Style Conversational Week 1272: DO NOT CONGRATULATE The Style Invitational discusses this week’s curse contest and media fictoid results. Bob Staake's sketch for another of today's sample curses: May your cookie always be slightly too large to fit inside your glass of milk. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post) By Pat Myers close Image without a caption Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email Email Bio Bio Follow Follow March 22, 2018 at 1:46 p.m. EDT This week’s contest for curses, Week 1272, was probably suggested by readers numerous times in the past 15 years, only to be rebuffed with the Empress’s haughty “We did that contest. Twice.” But there’s gold in them thar archives, and I’ve realized that even contests with a long set of great answers might well yield yet another long set of great answers, especially when they can play on current events. So when Style Invitational Devotee Kathy Hughes recently shared a set of 18 cards , each featuring a modern curse, posted on Facebook by the Toronto comedy duo Thunder Dungeon (or “ ‘Roy and Phil’ is fine,” one or the other of them told me), I figured we could give it another go. I was especially encouraged when I took a look back at Weeks 75 (1994) and 464 (2002) and saw all the topical references; the second contest asked for them explicitly. They were both from the Czar, before I deposed him in December 2003. Here they are, with an annotations to a few of the references. *Week 75, Sept. 11, 1994: * “You should grow like an onion, with your head in the ground.” “May you lose all your teeth except one, so you can still get a toothache.” “May you become famous, so famous they name a fatal disease after you.” “You should live like a chandelier, hanging by day and burning by night.” ** This week’s contest was prompted by the fact that Yiddish, the language of this Czar’s sainted grandma, is a dying tongue. With it will disappear some of the most colorful curses ever devised, such as all those above. We must not let this happen. Your challenge: Come up with modern maledictions in the wise and entertaining Yiddish tradition. Printable ones only, please. /And the results: / Report from Week 75, in which we asked you to come up with colorful curses in the great Yiddish tradition. /Fourth Runner-Up:/ May your hair never turn gray, so everyone thinks you dye it. (Stephen Mather, College Park) /Third Runner-Up:/ May you be caught shoplifting by a security camera, which adds 10 pounds to you in court. (Sue Lin Chong, Washington) /Second Runner-Up:/ May the ladies on 14th Street call out your name as you drive by with your wife. And may your wife call back to them by theirs. (Paul A. Alter, Hyattsville) /First Runner-Up: /May you be a contestant on “Jeopardy!” playing against my 7-year-old son and the only categories are Power Rangers, X-Men and fart noises. (Jean Sorensen, Herndon) /And the Winner of the dorky Star Trek Pen:/ May your children be so clever they are acquitted of murdering you. (Joseph Romm, Washington) [This was an allusion to brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who murdered their super-rich parents in 1989 and then spent their money lavishly before becoming suspects. In January 1994 — a few months before this contest — the trials for both brothers ended in hung juries. It wasn’t till 1996 that the brothers were convicted in a retrial and given life sentences.] /Honorable Mentions:/ May your final sight be buzzards fighting over your best parts. (Chuck Hawkins, Oakton) May your yeast infection grow so large it will yield enough bread to feed all the starving of the world. (Erica Hughes, McLean) May your teenage daughter’s grades show radical improvement, but only in the classes in which she has a male teacher. (Earl Gilbert, La Plata) May you be 72 hours away from being executed for a murder you didn’t commit when the real killer confesses to authorities in a letter he mails from the District of Columbia. (Bernie Harris, Woodbridge) [I’m not going to research this, but it sounds like an allusion to some news item about bad D.C. postal service.] May your ex-spouse’s new lover work for the IRS. (Starr Mayer, Hayes, Va.) May you own a mansion with 10 bedrooms, and on each bed may there lounge an unemployed son watching MTV. (John Cushing, Washington) May your toenails grow into your shoes. (David L. Howison, Lexington, Va.) May your rock album be declared obscene and create a vast parental outcry across America, and still not sell. (Paul Kondis, Alexandria) May you fall on your tuchus into a vat of Rogaine. (Janet Millenson, Potomac) May you be so handsome your cell mates fight over you. (Joseph Romm, Washington) May you die in a fiery crash with Jim Carrey and entry into Heaven depends on who can make the best faces. (Jean Sorensen, Herndon) May you become wealthy when your wife writes a bestseller. May it be titled: “Size Isn’t Everything: The Unlucky Married Woman’s Guide to Somehow Finding Satisfaction.” (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase) May you get a call from Blockbuster because you returned a tape of you and your spouse instead of “The Firm.” (Steve Kent, Crofton) May your life be like a fairy tale. May you be eaten by a wolf. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase) May you become a poster child for Spontaneous Human Combustion. (J. Calvin Smith, Laurel) May you grow old gracefully, just like Howard Metzenbaum. (Jessie Gietl, Washington) [I’m not sure why the Ohio liberal, then in his 20th year in the Senate (and retiring), was singled out for ungraceful aging in 1994; he looks like an okay 74-year-old to me. Explanations welcome.] May the O.J. Simpson verdict come in at the moment your news conference is scheduled. (Karen Lubienicki, Laurel) You should live to be 120 years old. Beginning in 1875. (Bernie Harris, Woodbridge) May you see the dawning of an era of peace in which all men and women, of every nation, race and creed, come together, united by their hatred of you. (Jacob Weinstein, McLean) May you become a serial killer, hoping for a cool nickname like “Zodiac Killer” or “Midnight Maniac,” but instead be labeled something stupid like “The Noogie Murderer.” (Kevin Cuddihy, Fairfax) May you be so beautiful and famous that Michael Jackson marries you just to prove he isn’t an antisocial virgin or pervert-pedophile. (Joseph Romm, Washington) [Jackson had married Lisa Marie Presley three months earlier.] May the parents of the Jackson 5 get to name your children. (Russ Beland, Tel Aviv and Queens, N.Y.) [What, Beland wrote this entry at the beginning and end of his flight?] May your contact lens pop out into the urinal at the bus station. (Woody Franke, Canberra, Australia) May you live long enough to see a movie starring the offspring of Michael and Lisa Marie. (Woody Franke, Canberra, Australia) [They never had children together, though each had children in another marriage.] May you become an insult comedian in Medellin, Colombia. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge) May you be drafted by the Baltimore Orioles as their backup shortstop. (Greg Arnold, Herndon) [Cal Ripken’s streak of starting games, begun in May 1982, would not end until September 1998, 2,632 games later.] And Last: May all your bat mitzvah gifts be the envy of the guy who shops for Style Invitational prizes. (Mike Thring, Leesburg) ----------- *And then, Week 464, August 2002:* May your name and phone number turn up in Osama’s black book. May you discover that the torrid online correspondence you’ve been having is with your daughter. May you be stranded in Central Pennsylvania and be given an emergency root canal by an Amish dentist whose drill is powered by a goat. This Week’s Contest reprises a contest we ran eight years ago. It needs updating. Come up with a new curse for this new millennium, as in the examples above. /The results, which, I see, are only mostly specific to “the new millennium”; then again, the third example wasn’t, either. The winner, which is great, also is not. This is one reason I didn’t insist on a “modern” angle./ Report From Week CXXXI [silly numbering system that the Czar decided to use from 2000 (Week I) to 2003], in which you were asked to invent a modern curse. /Third Runner-Up:/ May you be named Ben Ladden, be 6 feet 4 and weigh 145 pounds, and be paged over the PA system at the Army-Navy Game. (Jonathan Alen Marks, Alexandria) /Second Runner-Up:/ May you have seven daughters and may each major in philosophy at a separate Seven Sisters college on no scholarship and each simultaneously discover that God is a womyn and . . . (Kristina Ogilvie, Alexandria) /First Runner-Up:/ May you answer the doorbell and find Ed McMahon on your doorstep -- alone, on foot, because his car broke down and he wants to use your phone. (Jim Cranford, Spokane, Wash.) /And the winner of the vintage 1953 framed copy of “The Eisenhower Prayer”:/ May you create the perfect lawn, moments before the world mistakenly believes you have created a better mousetrap. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park) /Honorable Mentions:/ May the bird of paradise fly up your nose, and an elephant caress you with its toes, and it be discovered that your most celebrated work is plagiarized. (Donna Lear, Jefferson, Md.) May your doctors say, “Well, the good news is that you have a fatal disease . . .” (Dot Yufer, Newton, W.Va.) May you spend eternity in an elevator with the Wazzup guys . (Brian Barrett, Bethesda) May you never see your eye doctor again, after your laser surgery. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg) May Fox TV devote a half-hour show to you called “When Colonoscopies Go Bad.” (Bird Waring, New York) May you be forced to eat worms, run naked in front of your friends, be humiliated by a stern Englishwoman, and not become famous on a reality TV show. (Joseph Romm, Washington) May your airline pilots be armed and drunk. (Marc Leibert, New York) May you die, go to Hell, and find that Howard Cosell’s Heaven is having a guy just like you to talk to. (Roger and Pam Dalrymple, Gettysburg, Pa.) May you be the Secret Service agent in charge of Jenna and Barbara. (Joseph Romm, Washington) [President George W. Bush’s daughters were both arrested for underage drinking in bars.] May you have a terrible disease named after you, and you are not a doctor or research scientist. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park) May it be that wherever you are, whatever you do, you can’t get the song “Seasons in the Sun” out of your head. Not the Jacques Brel original, the one by that idiot Terry Jacks. You know the one. (Rosemary Walsh, Rockville) [Jacks’s degradation of the original, little-known “Seasons in the Sun” into the insipid, maudlin Top 40 hit was one of the Czar’s pet peeves.] May your elderly billionaire father marry a young woman with huge breasts. (Helene Haduch, Washington) [Probably an allusion to the marriage of Howard Marshall, 89, to strip club performer Anna Nicole Smith, 26; Marshall died 13 months later. Smith died of a drug overdose in 2007.] May the first name on your nominating petition be Homer Simpson. (Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring) May your therapist name his yacht after you. (Jonathan Alen Marks, Alexandria) May your mother be the only respondent to your personals ad. (Roy Highberg, Bentonville) May you die a rock star’s death, without a rock star’s life. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg) May that ridiculous Internet urban legend about the stolen organs actually happen to you in Guatemala. (Stephen Dudzik, Olney) May you be Saddam’s food taster. (Joseph Romm, Washington) May you have to eat crow, and it’s carrying West Nile. (Fred S. Souk, Reston) [There had been a major outbreak of West Nile virus, often spread by birds to mosquitoes to people, in 2003.] /And Last:/ May your sole source of income be the Style Invitational. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg) --- In addition to the curse contests, we’ve also run a similar contest, at least a couple of times, to describe a “hell” for a particular person. (In fact, the first curse contest ran the same week as the results of the hell contest.) The results of Week 72, 1994 : The results of Week 395, 2001 . [I must have been the judge of this contest, since it took place when I filled in for a couple of months as Auxiliary Czar.] -- So prove me right: See if you can come up with good cursy material that isn’t any of the above. *AND THAT’S THE WAY IT ISN’T *: THE MEDIA FICTOIDS OF WEEK 1268 * /*A too-long non-inking headline by Jeff Contompasis, who suggested this contest / I’m taking suggestions right now for our next fake-trivia category, since our latest in our long string of fictoid contests yields lots of laughs once again. Readers who see only the print version of the Invite might be confused at some more arcane references in the Week 1268 results — “inverted ziggurat”? wha? — but online I’ve given some links, and hey, so I indulge myself a little with the journo-jokes. Humor me. (That’s what you’re here for, right?) If Jeffrey P. Bezos ever reads The Style Invitational, I think he’d enjoy Robert Schechter’s winner this week. It’s Robert’s seventh Invite win, but his first chance to get our latest trophy, the Lose Cannon. And it pushes the former Loser of the Year past the 200-ink mark as well. While runners-up Frank Osen and Duncan Stevens are in the Losers’ Circle so often that they’ve set up La-Z-Boys, it’s the second trip for Margaret Welsh, with 18 blots to her name dating all the way back to Week 397. And we have two First Offenders this week: Andy Gefen, with his Andy Rooney eyebrow joke, and Joshua Rokach, who referenced the jaw-dropping arrogance of NBC in refusing to pronounce PyeongChang correctly during the Winter Olympics. Joshua, by the way, is the second in his family to get ink recently; Dinah Rokach got her Fir Stink for First Ink just a few weeks after she’d written me to suggest that more successful Losers be prevented from winning for a while so other Losers could get a chance. See? Not necessary. (I don’t see entrants’ names when I judge the contests.) *What Doug Dug: * The faves this week of Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood pretty much aligned with mine: Doug voted for Robert’s winning Money Bags Bezos joke and Margaret ’s “Baboon Blitzer,” and also Duncan Stevens’s language lesson that the German word for breaking wind is /Blog,/ Mike Gips’s “inverted ziggurat” — it’s a play on “inverted pyramid,” the way of structuring a news story so the most important material is at the top and the less important or background material at the bottom, where it can be easily trimmed for space — and Kevin Dopart’s joke about Reuters not being able to work in Germany in the 1800s because it couldn’t telegraph umlauts. *TWO DATES TO SAVE: THE CHARGE ON GETTYSBURG, and THE FLUSHIES* The Losers’ annual*day trip north to Gettysburg, Pa.* — for lunch and then a tour of the Civil War battlefields led by Loser Roger Dalrymple — will be *Sunday, April 22;* carpools can be arranged on the Devotees page, or by contacting Elden Carnahan at the Losers’ website, NRARS.org, where you’d also RSVP (click on “Our Social Engorgements”). We used to do this in the heat of summer — heck, at least we didn’t have to wear wool uniforms as the Yanks and Rebs did — but it’s now at a much more sensible time to visit. And we have a convenient venue for this year’s Flushies, the Loser Community’s annual award awards lunch: the Old Firehouse community center in close-in McLean, Va. *The Flushies will be on Saturday afternoon, June 9,* and a potluck as usual. We get the place to ourselves, so we can sing it up with the song parodies already in the works for the occasion. Invitations (yes — even /you/ will get one) will go out in early May. Have an uncursed day!