Style Conversational Week 1209: We stick it to you once again
On the way: 1,000 brand-new Loser Magnets. How many will be yours?
A Post parade of also-rans: The Style Invitational Loser Magnets
Since 2004, The Style Invitational has awarded business-card-size
magnets to honorable-mention winners. Each year, we have 500 copies made
of each Bob Staake design, so it really is getting a limited-edition
Staake print when you get ink.
Caption
All 24 of Bob Staake’s designs for our honorable-mention prizes
Josh Borken’s slogan on one of the first pair of Loser magnets, when
the Empress took over at the end of 2003. This design was reused in both
2005-06 and 2009.
Design by Bob Staake for The Washington Post
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By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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January 5, 2017
I’m always excited to introduce our new pair of Style Invitational Loser
magnets each year, as we do in this week’s contest.
Actually, our supply of 500 of each magnet
stretched this past year into January — but JUST into January: I mailed
out the last of the “Falling Jest Short” design yesterday — in fact, I
forgot to save one for the archive! — and have only two or three of the
“Magna Dum Laude” model left.
For several years now I haven’t run a new contest for magnet slogans;
instead, I’ve used runner-up and honorable-mention entries from our
numerous contests over the years for not just magnets, but also
T-shirts, Loser mugs and Grossery Bags. (I don’t think I’ve used any
bumper sticker ideas from back in the Czarist era.)
One slogan I considered this time around was one by Drew Bennett, “Me
Write Pretty One Day.” But I was concerned that the allusion to the 2000
David Sedaris bestseller
wouldn’t be as
obvious in 2017; sure enough, when I polled the Style Invitational
Devotees group — a generally overeducated bunch
— on Facebook this week, a number of people had no clue. I don’t want
the Loser magnet to puzzle anyone who might win it.
The two new designs are now in production by the promo-stuff company run
by Julianne Weiner, who happens to be an Invite fan, and she expects to
deliver them by the end of next week. So, magnet winners of Week 1205,
you’ll have to wait a few days more than usual — unless you’d like one
of the classic designs shown above in the photo gallery: I have a few
extra copies of many (but not all) of the old models. If you got ink in
Week 1205 and want an vintage magnet, e-mail me with your preference
(and perhaps second and third choices). And ahem, I think I have to
trade with someone to get one or two “Falling Jest Short” magnets back.
*A NEW LEASE ON LAUGH*: PART 1 OF THE 2016 RETROSPECTIVE CONTEST *
/*A non-inking (too long for print) headline idea by Jesse Frankovich /
It’s like judging 50 contests at once! Actually, I think it’s probably
more fun to see entries for dozens of different contests rather than
thousand upon thousand for a single type of joke. And I’m even eager to
do it all over again this weekend for Week 1206; for the first time
ever, I ran the same contest for two successive weeks, with two sets of
winners. (I haven’t started judging it, but I did notice when compiling
the entries that some Losers sent the same entries in both weeks.)
I wasn’t surprised at all that not many people, and almost no brand-new
people, entered Week 1205; having to look up 50 previous contests is a
challenge that will appeal disproportionately to Loser Obsessives. On
the other hand, a lot of the submissions contained the maximum 25
entries. Some people did 25 entries to a single contest; others spread
them out.thinly I believe that only one contest didn’t get any entries:
the week where we showed drawings of everyday objects (e.g., an electric
plug) and say what they “really” were; good call, since it would have
been difficult to run a picture.
As in past years, entries that referred to more recent events got a lot
of ink, including Mark Raffman’s runner-up “Rahputin.” But I think I’m
presenting a wide variety of humor this week, including the
Invite-signature poop-joke-with-a-current-reference that won the Inkin’
Memorial.
Holy moly, what did William Kennard put in his Alpha-Bits four weeks
ago? While William enters the Invite regularly and had blotted up 37
inks as of last week, he’d never won, or even placed “above the fold.”
This week he scores three honorable mentions in addition to the
Bobble-Linc, and had even more entries on my shortlist. Maybe he’d like
me to present his trophy to him at the Loser Post-Holiday Party on Jan.
14? (Evite here ; yes, even you are invited.)
And while runners-up Jeff Contompasis and Mark Raffman can’t stay out of
the Losers’ Circle, it’s the second trip, and just eighth ink overall,
for Michael Rolfe of the Cape Town, South Africa, Loser Bureau.
Fortunately, a tote bag isn’t likely to shatter in transit as it’s
paddled across the Atlantic in a canoe.
*What Doug Dug: * The faves this week of ace copy editor Doug Norwood:
“I really liked Fantastic Boasts [Matt Monitto]. Also Forrest Gum [Chris
Doyle], FiddlerOnTheRoofie [also Chris], What Ever Happened to Baby.
Jane? [Roy Ashley] Umami [Doyle yet again] made me laugh but I worried
that it might offend Asian Americans. [Nah; it has nothing to do with
Asians at all. What I loved about it was that in addition to the
giggle-prompting turning of “umami” into a Your Mama joke, Chris also
worked in a play on “taste,” which is what /umami/ is all about.]
Oh no, you sent an entry for Week 1206 that’s almost identical to one
that got ink in Week 1205? Aww, dang. Well, I’ll tell you what: How
about if ... nah, tough luck. Welcome to Loserdom.
*JUST FAKE IT: A NEW FICTOID CONTEST*
A couple of weeks ago I asked the Loser Community for ideas for some
more false-fact contest ideas — don’t say we don’t do our part to fit in
with the New Washington — and Melissa Balmain’s suggestion had the
funniest examples. I only feel bad that Bob Staake didn’t get to depict
the cotton candy seller inspired to invent the toilet paper roll. As
always, most of the entries will likely sound for a moment a wee bit
plausible, like a page from a trivia book, until the mind clicks into
gear. (But something totally ridiculous and funny from the get-go may
well prove me wrong.)
Okay, on to Week 1206 — and this time, I won’t have to look up all the
contests to figure out the entries.