Style Conversational Week 1283: Lowfalutin’ verse
The Style Invitational Empress talks about this week’s new contest
and results
This guy was looking at me wistfully at the edge of a parking garage
driveway in downtown Washington. I call him a Pareidolia Retriever.
“Pareidolia” is one of this week’s spelling bee words to be used in
Loser poems. (Pat Myers/The Washington Post )
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Pat Myers
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Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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June 7, 2018 at 3:50 p.m. EDT
Yeah, I know, this week’s Style Invitational contest, Week 1283
, isn’t going to bring in thousands of
entries; it’s not likely to prompt readers to look at the list of
spelling bee words in the paper, jump off the throne, and dash off a
series of rhyming verses about a thymiaterion and an ecchymosis.
But we’re on the heels of (a)a cartoon caption contest
and (b)a contest to paste googly eyes on
something and take a picture, so I think
it’s okay to scratch our eggheads for a week.
We’ve done this contest three times before, in 2007, 2015 and 2016, for
words from those years’ Scripps National Spelling Bees. And all three
contests yielded gems, especially in that signature Invite
highbrow/lowbrow, haughty/potty combo. A selection for your inspiration:
The winner of Week 716, by Brendan Beary:
*Acariasis,* /a mite infestation:/
I’m sad to say my grandpa Zacharias is,
Alas, no more. The doctor has suggested
The cause of death was likely acariasis;
With tiny parasites he was infested.
The wee arachnids he indulged with bonhomie,
For piety was one of his delights;
Remembering the book of Deuteronomy,
He loved the Lord his God with all his mites.
Two from Week 716 about the *strigil,* a tool used by ancient Romans to
scrape sweat off their skin:
/By Mae Scanlan:
/He comes, he sees, he takes a bath,
For he is dirty. Crud he hath.
He’s pulled another all-night vigil.
Caesar takes his trusty strigil,
Scrapes away all grimy matter,
Then goes after Cleopatter.
/By Brendan Beary: /
For cleaning off, the Romans scraped themselves with iron strigils —
But folks back then, you understand, were tougher indivijuls.
The winner of Week 1129, a double dactyl by Chris Doyle
*Epithalamium* /(EP-i-tha-LAME-ium),/ /a song composed for a wedding:/
Higgledy piggledy
Iggy Azalea
Rocks out her wedding to
Nick in July,
Rapping her vows in an
Epithalamium:
“Beg for it, baby, from
I-G-G-Y.”
The winner of Week 1181, by Chris Doyle:
*Mischsprache* (mish-SHPRA-cha[throad-clearing sound]), a language
combining two or more languages:
In Paris, Rhett Butler knew well not to mock a
Young lady who spoke in a form of mischsprache.
/“Mon English eez mal, sir; how stupide I am!”/
“Franglais, my dear? Ah just don’t give a damn.”
Runner-up in Week 1181, by Melissa Balmain:
*Hippocrepiform, * /horseshoe-shaped:/
Dear John: While stuff that’s hippocrepiform
is sometimes known to take the world by storm—
the playground swing, the basic yoga pose,
the seam that joins the legs of pantyhose,
the handle of the hanging kitchen spoon,
the “C,” the horseshoe (duh!), the crescent moon—
the truth, my darling, is that your appendage
was better when it had a lot less ... bendage.
Anticipating questions:
— Do the poems have to rhyme? Nope, as long as they’re clever and funny.
In my experience, though, a lot of the clever and funny in poems comes
from rhyming. There’s a difference, though, between poems that don’t try
to rhyme and poems that /fail / to rhyme. Appendage/bendage: haha,
great. Appendage/bandage: nope.
— Can I use more than one word from the list in a single poem? Yes.
Will I get ink for merely contriving to stuff a dozen of them into my
poem, much as in those third-grade homework assignments to incorporate
the week’s spelling words into a story? Nuh-uh. Zzzzz.
— Can I decide that the word ought to mean something else, then base the
poem on my own meaning? You may not, as I said repeatedly in the
instructions, which you did not read. (Just venting here: I’m utterly
amazed at how people will spend hours working up Invite entries, but
will not take 10 seconds to read the contest directions.)
*BLATHER, RINSE, REPEAT,* or BLATHER, MINCE, DEFEAT*: THE RESULTS OF
WEEK 1279: *
/*Non-inking headlines by Chris Doyle and Ivars Kuskevics, respectively/
At times, reading the “real” directions to do some task in Week 1279
felt like reading a month of 50-year-old comic strips: joke tropes that
you’ve not only read a million times before, but you’re reading over and
over the same day. Good news: No one expressed frustration programming a
VCR. But someone did advise how to avoid the incredible embarrassment of
buying tampons for his wife — ??? Was he worried that the clerk would
think he planned to use them himself?
But as I’d predicted, the most creative minds of Loserdom overcame the
threat of triteness with creative subject matter in this week’s inking
entries,
like Duncan Stevens’s observational humor about movie-wizard plots,
Kevin Dopart’s directions on how to combat rising sea levels, and Randy
Lee’s second-place entry that, I’m pretty sure, qualifies as Shortest
Invite Entry Ever.
And Mark Raffman’s oh-so-Washington guide to meditation, which earns our
newest Hall of Famer (seelast week’s Style Conversational
) his 16th first-place win. Randy Lee hasn’t
been Inviting much lately, but his Groovy Foam Hat winner is his eighth
ink “above the fold,” and his 107th blot of ink. Our other two
runners-up this week are regulars in the Losers’ Circle: Beverley
Sharp’s 649th ink ties her this week with the long-retired great
Jennifer Hart for No. 7 Loser of All Time, while Duncan — a virtual
newcomer in Invite time (he’s been Losing for six years) — is at Ink 259.
I’m happy to see that Mark, Randy and Duncan are all coming to the
Flushies on Saturday (see below). Beverley sent her regrets: She’d have
liked to come up from Alabama for the occasion (she’s done it before!)
but she just got off a boat from Peru (her advice: don’t try the
alpacaburger).
*FLUSHIES UPDATE*
As of this writing, 54 Losers, Style Invitational Devotees and various
orderlies have sent in a Yes to the Evite for this Saturday afternoon’s
Flushies, the annual awards/potluck/songfest/schmoozathon put on by the
Loser Community (official name: Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable
Society).
If you are not one of those 54? You can still join us — corporeally or in-.
/Corporeally: / It’s definitely not too late to RSVP; the Old Firehouse
community center in McLean, Va., can hold you, even after you’ve sampled
all the potluck desserts (I am personally bringing a strawberry pie).
Here’s a link to the invitation: wapo.st/flushies2018
. We have the room from noon to 4 and will
immediately tear into the various foodstuffs before starting the
presentations around 2.
We even have shuttle service from the McLean Metrorail station: Sam
Delano, son of Style Invitational Devotee and Flushies sponsor Kathleen
Delano, has been volunteered to hold up a LOSERS sign and will drive
guests the two miles to and from the venue.
/In-: /The Flushies Planning Committee (what’s a good name for them,
guys?), specifically emcee Kyle Hendrickson, hopes to stream the
“structured” part of the afternoon — the custom-written song parodies,
the slide show, the presentations of plaques for Loser of the Year,
Rookie of the Year, etc. — via Facebook Live on the Style Invitational
Devotees page. (I’ve seen some of the song lyrics, contributed by
various master parodists from near and far, and they are inspired.) As I
understand it, the video will stay up on the page afterward, so you
don’t have to be logged on at 2:00:00 p.m. EDT.
However, you’re not going to get any of the food.
*AND IN AUGUST: LOSERFEST FREDERICK*
In addition to being Flushies emcee — and continuing to hold
theCantinkerous trophy for the
most ink earned (101) while never winning first place — Kyle Hendrickson
also serves as Loserfest Pope, organizing an out-of-town trip for the
Loser Community and Anyone Else Who Wants to Come. Two summers ago about
a dozen of us had a four-day blast in Pittsburgh, but this year it’ll be
closer to home and on a smaller scale: It’ll be the weekend of Aug.
11-12 in the historic town of Frederick, Md., 50 miles north of
Washington. Frederick has for many years been a destination for antiques
buffs, but these days it’s becoming downright chichi. And it just
happens to be Kyle’s current hometown. I’ll share details as they’re
firmed up.
For now, I’ll see 50 of you on Saturday.
And thanks, by the way, for your well-wishes and advice re my back after
I mentioned last Thursday that I’d gotten a steroid shot that morning: I
think I’m doing better already.