third-place entries — oh, goodness,
they’re by Melissa Balmain and Frank Osen, respectively — are almost as
timely as well (except, thank heavens, for the ebola epidemic):
Midterm votes are done:
Optimism’s fading fast
That the folks who won
Somehow will — unlike the last —
See that more than gas gets passed. (Melissa Balmain)
Runners-up can now choose the newly unearthed First Edition Loser Mug,
instead of the current mug or the Grossery Bag. (Design by Bob Staake;
slogan suggested by both Chris Doyle and Beverley Sharp )
Sunni on Shia,
Russian troops in Crimea,
Ebola, ISIS,
Worldwide crisis and drama —
As per Fox: Thanks, Obama! (Frank Osen)
Only Perry Beider’s fourth-place TankaWanka, about Renee Zellweger’s
plastic surgery, refers to news that’s already become trivia.
Note that the TW form absolutely demands 31 syllables spread exactly
5-7-5-7-7 over five lines, and demands one rhyme. However, the Empress
is a wee bit flexible on what constitutes a single syllable: “hour,” for
example, could be one syllable or two. And note that — and I’m sure this
wasn’t conscious on my part; I’m just seeing it now — Nan’s, Melissa’s
and Frank’s poems each had /multiple/ rhymes: Nan’s scheme was AA-BBB,
Frank’s AA-B-CC, and Melissa’s an even niftier A-B-A-BB. On the other
hand, I did realize that I was favoring TWs that ended in a rhyming
couplet; only three of that week’s inking entries didn’t have what
functions as a two-line punchline.
An artfully constructed poem won’t get ink if it’s not witty in its
language and point as well. But when I’m trying to choose between two
witty, funny sentiments, craft is often the deciding factor.
A note about this week’s example: I tend to greatly favor natural syntax
over convoluted “poetic” word order. But I thought that Gene
Weingarten’s Line 4 was spoofing such awkwardness with “It should right
out at you jump!” And it was a single line amid four straightforward
ones. In general, though, try for lines that sound like real English.
*RAISIN’ BRANDS: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1144*
Given that people were already coming up with good entries for this
contest while they were working on its progenitor, Week 1140
—
repurposing a brand name in an /unfortunate /way — I was sure we’d have
plenty of inkworthy entries. This week we ended up with more than 40
blots of ink spread out among almost three dozen Losers — we’ll be
draining the rest of the current magnet supply pretty quickly (see the
section below for alternatives). Once again, there was a little gray
area about what constituted a better use for a name; calling the GOP
undercard debate The Who isn’t exactly flattering. But I didn’t use such
clever entries as Duncan Stevens’s for a Thayer speech therapy clinic;
that’s a deliciously /bad /name for a speech therapy clinic.
The three Bob Staake Loser Mug designs are all very nice, but only Todd
DeLap, of the 51 blots of ink but no 3rd- or 4th-place finishes, gets
this one, custom-painted for Dad by 10-year-old Juliet. ( Photo by Todd
DeLap / )
I also didn’t use entries in which the sound was significantly different
from the original. I didn’t give ink, for example, to Tostitos bedroom
slippers (as in “toasty toes”), though I did for Fritos sandals (Ami
Greenberg).
Among the most frequently recommended repurposings: Jiffy-Pop for a
sperm bank, and The Washington Post for the Washington Monument.
And whoever began an entry “Kum ’n’ Go is a good name for a convenience
store . . .” Oh, no it isn’t. It’s not a good name for anything.
(Anyway, too obvious for Invite ink.)
It’s the second Inkin’ Memorial win for Frank Mann, but only the second
ink ever for Janice Haas, who earned a runner-up prize as well as her
Firstink air “freshener” in Week 972 to compare two items on a list: “
‘Desperate Housewives’ has a cast of many good-looking, complicated,
disturbed, egotistical characters who cheat, lie and cover up lies. John
Edwards: Cast of one.” I’d love to see a lot more from Janice. John
McCooey gets his third ink “above the fold” with his
makes-you-think-a-second Fanta entry, and a double credit for fourth
place gives a bag or mug to both ATF fixture Larry Gray (10 trips to the
Losers’ Circle) and ATF rookie Laurie Morrison.
*Laugh Out of Courtney:* “Pop Rocks rocks!” enthuses Post copy chief
Courtney Rukan of Janice Haas’s slogan for the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Courtney also singles (doubles, triples, etc.) out The Who for the GOP
undercard (Steve Glomb), Cialis for the looking glass (Mark Raffman),
AMF for your ex (Pie Snelson), FedEx for Ben Bernanke’s memoir (Jaclyn
Yamada), Citgo for a dog trainer (Dave Komornik), Southern Comfort
hemorrhoid cream (John O’Byrne); the “fabulous kicker” of Lowenbrau for
the Invite; and one that “made me spit out my water. Didn’t quite expect
that”: Chris Doyle’s Oral-B porn movie rating.
/The Unprintables: /The energy drink Beaver Buzz drew many predictable
entries, as did the candy bar Butterfingers. But my favorite was this
clever one from Paul Kocak: Bona is a great name for a hardwood floor
cleaner but an even better name for a human hardwood provider. Also
Nunn-Bush (shoes) for a Brazilian wax parlor, from Larry Gray.
*LOSERS CAN BE CHOOSERS: VINTAGE PRIZES REEMERGE!*
Just a week or so ago, 150-time Loser Howard Walderman, in a sorry fit
of decluttering, mailed the Empress a stack of some 60 assorted Loser
Magnets for honorable mentions, all the ones for which he had
duplicates, dating back to the earliest models. And several Latter-Day
Losers have requested a Vintage Waldermagnet in lieu of yet another Wit
Hit the Fan or Hardly Har-Har — or even a runner-up prize. (Check out
the Week 1146 Style Conversational
to see all the magnets.) If you’d like one of these instead of your
designated ink, e-mail me before next Tuesday and I’ll see what’s left.
But then came the real stunner.
I share the Invite Prize Closet with Style Section Staff Intellectual
Phil Kennicott, who was clearing out his many stacks of books this past
Tuesday in preparation for our office’s move next month; I had the
bottom shelf and the floor; he had all the other shelves, which went up
to the ceiling. And late in the afternoon, he came over to my desk to
tell me what he’d just found: two full cartons of our first Loser Mugs —
I think about 50 mugs in all. We had ordered four cartons of “This Is
Your Brain on Mugs”
in 2009 to replenish the 2007 original shipment, but two of the cartons
had gone missing. Two years after that, as we finally used up the
remaining two boxes, we issued a new model, “My Cup Punneth Over.,”
and in early 2014, the current LOVE/Loser
version.
So we have yet another options for winners and runners-up: This is a BIG
15-ounce mug, designed by Bob Staake, and the slogan suggested by both
Chris Doyle and Beverley Sharp. If you finish “above the fold” and want
one of these babies, let me know before next Tuesday.
*WHEN THE GOING GETS TROUGH: LOSER BRUNCH, NOV. 15*
I’m planning to go the Loser Brunch at noon on Sunday, Nov.
15/[corrected from Nov. 14 earlier],/ at The Front Page in downtown
Arlington, Va., and as always, I’m eager to meet new Losers or Just Fans
as well as to oh-it’s-you with the regulars, in between my multiple
trips to the buffet. Regular brunch coordinator Elden Carnahan will be
overseas, so e-mail me if you’d like to come, and I’ll tell Other
Coordinator Pie Snelson.
*MEET THE PARENTHESES: (Todd DeLap, Fairfax, Va.)*
/Todd made his debut in Week 1039, almost exactly two years ago, when we
asked people to write things using only the words in the “To be, or not
to be” soliloquy; in the midst of the government shutdown, he offered “A
resolution for the law’s delay is all we wished. But no. So fly not to
the office. — J. Boehner.” Then the hits kept coming, and Todd finally
showed up at his first Loser event, last year’s Flushies awards, to get
plaqued as Rookie of the Year. /
/Just this past week, Todd wrote me to offer a computer program he wrote
to check the validity of the word-search neologisms ofWeek 1147
— to make sure the letters in the entries
were traceable on the grid. Oh boy, am I going to take him up on that.
(Can’t promise him ink, though.) /
/Todd responded below — with some alterations — to a general template I
posted. Meanwhile, the Loser Community awaits the next subject. If
you’re one of the Top 25 in the current Loser standings
or one of theall-time top 100
, e-mail me with a bio that answers
the questions below or questions of your own. Or you can choose another
format. /
*Age:* 48 (physical), 14 (humorical)
*Where you live: * The D.C. suburb of Fairfax, Va., but I grew up in
Central Florida so, technically, I’m “Florida Man”! (Which is usually
thought of as something like this
, but I always think it should be
said like this .)
*Your official Loser anagram plus any alternatives:* I’m officially
“Added Plot” but I always thought of myself as more an “Addled Top”. But
now that you’ve made me think about this, I’m going to request a change
to “Do Pelt Dad.”
*What do people who’ve never heard of the Invite know you as? * Husband,
Father, Professional Computer Geek, Duke Basketball Fan, Juggler,
Science Fiction Geek, Cub Scout Leader, Computer Gamer,
Geek-of-all-Trades. I am regularly silly and make excessive use of
voices and accents. I am an inveterate whistler. I yell “ly!” at the TV
when people should have used an adverb. I put two spaces after a period.
I am the Man of a Thousand Dad-Jokes (“Why do baby ducks walk softly?
Because baby ducks can’t walk, hardly!”).
*How much ink do you have; how long have you been playing?* I’m at 50
inks and holding (unless this was an exceptionally good week, in which
case, 51 inks) in just over 100 weeks. I should make the Hall of Fame in
just another 18 years. Meanwhile, I still haven’t won a Loser Mug, which
made my 10-year-old daughter, Juliet, feel so sorry for me that she took
mattersinto her own hands
.
*What are your hopes and dreams regarding the Invite?* To get a “Star
Wars”-themed gag printed. Thus far, my record is Redskins-esque.
*What brought you to Loserdom? * My wife and I used to read the Invite
together on Sunday mornings, back before the kids killed the whole “cup
of cocoa and peruse the paper” thing. She even got ink (on her /only/
attempt) in Week 532, four-word movie reviews (“Never Cry Wolf”: Nunavut
is worth seeing.) About 500 weeks later, I was looking for an
intellectual activity to keep my brain occupied during my commute.
Nothing good presented, so I went with the Invite. Now it’s become a
family affair with my son getting his FirStink in Week 1140.
*What are two favorite entries you’d like to share?*
Week 1077 (Tom Swifties): “Everyone would agree that I am very tall,
correct?” the North Korean leader stated unambiguously.
Week 1093 (Business Tactics for Squeezing Customers): At the Golden Jade
Dragon Restaurant, the first chopstick is free. (It took me over a dozen
tries to find a realistic sounding Chinese restaurant name that Google
couldn’t find.)
Also, there was one from Week 1095, the TankaWanka contest, that didn’t
get ink because the poems were supposed to be about something in the
news. (But the Empress did note it in the Conversational.):
Kirk and Spock agree:
There’s no reason to quibble
About what they want
Because they’re all about that
Space, ’bout that space. No tribble.
*What’s an example of something you do that confirms your Loserosity?*
Large computer databases can be divided into “shards.” I keep calling
them “sharts.” This has led to statements like “We can really improve
our throughput if we increase the shart-count” and “We’re going to keep
that shart in memory.” So far, nobody has admitted to noticing.
/Sheez, the guy really IS a geek./